While on vacation for three weeks in Southern California, celebrating the release of my husband Michael’s first full sized book of poetry, I got to actually sit down and spend portions of multiple days reading. I started by reading the book “The World Peace Diet” by Will Tuttle, PhD. Although I found it difficult at times to get my head around his major premise, that by discontinuing to eat animals or using their by-products we will reduce the violence in our world, I did start to become very unsettled about eating animals as I kept recalling our drive south on Interstate 5 from Sacramento to Los Angeles.
Just south of Sacramento the landscape changed from suburbs to agriculture. It consisted mostly of vineyards just starting to turn green after winter’s dormancy and dairy farms. A relaxing scene at first sight when contrasted with the city and its population and infrastructure density, but on closer inspection, even while whizzing by at 70+ mph, revealed mountains of cow manure that were up to 3 stories high and cows that were stacked together more like cord wood than living creatures. Dr. Tuttle gives us great detail about what it is like to live the life of a dairy cow; producing 100 pounds of milk per day, being artificially inseminated (repeatedly), and immediately being separated from her calves at birth as compared to; living in the wild, nursing her calf and generating the maximum needed of only 25 pounds of milk per day. His descriptions of these cows and what I have always thought was their bucolic life on the farm, reveals a tortured lifespan of 4 years before they are shipped off to the slaughterhouse.
Dr. Tuttle goes on to talk about the human health side of ingesting cow’s milk. He says about milk, “Besides the naturally occurring human toxins in cows’ milk, like IGF-1 growth factor, casein, estrogen, soporific hormones, lactase, pus, bacteria, parasites, and the apparently addictive casomorphins, … there are artificially introduced growth hormones, milk increasing hormones, antibiotics, tranquilizers, and feeds high in pesticide residues. So-called organic milk may contain smaller quantities of the artificial toxins, but not of the natural ones, whose presence in cow’s milk reminds us that this is a food that is designed for calves, not for humans.” So even though I insist that my husband purchase organic milk and pay the extra price tag, I learn that it may all be for naught as science is starting to show us that it is the naturally occurring substances in milk that may actually be promoting cancer and a host of other human ills such as: allergies, asthma, eczema, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. It is starting to look like I need to stay away from cheese on a permanent basis so I can clear up my allergies and eczema.
I have had a love – hate relationship with dairy products for years. As a kid I was always told to drink all of my milk to grow strong teeth and bones and as an adult that by eating cheese I could increase my calcium intake and avoid osteoporosis. I always loved ice cream and extra cheese on my nachos and pizza, after all what else in life was there to live for except to eat the things you love? Then came issues of lactose intolerance so I started taking supplemental enzymes to help my digestion but that just got to be too inconvenient so I just quit drinking milk altogether and switched to diet soda. Milk hadn’t helped protect my teeth anyway as my mouth was riddled with fillings which started when I was 7. Even with my cheese consumption and mega calcium supplementation a recent bone density scan revealed that I have osteopenia so I guess my years of drinking carbonated beverages has caught up to me after all. I tried to rid cheese from my diet recently when I found the dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free diet plan set out by Dr. Mark Hyman, which I followed pretty religiously for 6 weeks. I don’t miss fluid milk, but I do miss my cheese. In fact that was one of my indiscretions while on vacation, most notably the nachos at Wahoo’s with extra cheese. I noticed that I felt bloated afterwards and developed a stuffy nose. Hmmm. Perhaps my taste buds don’t always lead me in the best direction, I surmised.
But it was Dr. Tuttle’s chapter on “The Metaphysics of Food” that really threw me into a tailspin. Here he says, “ If we take another look at the egg, bacon, or cheese we are purchasing and eating, we see clearly that it is a living vibratory embodiment of cruelty, enslavement, terror, and despair… blended to create a “food” that is toxic at the deepest levels.” I have been studying metaphysical healing in different forms since 1997, working with Chinese Medicine, the body’s meridians and acupuncture sites, energy healing modalities (Reiki, Polarity, Touch for Health, Reflexology, Diksha), flower essences, essential oils and recently the Medical Assistance Program (MAP) as set out by Machaelle Small Wright and Myofascial Release as taught by John F. Barnes. I know from personal experience that subtle energy healing works and I wonder, why have I not thought before about the energy of the foods I have been eating all of these years?
To make matters worse; I thoroughly enjoyed the apple wood smoked, medium rare, 6 ounce, sirloin steak that I ate while overlooking the Santa Monica bay while dining at Kincaid’s where we spent most of Michael’s book profits at once on a dinner for two. After all, I am a second-generation American diet eater on my mother’s side of the family where my grandmother was unable to remember the first nine years of her life before emigrating from Poland, which she attributed to dealing with a lack of food and hunger. In fact I have been trying to eat as much protein as I could get my hands on in an effort to stabilize my blood sugar after being diagnosed with hypoglycemia when I was in my twenties and told to eat a high protein, low-carbohydrate diet. So between my family’s diet and my doctors prescribed diabetic diet plan I have been pretty well entrenched into trying to get three squares per day to include at least 33% of the meal comprised of protein from animal sources and we haven’t even touched upon the effects of advertising or what this country holds in its consciousness about eating animals.
And so I spent my vacation weighing every one of my meal choices.
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