I plan to soon write a blog entry called something like "A Vegan Endorses Sally Fallon". That's where I'm at right now. It will take some time to write, but once I do, it will definitely get found quite a bit thru google searches :) LOL (actually I'm not even vegan any more, but still, it would be a catchy title..)In listening to Sally Fallon with an open mind, I am very impressed. ESPECIALLY as a parent. She has many, many positive points. I am in the process of making a list of where Sally Fallon and Raw Vegans AGREE, and converge...and there are MANY points of agreement. Surprised? That brings me to the 2 main criticisms of Fallon that come to mind in my research so far.
(1) Insulting vegans. In Wise Traditions Spring 2011, there is a really offputting page of jokes about vegans. If you have this issue, I am talking about page 76. Guess what, WAPF. It's not funny. This is an unfortunate piece of non-humor, because the same author, Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD CCN had just written a brilliant piece on soy and Whole Foods in the previous pages.
For example, the piece included many not-funny, failed-jokes such as "GOING COLD TOFURKY=The action of a vegan who gives up a habit or addiction at a single moment, rather than gradually. "I'm addicted to Facebook. Gonna have to go cold tofurky."
Dear Kaayla T. Daniel,(2) The second point about Sally Fallon that I see differently is her complete rejection of cleansing. More on that later, but I've seen some people who listen to these authorities outright reject cleansing, just repeating other people's lines. Cleansing is awesome, and I'll go into some of my cleansing experiences that I wouldn't trade for the world. It's just an amazing tool, especially for those of us who grew up on toxic waste as food.
Your piece was not funny. Humor is a great tool, I love humor and all, but this was just not funny. Making fun of vegans is not a productive way for the WAPF to use its media. We are ALL working together to undo generations of nutritional degeneration. To spend time on petty name calling to the other group that is basically ON THE SAME SIDE as you, if both sides would just step back and see so, is low-energy, wasteful, and taking all the focus away from where it should be. We all know where that is by now...the soy industry being a great example.
You fail to realize that a huge faction of vegans are just as hip to soy as you, and reject it as well. We need to focus on getting the children healthy. I believe that means that vegans should include many ethically raised animal foods in their children's diets in order to not only be healthy, but on top of that, reverse nutritional degeneration. These animal foods need to meet WAPF standards. We parents need to be ON IT here. There's lots to do! Your attitude and that of the WAPF on this issue is not going to bring this any closer to a reality. Acting like this is just not going to make many friends outside of your group. And that is not best for the children. If vegans are put off to your message, that's not going to be productive for HUMANITY. And, we are now in a situation where it is humanity's job to rise above money-driven corporations. Brilliantly, Sally Fallon herself references it so well as the forces of AHRIMAN. Humans are so powerful, easily powerful enough to rise far above Ahriman if and when we realize our human potential. But your petty little piece on page 76 is playing right into the hands of the current illuminati, keeping us split into factions, just as they would want.
I'm not suggesting to change WAPF content and message in order to appeal to vegans. (duh)What children need will become clearer to all people who care about the food supply, and that will take care of itself. I'm suggesting that you put your energy into positive messages, and leave the negative lower energies alone. Check into a little Law of Attractionand get your focus straight. Why couldn't you have made the target of your piece on page 76 the actual target here, the SOY INDUSTRY, hello!? Stereotyping a vast group of people into soy eaters is kindof ignorant. Vegan and soy are just simply not synonymous. And, importantly, I also hope that anyone who feeds soy to children, stops doing so
!!
Let's put this into perspective, Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD CCN. Maybe less than 1% of the population is vegan. On the other hand, at least 95% of the population eats the STANDARD AMERICAN DIET. (combining vegetarian SAD and carnivore SAD). Do you go to every social setting and family gathering with the same snarky animosity toward mainstream carnivores that you show to vegans? Because people on the SAD are just as nutrient deficient as you think vegans are...think about it...pasteurized, homogenized, factory farmed dairy and meat from horrendous conditions, horrible oils and processed foods. Why is it okay for you to make fun of vegans, but I'm just guessing that you don't go down the street taunting and ridiculing the general (SAD) public? Is it because "vegans" have a name attached, an easy label? Making it easy to fall into mindless, counterproductive, waste of energy like page 76?
Here's the thing you really don't understand. Vegans are miles closer to you than the SAD eaters. Vegans care about the food supply. I'm reading Wise Traditions and feeding my child WAPF meals...butter, milk, cheese, chicken, beef, all local, and the WAPF-recommended Cod Liver Oil and Butter Oil as well. Get it? And, I was a VEGAN. I'm on your team. You're trying to alienate the people who are much closer to your own philosophy than you realize. The people from the vegan community who will first come to WAPF are parents, and rapidly so, because feeding children is a great reason to join WAPF. Other vegans who may join are those who ran into deficiencies like Lierre Keith
Sincerely,
Non-soy eater
I finally actually got Nourishing Traditions today. Can't wait to look into it! I've been doing a lot of online reading over the past few days and from an outside perspective, so far I do see lots of overlap between TF and Vegan/vegetarianism with of course some significant overlaps too. The other thing that struck me is how many former vegetarians seem drawn to TF from the anecdotal accounts. I think both perspectives have quite a bit to offer. Not sure where we are going to fall on the spectrum yet. I don't think we'll ever be fully vegetarian again but I also am going into the TF with some healthy skepticism though I think we'll end up adopting lots of it for our family, but probably fairly slowly. Small changes till we get where we want to be. I'm so glad you are doing this! Can't wait to hear more of you opinions on it!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Erica! It looks like we are totally on the same page...I know so many moms who are into both lifestyles, too...why not overlap, you know?
ReplyDeleteOkay, I think I might be a convert. So much for small changes;-) I got the cookbook 5 days ago and I have made something from it or other traditional food sources every day since. The tops of my cabinets are full of things fermenting, soaking and sprouting. We used some of the salsa tonight(followed the recipe but used limes instead of lemons and a whole lot less hot peppers). I'll never buy any salsa again. It was so so good! Also my energy level has increased tremendously.I'm curious as to how you feel this has impacted you energy wise. I know you had said your energy went up significantly with the raw foods previously. Even when I'm tired I'm not nearly so sluggish. I'm also starting to read Real Food by Nina Planck and really liking it. It seems that there's a lot to be critical of with NT in some of the info she presents and in some of the recipes from what I've found online, but when I've just used my own common sense (I'm never going to enjoy 3/4 cup hot peppers in a quart of salsa for instance)things have turned out well. I did notice that she advocates half of the food you consume in a day being raw or enzyme enhanced. I'd say that's some significant overlap. Can't wait to hear more of your thoughts on it!
ReplyDeleteYes! I'm really into it too. Got some oatmeal soaking with some whey, some beet kvass in the fridge (pg. 611), the sauerkraut too was super easy & awesome, and just had a soup with bone broth stock base. :) Definite convert. (check out the beet kvass, try it out!!) I've been listening to Sean Croxton's Underground Wellness on itunes all week too, it's been a really natural progression for me! :) I will have to check out the salsa! My energy is still wacky because I just quit chocolate 1 week ago (I know I've said it before, but this time I have a better plan for doing it)..but the energy is now getting better. I am reading Real Food also, but paused after the dairy chapter to implement some of those things before moving on in the book :) I have LOTS of thoughts on it all...About raw food or whole food vegan, it was a great cleanse, and I spent the last almost 2 years focusing on cleaning my colon, which was a good thing! I will do some other raw food type stuff like liver flush and other cleanses, but the problem with raw food is that because it's cleansing, you can't cleanse all the time! You have to BUILD back up. A lot! Plus, with kids, they need veggies, but they DON'T need to be cleansing, and they DO need saturated animal fat and all the rest, so Traditional Foods are much more appropriate for them. Also also--I've focused on the colon so much, as raw foodists do, and it turns out the best thing for digestive health is Bone Broth! Who knew!?
ReplyDeleteI expected to find things to criticize in NT, but I really didn't. The first few chapters, though short, blew me away. The only thing I would change is to include higher percentage of vegetables, but of course I can do that on my own...it's all good!! So cool that we're in this at the exact same time :)
I'm with you on the higher percentage of vegetables and right now with our farmer's market in full swing that's not been a problem. I wish I had a source for raw dairy here (part of the problem with starting this when I'm brand new to an area. Some of those resources take time to find). In the meantime we are using almond milk to drink and just culturing all of our other dairy. I also need to find kefir grains. I've been using a powdered starter culture and with the way W goes through it we just can't keep it. We made sauerkraut the other day and I can't wait till it's ready to try. Apparently this recipe (minus the whey) is exactly how my grandmother made it. I'll check out the beet kvass. I bet I can get some good beets at the market this week. I haven't made any soups yet since neither of my guys will really eat them but I have been making bone broth. I'm making beef stock today for a stew for tomorrow and we had chicken on the bone the other night so I saved the bones and made chicken stock too. We tend to eat a lot of stews of various sorts already so it seems like a natural transition to just start making our own bone broth to put in them. One interesting thing I've noticed is that with the introduction of the whole cultured dairy, and the increased raw veggies,we're eating less of the meat though. It's there, we just eat a bit less of it so I've been freezing more of it to use for future meals.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely great that we are going through this at the same time. So fun to share thoughts about it with you!