DianneGardner's Journal, 26 July 2016

I support your cause. I am trying to be better. We do donate to many animal causes. 

Please be cautious of PETA as an animal rights organization: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/animal-bill-could-put-peta-out-of-the-shelter-business/2015/02/23/2f4f05b6-bb6a-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html https://artofagriculture.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/why-i-am-an-anti-peta-activist/ 

Thanks, Joystickrequired! 

I grew up on a ranch/farm. Raised cattle, rabbits, goats, turkeys, ducks, & chickens. Cared for them all from birth to the table. Treated them all like pets and enjoyed them on the dinner table in the end.  

I agree yet I am paleo. But I am trying to modify my paleo diet to eat less meat and try to eat more veggies and fruit so I eat less animals. Also eating more eggs in replace of meat. I dont think I can go to the point of NO meat but I am doing my best to only purchase from farms who raise grass fed and free range chicken. Who also treat their animals better. Also I could never understand eating a dog. Dogs are human companions and have been since the like beginning of the hunter gatherer man kind. I love my puppies 

Social Justice and political correctness aside. I have had to KILL my own food before. It isn't easy. But I need food too. I don't want to see anything suffer, much less make anything suffer. So when I DO need to kill, it has to be quick. It is so bad, this disconnect we humans have from our food. I actually knew a woman up till 10 years ago, who Actually THOUGHT that Fish, come from super markets. I am NOT kidding and I am NOT exaggerating. It has become that bad. (She has since passed on.) Like Jparlett I grew up on a dairy farm in Central Pa. We do not intend for them to suffer. But like I said, we must eat. On a lighter note though. My MEAT selection no longer contains BEEF or Pork or any other RED meat. Which I need to supplement Carnatine because of. Carnatine only comes from Red meat. Anyway, the only MEAT products I eat now are poultry, Eggs, and fish. And the only one of those items I am not COMPLETELY sure of its origins is the Poultry. I do have the benefit of a sister who is a USDA inspector and she tells me which companies are actually SAFE to chose from and treat their animals Humanly.  

Please delete the double comment. FS.com had a hiccup I think. 

Down to eating meat once a week, but thats related more to health reasons. I do hate the thought of animals being tortured just because we want meat. One food I refuse to eat is Foie Gras. They fatten the goose or duck by overfeeding it to increase its liver and then........well, you know. 

I've been vegetarian for 20+ years ...best decision I've made for myself 

The dairy and egg industries are also cruel and unsustainable. See www.chooseveg.org for how to eat delicious, healthy and cruelty free food.  

For me, and I think for all of us, there is a compelling set of circumstances, that causes a profound change in behavior. I have had 3 moments like that in my life: when I became anorexic in 1965 and decided I would never be fat again, when I went to AA after a hideous year when I knew I would either find a way to quick or die and got off all sleeping pills, benzodiazepines, and alcohol and when my mom was diagnosed with unstable angina in October of 2010. When I finally kicked fish..I had quit eating all animals other than fish in 1984 when I sobered up. Prime motivator being gout. A residual from years of over dosing on animal protein and abuse of diuretics and kidney failure. Gout will get your attention. We have a phrase in my fellowship: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I knew my mom would die from a cardiac cath. My best friend and trauma nurse told me they hide the stats on death from procedures for cardiac caths, bypasses. It had happened in my husband's family too. Death after a cardiac Cath on the table for myocardial infarction and death a day later. I said no f-ing way is my mama dying that way. Went home, Googled unstable angina. Determined that first of all "medical management" has better outcomes BY FAR then these catastrophic procedures and that a fat free vegan diet will reverse angina to a tolerable level with in a week or two. I read Esselsyn's book. Already knew about John McDougall, MD, from reading his book A Challenging Second Opinion" where he states without equivocation that we do not cure cancer, just diagnose it earlier. That diet has profound effects on who will and will not get cancer. That high fat meat laden diets are heavily implicated in cancer. That high protein diets drive osteoporosis. That vegan diets improve virtually all health conditions: kidney failure, obesity, blood pressure issues, cardiac concerns, physical fitness goals. But it was Mama's unstable angina that made me say, I will do this. Nothing concentrates g he mind like the prospect of death. It was a moment of clarity for me. I put down my can of tuna,threw out all my "healthy" oils and never looked back. Lost like 12 lbs the first month, cholesterol fell to 149, joint pain disappeared. Mama was better almost immediately. Angina never returned. Mike, PhD, said we are doing this as a family. I know most people will not do it. The interventional cardiologists making a fortune...I get it. I choose not to be a customer for those boys. That's my story friends. How I became a fat free vegan. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease was the final nail in the coffin that was my insistence on eating fish and ingesting "healthy" oils. Thank you Doctors John McDougall and Caldwell Esselstyn. Visionaries. Both can be seen on You Tube.