Raven's Restaurant - Vegan Cuisine

I've been thinking about the vegetarian/vegan question...Namely, how are the two related and if so, how closely. I have concluded that essentially there is no difference between vegetarianism (i.e. eating dairy products, and in some cases eggs) and omnivorism (eating anything and everything). In other words I have come to look at it like this: There are Vegans who do not consume anything from an animal, and there is everyone else.

A response to this might be that at least vegetarians, like vegans, do not eat dead animals (i.e. only animal products that can be extracted without killing the animal). And this is true. But here we are entering the ethical domain of veganism, and the treatment of dairy cows, and egg producing chickens etc. has been shown conclusively to be as horrific if not more horrific than the treatment of animals raised for slaughter. For instance, Dairy cows are hooked up to tubes and confined to spaces too small to turn around in. That is just the beginning and I will not go further with these descriptions. Suffice it to say that it is simply torture of defenseless creatures who want to live in open space and without pain and suffering just as we human animals do.

As for the nutritional aspect, the consumption of animal protein doesn't change whether you are eating flesh or the by-product of an animal. The protein still causes the same damage to the body--acidic in nature, and very difficult for our bodies to process, thereby producing increased oxidation and wear. The only way to avoid this damage to our bodies is to remove animal protein from our diet entirely. To go all the way.

However, as I further thought about this subject, I also came to the conclusion that vegetarianism, as a life decision, at least heads in the right direction. And, while I feel that it is not nearly enough of a choice to affect real change in the world and on our personal health, it represents an awareness of what we are consuming on a daily basis. Many times it leads to Veganism, and is, at that point, a more gentle transition than from omnivore to vegan by going cold turkey. Hmmm, I couldn't resist that phrase.

Live well and I'll write again soon. By the way, I'm not a hippy.
Sid Hillman