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Vegan lifestyle. Why is it so difficult to start one?
When we hear about changing eating habits or following new diets, we think about it as something else than "regular normal"way of eating. It's hard to believe, that those can help our body heal once we fully adapt them. What more we doubt we'll be able to adhere to them for the rest of our lives. And in most cases we are right to think that.
Thinking about veganism should be much easier. Vegan food, after all, is food, which we already know, eat and love. Vegan food is fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, legumes and herbs. It is our beloved pasta with tomato sauce or granola with plant based yoghurt and berries. When eating vegan we don't think about it as vegan, but as regular part of our diet, which is nutritious, healthy and good for our body. So why it is so difficult to become a Vegan?
Here are my thoughts.
Firstly. For the past hundreds of years we were continuously changing our eating habits and lifestyles, removing ourselves further away from animal kingdom, getting better in understanding the world and thinking of ourselves (oh yes!), as proud "human beings". This pride allowed us to feel distinguished in the animal world. We are the ones with abilities, above the basic survival skills (eat or to be eaten), we are more than just aware of everything. Our lives became very distant from natural habitats in so many ways. We are eating further away from mono diet, which is simple and healthy. Lets not forget, in the past our diet “I eat when I find food” served
us perfectly well and protected us from most of the diseases we are dealing with today. Today we don’t want to feel as part of the nature and ecosystem, equal to an elephant or dolphin; we’re above that. We decide who lives and who dies. This is our planet run by humankind for humankind. We are better than nature, we can, and do, create our own special foods, we focus on digital lives rather than natural ones, and we don’t have to think
about hunting or climbing a tree to get a meal. At least most of us don't.
Secondly. We are not being educated about nutrition and healthy eating habits. There doesn't seem to be an intention to educate us either. The system is not ready for that. Governments are not ready for that; higher
influences choose not to be ready. There are so many more important factors we need to sustain today like the pharmacy, fishing and meat industry. Those industries need to make money, keep economy going, which means they make us believe, that to be healthy and happy we need them. We need their pills, their fish, and meet product. When my mum had problems with high cholesterol, the doctor said she should change her diet, eat more fruit and veg and less butter. That’s it; this was doctor’s advice!I must admit. I became a true believer that medicine doctors don’t know what it means to change diet and how to do it. Most of us don’t know that either. I didn't! It is much more complicated than it should be. We look for specifics, tips, advice; examples of meals to even begin thinking about changing diet. We are so far away from eating vegan, simple, mono diet that we need individual plans created by specialists to start. We are told we are all different and unless someone will design this fancy super diet especially for us, it won’t work, and what’s worse might harm us. Also most of us cannot eat our 6 a day. Yes it’s 6 portions of fruit and veg a day now, but what is that supposed to help us with? Trust me I've been there! Throwing myself into rapid changes, into eating only fruit and veg created bloating, tummy aches, painful cramps, indigestion, weaknesses of the body and more. You've might been there if you tried a new diet too. Result?
Probably it didn't work. Fruit and veg, (fruit more) eliminate toxins from our body, hence the weakness and dizziness, when applying vegan diet without any transition. I doubt many can do that instantly. Why? Because we are used to eating so much processed foods, that our body in order to accept the "new", needs to clean itself first, only then we can experience the Eden in our body; perfect and disease free life. What’s more it’s very hard to sustain these changes by us. We need support from our friends and family, doctors and health practitioners. We need a community, where we feel we’re not alone in this. And that is not easy to find.
Thirdly. Many of us heard the sentence:"It is not so much what we eat but how much". But what does it even mean? This century is fully responsible for its huge quantity eating behaviours. Nowadays, most of us eat all the time; we only don't eat, when we sleep. Our culture of constant eating developed drastically over the last years, we have first and second breakfasts, snack times, afternoon teas before three course dinners, there is fast food, food on the go, food trucks, 24h restaurants and then on the top of it there is the fruit. Food is available everywhere all the time. Even children can’t go to the playground without bag full of snacks. Eat before, during and after play. Don't get me wrong;I have no problems with eating when out, however this constant eating doesn’t help us to stay healthy. Our whole day revolves around food. If we'd be able to eat less and less often our health would be thriving.
But how do we change that, when adverts, offers, and social media influencers are constantly bombarding us? We eat too much, and what's worse we eat too much processed foods pretending to be real, healthy and nutritious. We don't eat to live, we live to eat! Our bodies are in constant digestion mode. Liver, kidney, heart, intestine are all working overtime from the don till the sunset and into the night, in order to process everything we put into our mouth during the day. And the more we eat, the more we have to eat.
Admittedly last century's diets were not the healthiest one (potatoes three times a day for many), but people’s lifestyles made it more manageable to digest it. Jobs were more physical, we were more active, and had time to burn and convert most what we ate into energy, or at least get rid of the waste our body didn’t need. Today we have more sedentary jobs and lifestyles, which creates the opportunity for chain eating. We’re not as active and furthermore many of us are not physically and emotionally able to skip meal or snack to give our organs a break. I mean, how often (deliberately!) do you go to bed hungry? If so, does it make you feel dizzy, without energy, irritated, and very, very hungry when you get up? How long from the last meal does it take you to experience this feeling? Check it for yourself. No wonder we don’t stop eating. This feeling isn’t pleasant.
So what should we eat to live happily ever after? Is it enough knowing which foods give us the most energy, endurance, health and increased vitality or which foods in some way cause diseases? Unfortunately it’s not all that
simple.
Our bodies are filled with masses of an obstruction. Which is very true by the way. Obstruction sticks to our intestine in the form of toxic mucus and is causing diseases. Each person is different and accumulates an obstruction in different parts of their body, causing each of us different illnesses we have to face in our life. Obstruction is caused by alcohol, tobacco, drugs, medications, and processed foods, starchy foods, meat, fish, dairy products, sugar, and so on. Lets say though, that we start with eating fruit and veg, but again too much, especially when our body is still full of waste. It will be almost impossible for these good foods to enter into our bloodstream and become efficient giving us vital substances. Instead the good food will be mixed with bad mucus and instead decreasing it will increase obstacles.
How can we solve that then? And why should we start this not so easy cleansing process?
The answer lies with periodical minor fasting, alternating with cleansing, not nourishing, mucus-less and mucus-lean foods. This process may take, weeks, months or years in some cases, depending on the state of an individual's body. In most cases it'll be enough to go to bed hungry and skip breakfast, in order to get rid of some mucus and with that some illnesses. And think of that, body is your home so "If you don't take care of your body, where will you live?"
Fourthly. Money. This is always a sensitive subject, especially when there is not enough of it. The question can be asked, how would you substitute a can of tomatoes with a bunch of fresh tomatoes? I think the answer would be to apply one change at a time and start with an affordable one for our pocket. Throwing ourselves into too many changes at once will only create a yoyo effect and an empty pocket.
Let's say firstly you want to eliminate dairy from your diet, educate yourself first what to substitute your favourite breakfast yoghurt with, you can for example replace it with fresh fruits of your choice, and you can make a delicious breakfast smoothie or eat the fruit as a whole. You now have one item off your old list replaced with a new. Get used to it, own it and move on to another swap. Easy!
Of course there is always mental change, which has to happen in our mind first, otherwise this might not prove to be effective. Processed food and fresh food won't always be equal in price like an example with tomato, but taking into consideration foods like apples, bananas, carrots or cabbage, those are one of the lowest prices on the food shelves. It is also a good idea to find a market or food hall, where fresh food is sold in bulks, or look in the supermarket boxes of mixed veggies, wonky or perfectly imperfect ones; looking for them will be a key to keep spending reasonably low.
And last point is, do we eat organic or not? We all know that eating organic is a luxury and hardly anyone can afford to have 100% organic diet throughout a year. Eating raw is the key, if one day you can afford organic, that is great, but at the end of a day a non - organic apple will be a thousand times healthier choice than a chocolate bar!
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