In 1992, at age 48, I adopted for the first time in my life a semi-vegetarian diet. No more beef, pork or chicken and greatly reduced amounts of eggs, dairy and fish. At various times in the 15 years since, I have dropped one or more or all of the animal based products in my diet. In other words, over the last 15 years I have moved up and down the spectrum from barely vegetarian to hardcore vegan. When one of my daughters recently became a vegan and the other one moved a few months later into the first stages of vegetarianism, I was in the midst of re-examining my own diet because (at age 60) I had experienced my first serious health crisis.
On a camping trip in Texas a few years ago I began to experience a numbness on the right side of my body mostly in the tips of my fingers, my lower arm, the right side of my lips and cheek and to a lesser extent in my right foot and lower leg. I thought I might be having a stroke. Though it was subsequently determined that my problem was an easily repaired B-12 deficiency, it was a wake up call for me that lead me to discover that I have both moderately high blood pressure and a moderate cholesterol problem. I had slipped back into eating cheese, eggs and fish and though the fish was touted as having a beneficial effect on cholesterol levels, I nevertheless decided that now was a good time to get back to an almost totally vegan diet. By “almost totally vegan” I mean that I was still eating honey. And I was eating some processed vegetarian foods such as those produced by Morningstar Farms that contained small amounts of egg or dairy products used essentially to enhance the process of creating imitation beef, chicken, sausage, hotdogs and bacon. I’d become accustomed to using Morningstar products because, well, they just tasted good, and were quick and easy to prepare. And they were almost totally vegan.
Now, I’ve been drinking alcoholic beverages (mostly beer) for 40 years. And of course I’ve known of the health risks of alcohol. But I’ve also enjoyed the benefits of drinking and suffered the sense of deprivation one can feel by quitting (which I’ve done many times). As far as alcohol’s relationship to vegetarianism, well, it is after all a plant based product. But in the midst of all this health consciousness and diet re-examination I decided to switch from beer to red wine. Within 2 years of having switched from beer to wine, including 6 months of total abstinence somewhere in the middle of it all, for reasons I won’t go into now, I was hit by another major health crisis. A massive kidney stone that had passed out of my kidney but was lodged in my ureter on its way to my bladder. Two weeks of excruciating pain and $30,000 later it was over. No one seemed to know for sure what caused such a huge calcium oxalate stone to form in my kidney, but my own assessment was that it had something to do with my having switched to wine from beer without adding appropriate daily quantities of water intake, combined with a high oxalate diet that is an unavoidable component of any healthy vegan or near vegan diet.
I’ve gone back to drinking beer, even though, obviously, as Thoreau said, water is the only drink of a wise man. But I have redoubled my efforts to maintain a fairly strict vegan diet, I suppose, because in looking my mortality in the face I have recommitted myself to the moral and ethical components of veganism in just the same way that a religious person might start going to church again after a near death experience. I am closer to total veganism now than I have ever been before. But it doesn’t feel like penance. In fact, veganism is easier for me now than ever before. And more fun. I have to give a lot of credit to the new found consciousness of both my daughters and to their formidable talents in the kitchen. Their energy and constant willingness to experiment has changed the face of veganism for me from a sometimes drab asceticism to something that feels more like ballroom dancing. Contrary to popular belief the Enlightenment is alive and well in America. Viva Veganism.
We’ll begin next month with our own recommended recipes and health tips.
Meanwhile, here's an interview with the founder and CEO of Whole Foods Markets we found on the environmental website, Grist.org .
We call it
John Mackey's Vegan Dreams
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copyright 2007 by Larry L. Dill