My Journey Through Sugar Addiction

This is a long(over 4000 words)  and very personal post about one of the most difficult problems I’ve had: my sugar addiction and erratic eating habit. My sugar addiction has affected my health and to some extent even my social life. It also has caused much guilt and shame in me, which I believe limited my spiritual growth.

The reason I am writing this now is because I believe I have figured out the key to leave it behind me. I hope this gives hope to everyone who is suffering from this often-misunderstood problem. I also think the same principle I used can be applied to other problems in life and encourage you to try it, even if it is not about addiction.

The principle of problem solving

In How to Resolve Any Problem Quickly and Easily, I shared the key is to love your problem. While you are working against the problem, you are on the same energetic plane that created the problem in the first place. Loving and working with the problem gives you the perspective of a new higher plane.

But this is difficult, right? Who wants to love their problem? We all want to get rid of the problem ASAP. Even acknowledging the problem is huge. My blogger friend Lance Ekum posted a Post Secret video that claims, “when we are keeping a secret, it is really that secret that is keeping us.” He invited readers to share their secret in the comment section, anonymously if necessary, and only a few did.

We keep our problems as secret, bearing the weight of guilt and shame all alone. Or we work on the problem, either sporadically or frantically, with hate and disgust to get rid of it. Love the problem? Hello?

I understand. I am no different. My spirit guides convinced me to write that post, but I myself fully know the challenge. But I also know it’s doable — because I have applied it to my own life.

How my sugar addiction started

When I graduated from high school and started attending college, I was deeply disappointed. It was one of the best national universities in Japan, but I found it uninspiring, or even hypocritical. But leaving college halfway was extremely unusual in Japan. I didn’t know what to do with my life. At the same time, the empty feeling I tolerated at home was reaching the limit. I had no one to talk to, and I started to reach out to sugary foods for comfort and distraction.

Sugar is an easily accessible drug. It’s certainly legal, and few people will raise their brows seeing you eating sweets. In fact, I think the seed of my sugar addiction was planted earlier at home by my parents, who wanted me to eat more of anything. (I’m petite even by Japanese standard.) They looked happy when I ate cakes. By the way, food was practically the only topic that brought some smiles at my home.

By the time I was twenty years old, I was binge eating chocolates and candies and using laxatives regularly. Aaaah, just writing these words hurts me — it feels like I am stabbed in the stomach — even though I am writing this voluntarily. . .

How I temporarily recovered from my sugar addiction

I left the college after all. My mental and emotional conflict was literally driving me crazy and my health was failing. My parents were disappointed beyond words and I was treated as family shame. (To be clear, because I quit college, not because I had eating disorder.)

Leaving college did relieve some of my stress and I started to recover. I also learned to appreciate foods more by spending time cooking and even baking. Yes, I overcame sugar addiction — at least temporarily — by baking cakes from scratch.

Baking takes time and care. And because I am an inquisitive person, I also read quite many books on baking and food history. I learned sweets were considered special treat for the majority of human history, something ordinary people could seldom have. Sugar cane is a tropical plant, so until the global transportation system was established in the 19th century, people in other areas never tasted sugar. Or it was super expensive.

How about honey? Well, you know how much trouble it takes to collect honey? This also made honey quite expensive. Plus honey doesn’t work well with heat, so you cannot make so many kinds of sweets with honey. The mesmerizing variety of cakes, cookies, pastries, and candies are invented using sugar. You’ll be bored licking plain honey pretty soon.

Same thing with other ingredients such as butter, eggs, and flour. These were once treasured foods before big agribusinesses started to abuse the animals, the land and the farmers. Read books like Little House on the Praire. Making a cake was like bringing together rare gems, again for special celebrations. And that’s just a little more than 100 years ago.

First lesson I learned with my sugar addiction

So, more than 20 years ago before I consciously learned the spiritual laws, I bumped into one of the most important lesson in dealing with addiction: Appreciation. Or even respect.

Before, I was hating the sugary foods I binged on. I quickly grabbed a bag of candy at supermarket and swallowed it. I didn’t want to face myself eating sweets. It may sound strange, but I didn’t want to face the sweets I was eating, either — I just craved it and wanted to satisfy my craving.

Once I understood how all the foods were grown and gathered, and how much work baking itself took, I started to eat more mindfully. I made peace with sweets. Back then, I didn’t know the principle to love my problem, but I was coming close. My health improved, my life improved.

How my sugar addiction returned

I thought I overcame my sugar addiction. Isn’t it completely normal and healthy to enjoy, say a biscotti or a scoop of ice cream, now and then? Or even one or two a day as long as I stayed healthy and in good shape?

This “taming the sugar addiction” phase of my life lasted until about a year ago.

Something changed last year. I don’t know exactly what. Perhaps my age. Some scientists argue female hormone change affects the way we crave foods. (Which explains cravings during PMS, pregnancy, and yes, perimenopause. I am 48 years old and my period became irregular about a year ago.)

Or maybe the overall dietary change I made last year — I became mostly vegetarian, largely raw. I’ve heard some raw foodists having severe cravings. Or it could be because I became increasingly aware of the health problems sugar can cause and attempted to eliminate sugar from my diet altogether, which in effect fed the dynamics of eating sweets.

In January last year, I weighed 113 pounds. During the spring and summer, I naturally lost weight, down to about 106 pounds. Then, from around October, I started to eat sweets a lot, a lot more than I felt comfortable myself. Of course, the holiday season escalated the situation with all the pretty-looking sweets. My weight got back to 113, or occasionally a few pounds more, by this January. I got panicked.

What is addiction?

You may think this is no big deal. Don’t many people gain weight in winter? Why am I calling it sugar addiction?

Right. I don’t think the weight itself is the problem (although I think I gained them in such a short time.) It’s the way I was eating and gaining weight.

My definition of any addiction is: when you know the negative consequences of your actions and still cannot stop or modify it, that is addiction, whether the target of the addiction is legal (sugar, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, etc.) or illegal (drugs), or whether the target is stuffs or behaviors (such as sex, shopping, gambling, self-cutting, or even work, exercise).

I knew sugar was no good to my health, I was seeing its negative effect such as the weight gain and the difficulty in focusing, and yet I could not stop picking up Ben & Jerry’s ice cream or a package of cheese cake. (And a piece of cake is huge in America.) And once I started eating one sweet, it often led to more, even though on the conscious level, I didn’t want any more. So this is sugar addiction, at least by my definition.

Let’s see, Wikipedia says addiction is

“persistent behavioral pattern marked by physical and/or psychological dependency that causes significant disruption and negatively impacts the quality of life of an organism.”

According to Wikipedia, non-substance addictions are compulsive behavior.

Okay, compulsive it is. However, I want to point out the possibility that many compulsive behaviors might have biochemical reasons behind it, even if it doesn’t involve psychotic substances.

For example, when you eat chocolate, your body produces opiate. Chocolate itself does not contain opiate, but your own body creates it, causing mild high, essentially the same kind of high you would get with morphine. Keep doing it enough times and your body become dependent on having opiate constantly — you are hooked on chocolate. I think this is a type of addiction, not just compulsive behavior caused by your mind.

I guess a lot of businesses are at risk if we expand the use of “addiction” my way, therefore authorities want to avoid it. If you are eating chocolate compulsively, you are solely responsible for it. But if we admit chocolate may cause addiction, the chocolate industry has a role in it.

Addiction is not about lack of will power

The important thing to remember is addiction is not about the lack of will power. It has physiological conditions behind it. Trying to control addiction without addressing the physiological reasons is cruel to the addicts. In other words, addiction needs to be addressed at all levels of our existence, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Most people, including the addicts themselves, don’t understand this. So they try to control it by strict prohibitive rules / plans and mind manipulation. That doesn’t work. It only adds more guilt and shame and aggravates the situation.

I’m not a doctor nor nutritionist and don’t know everything about the effects of sugar on our body. My guess is once a person becomes addicted to sugar, they metabolize sugar differently from normal person. Normal metabolism simply burns sugar, converting it to carbon gas and water, or stores sugar as fat. In sugar addicts’ body, sugar produces something that disrupts the body. The irony is this causes the addict to reach for more sugar, in the same way people with hangover reaches for more drinks.

Here is another way to explain the physiological working of sugar addiction, regarding the brain’s neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. Sugar exhausts the brain’s reward pathway in the same way alcohol and drugs do, forcing the body to secret excessive amount of serotonin and dopamine and consequently making the body desensitize the receptors of these neurotransmitters.  She also mentions the food allergy / intolerance as cause of food craving, which is basically what I’m trying to say.

How strong my sugar cravings were

Let me share another story to help you understand how strong my sugar cravings were and how little my will power helped.

Two years after I came to the US, I got married. I knew he had drug and alcohol problem before and I also knew he went to rehab. So I thought he was recovered. Pretty soon things got weird, however. He never used it in front of me, but somehow money was disappearing, and then he himself was absent often, sometimes until very late at night.

A year later, he checked himself in to a rehab again. This time, I was involved, too, as his spouse. To be supportive, I quit drinking myself. I was a social drinker — I had one or two drinks when I went out just to add some fun. I didn’t mind giving up alcohol at all. I loved him and that was the least I could do as his spouse.

He recovered to some extent, and then relapsed. Eventually, I had to leave him. I didn’t understand why it was so hard for him to stay away from drugs and drinks. What the heck? It was easy for me to quit.

Had I been asked to quit sweets to be supportive of him, however, I honestly don’t know how things went. I would definitely have tried SO hard. I desperately wanted our marriage to last. But the way I have cheated myself with overeating . . . Gee, I don’t know. To the best of my knowledge, he stayed clean for a few months. I haven’t been sugar free more than a week.

Addiction is strong beyond understanding. And it’s tricky and baffling. If you are a non-addict, like I am to alcohol, please don’t judge addiction by your standard. And if you addicted to something, my deep feeling goes to you.

The negative effects of sugar

Now, in case you may be unfamiliar with the problems of consuming sugar, here is a list of effects sugar can have on your health:

1. Sugar high followed by sugar low
When you eat sugar and other high GI (glycemic index) foods such as refined carbs, they are quickly absorbed to your blood stream, raising your blood sugar level fast and furious. Our body responds to this change by secreting insulin from pancreas. The trouble is our body is designed to over react to sudden changes. Because homeostasis (to stay in the same range of biological conditions, be it body temperature, blood pressure, or blood sugar level) is critical for our survival, our body reacts big time to control sudden changes.

So it produces more insulin than it’s necessary to bring the blood sugar level down to normal range — the blood sugar level goes below it. This is the inevitable sugar low, leaving you tired, anxious, and miserable — and likely to crave even more sugar for the next high.

2. Insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes
When you repeat the sugar intake – excessive insulin production patten, your body cells become less sensitive to insulin. The cells start to ignore the insulin’s message to store excessive sugar into the cells, leaving the body with high level of blood sugar. Insulin resistance leads to metabolic syndrome and eventually to Type 2 diabetes.

3. Adrenal fatigue
Your adrenal glands produce cortisol, another hormone that controls blood sugar. When you consume excessive sugar, you are forcing your adrenal glads to work overtime. Because adrenals produce various hormones beside cortisol, the adrenal fatigue and eventual exhaustion can cause wide range of health problems such as lethargy, lightheadedness, depression — and even more sugar craving.

4. AGE, which leads to various health issues
Advanced Glycation End-Products (AGE) are present in sugary foods, especially cooked sugary foods, and our body can produce it, too, from our blood sugar. This substance affects the protein in our body and is the hidden cause of various health issues, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s decease, and cancer.

5. Cardiovascular disease
High blood sugar level affects cardiovascular system in several ways according to the American Heart Association.

6. Aging
Increased level of stress hormones such as insulin and cortisol inhibits body’s regeneration. So sugar indirectly contributes to early aging.

7. Inflammation
I am reading Ultra-Metabolism In the book, author Mark Hyman explains how certain foods, including sugar, can cause hidden inflammation in our body. This stresses out our system and also leads to weight gain.

8. Weakened immune system
Some researches show increased blood sugar interferes the activity of white blood cells.

9. Vitamin and mineral waste
In order to assimilate sugar, your body needs various vitamins such as vitamin Bs. Sugar is also acid-forming, so the body needs to neutralize the acidity by consuming minerals such as calcium and magnesium. These are valuable vitamins and minerals our body needs to maintain health.

10. Memory loss and other brain dysfunction
This article at WebMD maintains heightened blood sugar level affects the area of the brain for memory.

11. Candida overgrowth
Sugar feeds candida and other microorganisms in our body, which can cause a variety of ailments.

12. Tooth decay and periodontal disease

13. Weight gain

Plus the various mental health issues.  Any sugar addict knows it causes anxiety and depression.

If this isn’t enough, here is a longer list of sugar’s effects on health.

How I tried to control my sugar addiction to no avail

I started working on my sugar problem in January. Yes, in the way most people deal with problems — by loathing and working against the problem. I tried to control my sugar addiction.

I started food journals. I made healthy eating plans. I calculated my calorie intake carefully. Needless to say, I cleaned up my fridge and cupboard and rid of all sugary foods. I swore.

. . . The longest I could stay sugar free was a week. Sooner or later, something triggered my sugar cravings and I was back to overeating sweets. The trigger could be various things — sweets offered at social gatherings or as samples at the grocery store, work stress, or just the general sense of boredom. Once I picked up a sweet, it escalated quickly. Say, one day I had a cookie. Next day I found myself driving to cafe and ordering a cheesecake. Third day, I may be bingeing on chocolate . . .

Suggestions like having no sugary foods at home didn’t help at all because I would just drive to the store to get some if I had strong craving. And that’s what addicts do, to get the target of their addiction by all means.

And of course, addiction has its vicious cycle. Once I ate the sugary foods that I decided not to eat, I felt bad, and the miserable feeling caused even more craving. The intellectual understanding of the ill effects of sugar had no power in this vicious cycle. Although it never got as bad as it was when I was in my twenties, I was starting to feel helpless.

I also felt like a total fake. On the one hand, I have written passionate articles on healthy eating. I totally and honestly believe in everything I write. I want to eat well and I even want to help others do the same. On the other hand, I was overeating sweets. The sense of guilt and shame that tainted my younger days returned like a vengeance. Even now, as I write this, I am afraid you may judge me. . . It’s taking a huge courage to keep writing this article.

How I applied the “Love your problem” principle to my sugar addiction

So how can I apply the “Love your problem” principle to my sugar addiction?

For me, the most important thing is to remember there is a meaning to my sugar addiction. I don’t say this lightly. Sugar addiction, like any addiction, is painful and confusing. It has caused so much fear and self-loathing. I am so totally at a loss why I cannot do one simple thing, to stay away from sugary foods.

And this way, my sugar addiction has taught me so much.

It has taught me how confusing living in this physical world is.  We cannot just think things out in this world — we need to implement the idea and live it. For someone like myself who is very much in the ideas, this is important.

It has also taught me, in a convoluted way, to love myself deeply regardless of what I am doing.  And I hope the love expands to compassion for all people.

Loving sugar addiction, my body, and foods

Loving the problem, like sugar addiction, doesn’t mean embracing it in the Hallmark greeting card way.  It means acknowledging it, facing it, and seeing the meanings of it.

When we are working against the problem, we hardly acknowledge the problem. We just want to get rid of it.  But true change comes only when we own the problem.

In addition, there are two more lessons I’m learning through loving my sugar addiction:

1. Loving the signals my body is sending out
Before, I felt my body was going crazy. I thought my body was rebelling against me with sugar cravings. But what if my body was doing its best to keep me in health? What if my body was right in wanting some nutrients but my mind was misinterpreting the signals?

I thought about this possibility. At first, it felt like a crazy proposition. What’s right about craving ice cream and cheesecakes? They are loaded with sugar and . . . fat.

Huh? Is it possible that my body was craving fat rather than sugar, but I kept feeding it with these sweets? I thought about this. I knew that, even though cookies and pastries can trigger my cravings, what I really craved for were these highly fatty foods.

So one day, I bought a jar of Artisana’s organic raw coconut butter when I felt the craving. It’s made of whole coconut, not just oil, and tastes mildly sweet. I decided to eat it rather than the cake. I licked like several tablespoons of that yummy fat that night. I was at the end of my wit and didn’t care about things like calorie.

Next morning, to my amusement, I woke up feeling a lot better. For one thing, my lower back pain was gone. My back was stiff and painful for a few months. And I felt warm. I’ve always been a cold person, the kind of person who need extra blanket and second layer of socks in winter. That morning, I noticed I was feeling much warmer than usual even though the weather was bad.

That was several days ago. My sugar cravings are about 80% gone because I feel full after eating. I simply don’t need snacks most of the time — I stay satiated until next meal time. (The last 20% is the tricky part. Feeling free of cravings can somehow allure me to try some sweets — so baffling. Certain situations and places also trigger sugar thoughts. Of course I know once I put in sugar in my body, my system can go haywire.)

2. Loving the foods and dropping judgments
Before, I was upset at all the sugary foods and even the manufactures of those foods. Sugar is known to be bad for health, so why do they flood the market with all these sweets? Why are these sweets marketed as if they are necessary part of holidays? Shouldn’t they be regulated like tobacco?

This resentment against sugary foods, along with my guilt and shame for eating such “bad” foods, fed my sugar cravings. I was so working against the problem, beating up myself and the idea of sugary foods.

Loving the problem in this aspect means to drop this harsh judgment and to understand no foods are intrinsically “bad”. Sweets are okay to exist. Perhaps they even offer true joy to some people. I just choose not to eat it today. That’s all. Not a big deal, just for today, I am choosing to eat other foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds that are flavored more simply. No fight against foods, it’s just a choice.

This way of thinking takes the edges of sugar craving. When the residual cravings hit me, I find it a lot easier to deflect it if I say, “Just for today, I am choosing health, and I am listening to my body.”

My sugar addiction: Conclusion

Am I “cured” of sugar addiction? No. I think I still have the physiology of the sugar sensitivity.  And addiction recovery usually involves relapses before the recover is finally solid.

There are still moments when I’m tempted to eat sugary snacks. But saying no to craving is much easier now. And the number of cravings are going down big time.  (And let’s knock the wood — because many relapses happen just when things seem to be working.  Addiction is really baffling.)

If you have problem with sugar, too, I hope this article encourages you. I am not saying healthy fat is the solution although it may help. Both healthy fat and protein stabilize blood sugar level. And there may be unknown link between fat and sugar cravings.

My main point is to love your problem and work with your problem, rather than against it. Drop your judgments, love and appreciate yourself and the foods, and listen to your body.

“Listening to the body” may be a new concept for some people. Even though the gut doesn’t speak English, it does communicate. I am learning more about this because I think the best foods for me change every day depending on my condition and the season. So rather than relying on dogmatic rules, I consult what and how much my body needs today.

If you have other addictions, please think how you can apply this approach in your case. Rather than prohibiting the target of your addiction, work with your body and think of ways to nurture it. Listen to the small voice of your body that is behind the loud scream of cravings. And see the deeper meaning of why you have this problem.

I think “loving the problem” can work in various other problems, too. What problem are bothering you and how can you “love” it?

And lastly — I hope you still love me.
(Photo credits: supermarket, staircase, cupcake, loneliness)

Review: Become Younger by Norman Walker

Norman Walker is the pioneer of raw foods movement and this book Become Younger is his most well-known, first published in 1949. It is a compact book of only 117 pages, but choke-full of valuable information that I haven’t seen in other raw foods books that are published more recently.

Cause of premature aging # 1, malnourishment

Norman Walker maintains the main causes of premature aging — which most of us suffer — are malnourishment and poor elimination.

Cooking heat destroys the vitality of foods and changes the chemical nature of nutrients in the foods. Further, Norman Walker explains how eating starch interferes the nourishment of the cells and efficiency of elimination. The large molecule of starch is insoluble in water. So they travel in blood and lymph as solid molecule that the cells cannot utilize. Instead, they stick to the wall like a plaster. Norman Walker warns the consumption of starchy foods such as grains and beans can cause liver hardening, gall bladder stones, pimples, unnatural blood coagulation, which can lead to hemorrhoids, tumors, and cancers.

(My personal understanding of this starch problem is excessive amount of starch poses a problem. And if you are like many people, you are probably eating starch excessively. But there are personal differences in starch tolerance. Some people can process more starch than others.)

He also warns against the consumption of concentrated protein such as meat. To digest concentrated protein, the body has to work extra hard — taxing the liver, kidneys, etc. The excessive workload results in accumulation of uric acid, which eventually gets stored in the muscles. They become crystals in the muscles that cause sharp pain.

Cause of premature aging #2, poor elimination

This is really the highlight of Become Younger. Norman Walker examined thousands of colon X-rays and even conducted autopsies. The colon diagrams in the book of the actual patients are horrifying. They are distorted so badly that you would wonder how anyone can survive with a colon like that. He explains how the muscles of the colon become flabby and get weighed down by accumulated waste matter. The old waste matter that are stuck in the inner wall of the colon can be up to one inch thick, he reports.

Obviously, the colon cannot function properly with this much of impacted waste. Moreover, we absorb toxins from these old waste, so the problem is not limited to the colon (such as colon cancer and stoppage) but it can also cause seemingly-unrelated issues such as depression, nervous breakdown, kidney malfunction, vision problem, sinus problem and heart trouble.

This, Norman Walker emphasizes, can be the case even when you have “regular” bowl movements. When the passage of the colon is narrowed by accumulated old waste, people actually have more bowl movements, or even diarrhea.

Raw vegetable juice and colon cleansing to become younger

What can you do to reverse the negative impacts of poor nourishment and poor elimination?

First, start nourishing the body by taking plenty of freshly-made raw vegetable juices. He recommends 2 pints (1 litter) a day or more. Other foods you eat are best raw, too. And eliminate starch and refined sugar from your diet. Ideally, eliminate or severely limit the intake of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy.

Two, cleanse your colon by colonics and enemas. It will take many sessions to cleanse years of accumulated waste.

Did Norman Walker become younger?

Norman Walker lived up to 99 years old, according to Wikipedia, which examines his immigration and death records. Some people want to make him into a legend of someone who lived over 100 years old, but unless he lied and successfully got away with immigration office (very unlikely because he is from England, a civilized bureaucratic nation just like USA. And I don’t see why he had to do such a thing), that is not the case.

However, I don’t think this undermines his status as the expert of healthy living. 99 years old is a respectable old age, and I like the peaceful and natural way he passed, during his sleep. He is reported to have been active until that day.

What kind of raw foodist are you?

I read a lot of raw foods blogs and noticed there are many kinds of raw foodists. Some eat salad mainly. Some are big on dehydrated foods and raw imitation foods, such as raw crackers and raw nut burgers. They are certainly raw, but after reading Become Younger, I feel that the main stay of a good raw diet is raw juices.

It is amazing how much vegetables a juice takes. To make a 16 once green juice, I put in 2 to 3 cups of greens, half a head of celery, and half of a large cucumber. Juice is a concentrated nourishment. I think a lot of nutritional deficiencies some raw foodists are experiencing are caused by their reliance on salad and dehydrated raw foods.

I was so impressed with this book that I ordered two more books by Norman Walker, Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices and Vegetarian Guide to Diet and Salad by Dr. Norman Walker.

What do you think of his theory of rejuvenation? Please share in the comments.

Meat Eaters vs Vegetarians / Vegans

What is the best way to eat for the optimal health of yourself and Mother Earth? Can we really live without eating any animal products? Is vegetarian way of living really superior?

There are four reasons why people choose to eat vegetarian, including more strict vegan and raw vegan way:

1. Health: Animal products (meat, fish, dairy, eggs) are loaded with saturated fat and very acid-forming, therefore bad for our health.
2. Environment / Sustainability: Cows don’t convert all the energies they get from their feed to their meat. A big portion is used for them to stay warm and to move around. Eating lower on the food chain saves energy and is kinder to the Earth.
3. Moral / Animal rights: It’s cruel to kill sentient animals.
4. Spirituality: By eating plants, especially raw, our body detoxes and becomes more capable of spiritual growth. Ultimately, the most spiritual way to eat is not to eat, to live solely on Light.

This post is an invitation to further discussion on these points. I am no scientist, so what I have to say about point 1 and 2 are the result of my reading. I’m also not my lightbody yet, so what I say about point 4 is my best guess. It’s a very comprehensive post of over 3000 words, so you might want to bookmark for future reference.

Vegetarians and health

Many vegetarians claim they feel much healthier than they did when they were eating meat. Eating meat does come with risks, as we will see. And I’m glad these people are feeling well. However, the potential risk of vegetarian diet deserves attention, too.

I don’t intend to discourage vegetarian / vegan / raw vegan diet. But some articles I read that support vegetarian diet sound as if this is the only right way to eat healthy, and I do have a problem with this attitude. I think it’s important to see both sides and weigh the pros and cons carefully.

Unless you are developing into a new human (discussed later for point 4), there is a fair chance that you would suffer from nutritional deficiencies on a vegetarian, especially strict vegan, diet. The major problems are:

Vitamin B12: Only bacteria can produce B12. These bacteria live in natural soil and in animals’ guts. So plant foods don’t provide B12. It is believed you need to take B12 either through meat (assimilated by the animal to their system) or supplement. However, some insist humans can host the beneficial bacteria in our guts, too, therefore producing B12 right there. There is also an argument that animal based B12 is not very bioavailable because it is bonded with protein.

Vitamin D: Everyone, including meat eaters, are at risk of D deficiency if they are not getting sufficient sunlight. And if you don’t live in sun-blessed area, you probably don’t get enough sun in colder months anyway.

Calcium: Calcium controversy is huge. Some insist dairy is actually counter-effective because dairy is very acid-forming and causes the body to leach calcium from the bones to neutralize the acidity. Plants, especially dark greens, do provide calcium. However, it’s hard to get the recommended 1000 mg of calcium from plants alone. I played around on Nutritional Data website and found it takes 11 cups of kale to get the 1000 mg of calcium.

Further, how this number of 1000 mg got FDA approved is yet another mystery and controversy. We don’t really know if we need this much of calcium. Calcium supplementation don’t statistically show to lower bone fracture rate.

Iron: Another big controversy. Some say iron from plants (beans and dark greens) are not very bioavailable, some say plant iron is just fine and there is even a study that shows vegans get more iron than meat eaters.

Essential Fatty Acid: Human body cannot produce omega 3 and 6 fatty acids. Usually omega 6 is not a problem. Unless you are on a super low fat diet, it’s easy to get enough omega 6. Omega 3 is a challenge, however. There are three kinds of omega 3 fatty acid: ALA, EPA, and DHA. Plants don’t have EPA nor DHA. (Update: Certain algae make DHA, however, and now there are vegan supplements such as Udo’s DHA 3-6-9 Oil)  Plant sources of omega 3 such as flax and chia provide ALA. Humans can convert ALA to EPA and DHA, but the conversion efficiency depends on individual health and age. So vegetarians can be at risk.

Essential Amino Acid (protein): It’s indeed possible to have complete amino acid profile by plant sources alone. However, it’s easy to go short on Lysine, which is typically lacking in grains and nuts. (Beans and some seeds are rich in Lysine.) So we need to pay attention to food combination.

Greens and algae typically have complete or close to complete amino acid profile, but because they contain much water, you just have to eat a lot of them to cover the required amount of protein. For example, one cup of kale has 2.2 grams of protein. Each person’s protein requirement is different, but even for me (petite woman who is not into body-building), the daily requirement is supposed to be 40 grams. If I am to get all my protein from greens, I need to eat heaps of them.

The overall amount of bioavailable protein is another controversy. Many vegetarians insist cows get their entire protein by eating grass, but each animal has different digestive system. Cows have four stomachs to help break down the tough cell wall of plants. Humans have only one. Cows probably have different digestive flora profile, too, to further support their digestion.

Theoretically, this is where juicing and blending come into. The nutrients become more available when the cell walls are broken in these processes, and you can eat much more vegetables this way. I said “can”. I don’t believe all vegetarians are eating plenty of vegetables to support their protein needs.

Health risks of eating meat
Of course, meat eaters who don’t eat enough vegetables face other kinds of potential deficiencies with vitamins, minerals, fiber and enzyme. If you are eating SAD (Standard American Diet), you are likely undernourished while you are getting more than enough calories in the form of saturated fat (read: cholesterol) and excessive protein, both are harmful to your system.

The problem of excessive protein intake isn’t getting enough attention. While we do need certain amount of protein to maintain our system, if you take more protein than you need for maintenance purpose, the excess has to be burned off. But protein doesn’t burn clean in our system like carbs and fats do. It produces nitrogen compound, which can be toxic, so the body has to process it through many chemical changes until it becomes uric acid and can be safely disposed in urine. It’s a lot of extra work for your body.

In addition, typical supermarket meat contains weird stuffs like residual antibiotics, growth hormones, etc. that were given to animals. They are fed really badly — remember the mad cow disease? Dairy and eggs are even worse than meat because these toxins are bio-concentrated. And we have contaminated the ocean so much that the fish come with mercury, PCB and other heavy metals.

Animal products also presents greater risk of bacterial and parasite growth.

Best food choices for your health
If you choose to eat animal products, be sure to chose organic. If you choose to eat fish, smaller fish that feed on plant plankton and whose lifespan is short are safer. And if you choose to go vegetarian or vegan, be smart with your food choices, combinations, and supplements.

I think it’s a good idea to get a blood work periodically to make sure of your nutritional health. Each person is different and what works for someone may not work for you. HOW you eat also affects your nutritional health.

Vegetarians and environment

Another reason people refuse eating meat these days is environmental concern. It’s more efficient to eat closer to the true energy source, sunlight. This means eating plants. If we can use the land to grow plants rather than animals, we are utilizing the resources better. This includes saving fossil fuels used in farming and water resource. Animals require a lot of water, again, most of which are used for the animals’ own sustenance. When we choose to eat plants, we are saving water.

Further, raising animals produces — waste. (Read: methane and other hazards to environment). In terms of carbon footprint, 18% of the world’s total greenhouse emission comes from meat production. Meat industry is a big player in climate change, more than transportation.

Best food choices for the environment
I do think many people eat too much animal products. If you are a meat eater, please review your meat / dairy intake level both for your own health and for the health of Mother Earth. Current level of animal farming is not really sustainable both for the resources and for waste management.

I don’t think, however, we need to completely end raising animals to protect the environment. Rather, I am dreaming of the old fashioned farm, or the way the indigenous people did farming, where animals, plants, and humans co-lived meaningfully, playing each role in the ecosystem.

I’d also like to point out the use of various chemicals in the conventional farming (pesticides, herbicide, etc) is harmful to the plants, land, and our water supply. If you care for the environment, please choose organic vegetables and fruits. And be diligent in checking the underside of your leafy greens — organic means there were bugs on the farm.

Vegetarians and animal rights

Many people choose not to eat meats for compassionate reasons. Killing sentient animals is cruel and against moral. If you don’t eat your pet, why are you okay to eat other animals?

While I agree killing is bad, I think moral has its limitations. Moral is certainly better than no moral. Being aware eating meat means killing animals and killing is essentially no good is better than having no moral about life and death. However, moral tends to be dogmatic and make people judgmental. Further, it keeps us from reaching to higher awareness. In this case, higher awareness means life consumes life and we are all — humans, animals, and plants — part of the ecosystem. It’s not the endorsement of killing, but tolerance of the consumption of other lives.

I mean, I wonder why there is no plant rights activists?

I was also informed we need some form of animal products to grow plants. Bone meal, manure, and worm castings are commonly used fertilizers. So even if you are not eating meat, you are benefiting from byproducts of animal farming or some animals / bugs are working for the soil.

Animals’ right in living conditions
In terms of animal right, I am more concerned how the farm animals are raised and then put down rather than if someone ever put them down for their consumption. Did you know conventional chickens never see sunlight nor breathe outdoor air for their whole life? From the time they hatch in the machine, they are kept in a crowded factory. Letting them move around is a waste of their food energy and it also increases their dark meat, which sells cheaper than white meat. I also heard chicken wings pinched to restrict their movement.

They are packed in filthy indoor, standing in their own feces. This horrible growing environment causes many diseases, so the chickens are fed with antibiotics regularly. Fast turnover means more profit, so in order to raise them quickly, they are also fed with growth hormone.

And when the day comes, these chickens are dunk in hot water alive. Factory farms don’t even bother to kill the chickens individually. They are drowned, which also wet their feathers, making it easier to handle.

I think, if we are to accept animal products as foods even occasionally, the animals must be raised in a more healthy, humane way. And when the time comes, they should be put down properly. A little prayer would be nice to show respect to the animals who are making the ultimate sacrifice to sustain our life. Traditionally some religions require priests to be present at slaughtering. I think this is a very wise way.

How to actualize humane animal farming
Also, in order for this kind of humane animal farming to happen, overall meat consumption need to be much lower. As long as we eat tons of animal products, there will be businesses that raise animals in quantity and speed, rather than paying attention to quality. Gluttony is a real problem, not occasional considerate consumption.

I’m not sure if refusing to eat meat helps to bring this humane animal farming to happen. Most animal right people just condemn any animal farming/ killing and don’t want to learn how we can improve animal farming. If the whole populations are becoming vegan, this is fine — absolutely no animal farming, period. We don’t need to worry about the way animals are raised and slaughtered. But as long as animal farming exists, we are better off paying attention to the reality of animal farming rather than condemning it.

Vegetarians and spiritual growth

This is a reason that is often implied but seldom explained properly. Often, it is discussed at the moral level in regard to compassion and animal rights, but this is not what I mean here by “spiritual growth”.

What I mean is, by eating “clean” foods, we can evolve into a new physical being that is highly developed spiritually as well.

We are spiritual beings in the physical body. So the condition of our physical body affects our spirituality, and vice versa. When we feed our physical body with clean foods that contain less toxins, our body gets to detox itself and start vibrating higher. This helps our spiritual growth.

On the other hand, if we put in foods that contain a lot of toxins, our body has to take care of them. Many people are hardly keeping up with this cleanup task because they eat so much and so much foods that leave a lot of toxins. When you fall behind the cleanup work, you get ill. There is little room for spiritual activities when you can hardly keep up with the maintenance work of your physical body.

Generally speaking, plant foods are cleaner than animal foods. In other words, plant foods are easier to digest and leave less problematic matter in the system. Plant foods, especially raw.

It’s essential to note that, from this perspective, ALL foods are taxing the body more or less. Even raw plant foods, say, an apple, take some work to digest and assimilate. It’s not a pure form of energy you can use immediately. Your system needs to work to unlock the energy from the matter, that is an apple. Not much cleanup work but still there are work to be done.

Breatharianism
Some people, including some raw food enthusiasts, are starting to notice that they can actually live on much less foods than the conventional nutritional health recommends. They are developing to be a new kind of human, so to say. Their system is growing so clean that they are starting to assimilate the energy of Light.

They may not be a 100% breatharian yet, but they are getting part of their energy needs from Light, including sunlight. (I believe sunlight is part of the whole spectrum of light.) Breatharianism is a way to grow into lightbody, which is the ultimate goal of our physical and spiritual growth.

But, you may argue, “(fill in the name) is spiritual but (I heard) they eat meat.”

First of all, you don’t really know what they eat nor the level of their spiritual growth. For this reason, I’d rather not make a judgment about ANYTHING based on whether a well-known person is on one side of the dogma or not.

Second, notice this is not really a meat eaters vs vegetarians / vegans issue. The point is to clean up our system by eating less, and choosing cleaner foods for what we do still eat. Eating (raw) vegan diet is probably helpful, but I doubt if it’s the only way. If we still need nutrition from foods, then choose the best quality, least toxic foods, whether it is plant or animal based.

Where I am in the development
This topic of breatharianism and lightbody is something I am still researching and experimenting. I am not there yet — far from it. But I do know my body works according to a rule that is not quite covered by today’s nutritional science.

For example, I had a chicken sandwich the other day. Just a simple grilled chicken sandwich. I ate exactly the same other than this exception, the diet that kept me at steady body weight, or rather, that let me lose weight gradually. I gained half pound.

Nutritionally, this doesn’t make sense. In order to gain half a pound, we need about 1600 kcal. One pound = 454 grams.
Body fat contains about 20% water, so the real amount of fat in a pound of body fat is 363 grams.
1 gram of fat = 9 kcal.
363 gram of fat = 3267 kcal.
Therefore, to gain a pound of body fat, it takes 3267 kcal.
Half a pound, 1633 kcal.

A chicken sandwich cannot be 1633 kcal. What happened is my body had to dilute the toxins from the chicken sandwich (by the way, it was organic chicken) because it was too much to process at a time. So it retained a lot of water. I think my body does this because it is getting cleaner, therefore more sensitive to any incoming toxins.

Well, I guess I just uncovered the secret of weight management.  When you eat, rather than just counting the calories, think about how easy and cleanly the food digest. Rather than trying to lose weight / body fat, think detox.  ^_^

And how is my spirituality? Well, it’s hard to tell because I don’t have a point of comparison. I’ve been eating close to vegan for a year now. This chicken sandwich was pretty exceptional. And I don’t remember how my spirituality was more than a year ago. I think I was doing fine back then, but that is just my memory, not a fair comparison. And even if I am dong better, I don’t know if it’s the food or other spiritual practices I do that brought my growth.

What do you think about meat eating vs vegetarian / vegan discussion? How do you eat? Please share in the comment. Thank you. (Photo credit 1, 2, 3, 4)

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