Portion Reform | Other things besides meat can be eaten.

The modern-day person is slightly obsessed with proper nutrition, which is not an accident. Scientists and doctors increasingly publicly discuss what foodstuff and groceries are beneficial for health and which ones are harmful to our bodies, therefore should be avoided by all means. Vegan diet: Salvation or sacrifice?

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The question is rhetorical indeed.   Where I come from the food involving meat refers to being a real deal, that "has” and that "you have a good blood picture ", and to me, sometimes it seems like promoting a cult. 
Whenever heard and speculated about some non-standard food, we question whether it's healthy, who is behind that conspiracy and so forth, as if it is the food that we normally eat absolutely okay and has nothing to do with ideology. For the record, to be vegetarian or a vegan, you have to be well informed about it, to plan it, to learn how to cook and prepare some basic forms of the foods veganism diet relays, let’s face it you need to forget about burgers souvlakia and dairy products. It's not your fault, it's a culturally and socially.                                                                                                                                            
I don’t want to scare off any future vegans or people considering to follow this diet but in most countries and here in Cyprus it’s quite a task. Very first thought and question that flash you out is whether this diet and the lifestyle is expensive and complicated. In my opinion there are two types of vegans: "those who are for moral reasons and those who are for health reasons."    

Those who are vegan for health, mostly upper class, buy expensive products without which one can. There is some moral elitism, in the sense that people condemn, but I think it is counterproductive. Honestly, if you can't make out, then avoid talking.
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Now let’s get back on to THE QUESTION is it expensive to follow a vegan diet, well truth to be told comrades vegans and vegans wannabes get your frequencies  set on your highest ZEN mode, it costs a bit of nerves in some situations here in sunny island Cy. You will not come across any difficulties in buying your groceries and other stuff from supermarkets, neither finding any supplements as we know vitamin B complex especially B12 is crucial to vegetarians. Also variety of cosmetic, beauty and make up non animal tested products are highly available. If you are on budget my advice is when you find a product that works, keep buying it.                                                                                           

Every coffee shop here also provides you with soya, oats, coconut, almond and so on non-dairy drinks for your coffees as much as healthy smoothies and freshly squeezed juices, so why did I mention the ZEN mode if everything flows so smoothly around here? Well, in my books one of my biggest adventures as a vegan here is the search for the restaurant. Every time you need to go out  to a  "standard " restaurant, with your ‘’standard’’ carnivores friends  the vegans must in advance do the psychological preparations to ask the questions they have asked a thousand times, and then get the answers that they have heard so many times. The play goes exactly like this and every time:      ‘’Do you offer anything without animal products’’?                                                                                   

Then the first shocker strikes- ‘’Well, we have sea food dishes. Ok, I’m thinking to myself now let’s go once again ‘’Do you offer anything without animal products’’?                                                                  
‘’Well, we can make you grilled vegetables and fries.’’                                                                                         
 ‘’Do French fries fry in oil or grease or lard (though most probably in infamous palm oil)                                
 ‘’in the oil, yes.’’                                                                                                                                                     
‘’Are French fries fried in a fryer where meat was also fried or not?  
(Some are not polite enough to say this right now, and a further question must be asked)                  
 Yes. Well, okay, then I'll just take grilled vegetables. And tones of salad.                                                 
 
The fun just does not stop here so the shocker number two is arising, the same question but now you will get the cocky answer, and no Oscar here… Vegan Burger А.К.А. peas, corn, cauliflower sometimes including red kidney beans, bread crams or even eggs in some variations, compressed into something that should mimic a burger. Manufacturers are not even ashamed to call it a burger without having the taste, texture or nutritional value of a conventional burger, at the same price or even higher, most of the times higher because it is tagged after all as HEALTHY choice. It strongly confirms my beliefs that everything spins around consumers industry as it is in every pore of the society.                                                
If you have a sugar crush or a sweet tooth here comes the struggle, you have to turn into Sherlock Holmes and carry around the magnifying glass in order to check the bars and crisps that are tagged as suitable for vegans and vegetarians, most probably the traces of milk and other non-friendly vegan ingredients to be found. Definitely, search for a pastry shop is pretty much of a task too.      The situation here is similar. I'm starting to think it's necessary to be rich to be a vegan and have a really wonderful cake, not some carrot layer homemade ugly pancake look alike cake, you know the drill made with love…Certainly not good enough for me.                                                                              

​As I’ve seen pastry shop would struggle to make everything with avocado and no sugar, because they are leaded by the idea that their only possible target group, in addition to vegans,  are some rich women on diets. That would be about it forget about some nice vegan cupcake or handmade bar in most cases, you really need to put an effort to track that one.                                          

​Absolutely it does not have to be that way because the existence of one more super hybrid diet and a way of life that merges veganism and vegetarianism in the best way possible fixed on ideas about types of food drawn from Zen Buddhism.

The diet attempts to balance the supposed yin and yang elements of food and cookware. It doesn’t get better than this. For those who know macrobiotic diet the power of healing foods and betterment in lifestyle and spiritual being. I do not preach to people how meat is murder neither am the activist of Peta or green peace but if anyone asks  me for my advice  I will be glad to explain how to try and be healthy, pretty and happy, to live your life with passion and adventure, through the simple practice of macrobiotics. 


Despite the efforts based on facts to explain the benefits of veganism there is the other scientific force which proves just the opposite to what I stand for. Here is a glimpse of an article that was published in VEGANLife :    ’’South African Tim Noakes is the face of the low carb, high fat (LCHF) diet, also called the Banting diet, and he makes no secret of the fact that he does not approve of vegan and vegetarian diets.
He has gone one step further now, saying that people cannot survive on a vegan diet.
Noakes told the Huffington Post South Africa: “There’s never been a society that can survive on a completely vegetarian or vegan diet. We have to have some animal products. Vegan people survive because you can get some of the nutrition you need from supplements, which means it’s not a complete diet.
“But you are still not getting adequate protein. You can survive on a 100% animal diet, but you cannot survive 100% on a vegan diet.
“We became humans when we started to eat animal produce. When we became carnivores we said it is much easier to eat an animal, than have to carry around this huge gut.
“Now what’s happening is that vegans and vegetarians are trying to convert the biology of humans to the way we were 3 million years ago, and we can’t do that. There is one species that tried, the Panda Bear, and it is one of the most unhealthy animals on earth.”
Noakes went on to say: “The only way we will save the planet is by going back to meat eating. By having farms where animals are eating grass, and manuring the land, means that all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could return if they start more meat production.”
“Topsoil is disappearing due to plant-based agriculture, and I worry that you can’t continue like this much longer because the myth that livestock is driving environmental issues is driven by the fossil fuel industry and they are very powerful obviously.
“People like Bill Gates, and Richard Branson, are very powerful, and more people are saying they are going to be eating plant-based diets because of them, but the move against meat-based diets is unfounded, and irresponsible to promote at this stage.”
Article source: https://www.veganlifemag.com/cannot-survive-vegan-diet-tim-noakes/ 

After all, the choice should be based individually on your organism and your personal beliefs. Though let’s face it, if a glorious athlete like Novak Djokovic in his full force follows basic vegan diet - with slight modifications e.g. a gluten free diet to suit his allergies- for so many years, how come people will not survive 100% on vegan diet?
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