Veganism

[Codo]

Are any of you guys vegan?

My girlfriend is trying to convert me and she showed me a documentary last night that sort of bothered me. It was a little "propaganda-y" in tone for my tastes at first (vegans are annoying), but I learned a lot that I didn't know about animal products being linked to more than a few health conditions that I've always been worried about since they run in my family. Cancer was a big one; I knew that red meat was carcinogenic, but I had no idea about the link between milk and prostate cancer (rBGH, or recombinant Bovine Growth Hormones raises IGF-I levels in the cow's milk, which remains in it after pasteurization, and then ingested in a bioactive form which causes cell divison). There were also links to diabetes, Alzheimers, etc., etc.

The worst part was, the guy in the video contacts representatives of different health organizations and asks them why their websites recommend eating the very things linked to said diseases, and they either have no answers or get very shady. Then they're all funded by the companies that sell these exact same foods. The American Diet Association who comes up with things like the food pyramid, is apparently all just a board of agriculture lobbyists as well. It's like multi-level collusion between the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and health care industries to keep people consuming, getting sick, needing surgeries and medication.

Thoughts?

[MattTolentino02]

First of all, I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian for 20 months now. 

I did this because of a seminar I attended which discussed the different diseases associated with consumption of meat.

I started out as a vegan (1 month only) but I can't give up bread (usually made with egg) and chocolates  . 

My thoughts: Worldwide profit from meat consumption is several trillion dollars; Naturally the big players will do everything in their power to keep the business running whatever the cost may be.

[MsCarrotCake]

I'm a vegetarian, I would love to switch to vegan but it's so incredibly hard! What's also hard however is thinking of the poor chickens that are being kept in cages for their eggs, the roosters that get killed because they're "worthless", the cows that are forced to conceive and then get their baby taken away from them so we will get the milk... It's sad.

I managed to stop buying milk, eggs and cheese, though. At least that's a start.