but you eat meat!!

"Texas beef growers sued Oprah.
She won in court because
she had the money to fight teams
of corporate lawyers.
You don't."
- Roger Ebert in his review of Food, Inc.

I was a hardcore, self-righteous vegan for many years.
How did that work for me?
Look at me now.

(P.S. I'm happy to be part of Fight Back Friday! Click here)

This is what a diet high in carbs (yes, even the high quality, high fiber carbs) did for me.
The bypass didn't help.
Malabsorption of nutrients is a guaranteed way to ensure that you'll always be hungry, always be craving food and eventually lose your ability to heal.
Poor nutrition does that in general.

Our bodies are smart.
When we try to outsmart them with fake foods, diets, surgeries and pharmaceuticals we make our bodies sick.
Nature is powerful.
Nature seeks balance. We screw with the balance of nature we pay the consequences.

In Food, Inc. the filmmakers expose the god-awfulness of our current food industry especially the cruelty to animals that leads to sick meat that leads to sick people.

For the record, I am not advocating eating factory farmed meats.
When I talk about protein consumption
and meat eating
I'm specifically talking about
the meat you get from a local, organic, small farm where the animals DO roam free, eat fresh grass and never need antibiotics.

If you're thinking
MEAT IS MURDER
no matter where I get it from,
then my argument ends here.

I know that even the happy smiling pigs and cows get their throats slit on the small, organic, private farm, but the process, including their deaths, are vastly different than the life to death cycle of the factory farmed animal.

See Food, Inc. or read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for more on that issue.

But please don't call my meat "dead".
Grass-fed and finised meat is full of enzymes - biological catalysts that create chemical reactions necessary for proper nutrition. Without enzymes we wouldn't be able to build/heal tissue.

"Enzymes are required for healing,
digestion, energy and all functions of the body.
Enzyme rich food is considered clean fuel for the body.
Our goal was to clean the body then feed the body."

- Dr. Michale Hatrak founder of Synergy Release Therapy

I've done enough research and made enough mistakes to know that I'm better off eating meat (grass-fed and finished) than I was bulking up on whole grains and tofu.

I need meat to bring me back to life.

Today I feel like a dead body coming back to life...slowly.

The rain is relentless here in NJ.
I don't know how everyone is doing in the rest of the world but over here we're downright soggy.

It's not like it's just a rainy day with on and off showers.
I'm talking about steady rain from heavy to steady and back again,
the kind of rain that makes it impossible to look too far into the distance.
Sometimes on a rainy day on campus you'll see some folks holding their books over their head for quick shelter or walking with their hoods up.

Not today.
Today is umbrella weather.
Even the tough guys are carrying their bumbershoots.

I was fortunate enough to get a handicapped spot right next to the building where I'm teaching today. Yes, I am grateful, but parking close to the building as a wheelchair bound person is different than parking close to the building as an able person.

As an able person I could hold an umbrella over my head.
I could walk briskly and avoid being soaked too badly.
Doing this in a wheelchair?
God have mercy.

Getting the chair out of the car, setting it up, attaching the foot rests, hanging my backpack on the handles and closing up the car....already I was wringing-wet.
My raincoat was waterlogged.
The three shawls that I had strategically wrapped myself in were water logged and I had not even begun to wheel myself to the building.

Have you ever tried to wheel yourself in a wheel chair with wet hands?

By the time I got myself inside I may as well have just rolled through a carwash in a convertible with the top down.
I was a drenched, dripping mess.

I swear I'll never complain about walking in the rain ever again.

But first, I need to walk.
Getting on my feet requires meat.

Meat
feet
eat
repeat.

Go see Food, Inc. (click here for a theatre near you)
Montclair folks, it will be a the Clairidge June 26th!

*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
He talks about the idyllic image of the farm with the silo and the grass and the 1930s farmhouse.
Do your health a favor, find a real farmer who has the silo and the grass and the farmhouse!
Food, Inc. is based on "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan who is featured in the film. click here or click below