veggie vegan omni ital? whats your diet and hows it relate to your dreadiness (if at all)

I am an omnivore, not just biologically like all other humans as is well established, but in my general eating habits as well.

My main protein sources are meats and fish though I also consume dairy and eggs to some extent.

The reasons I don't go vegetarian nor vegan are 4.
Health, Money, Ethics and Spirituality.

This seems strange to a lot of people, 'specially militant/aggressive vegans and vegetarians and others who've bought into the variouspropagandamachines, but these reasons are all logically and rationally based and thought out.

1. Health.
The human body breaks down proteins into it's base components,aminoacids.
The human body needs eight different amino acids that it can not produce itself, it's these amino acids we need to get from our protein sources to be healthy.
There only protein source that provides us with all eight essential amino acids is animal based. Meat, fish, dairy and eggs.
To obtain all eight amino acids without eating animal products we need to eat a very wide variety of non-animal based protein sources.

2. Money.
I live in an island in the middle of the north Atlantic.
Locally grown/caught animal based protein sources are affordable. One of my favorite ones being lambs' hearts and they retail for approximately 90 cents a pound (usd).
If I were to become a vegan I would need to pay a minimum of ten times that a pound for a single protein source, if not a hundred times that. While 100 grams of heart will provide me with my daily allowance of all eight amino acids, I would have to eat up to 500 grams (almost a pound) of non-animal protein sources to sustain my physical needs.
I am disabled and disability does not pay well and I have 6 mouths to feed.
I literally can not afford it.

3. Ethics.
Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't do it.
Locally grown/caught animals and fish are nearly all free range, with the exception of some pig farming and some chicken farming, and even then they are given far more space and a far more humane treatment than in the factory farms of USA.
It is not possible to grow all of the required protein in Iceland as our climate does not support it.
Therefore, most of what I would eat would be imported.
This presents a number of problems, a) I can't know with absolute certainty how it was grown, whether the workers got treated fairly nor whether the growing of my food is causing damage to the local ecology of wherever it's grown, b) an unacceptable amount of fossil fuel would be burned in order to either fly or ship my groceries into my country, causing far more pollution than if I were to keep eating an animal-protein based diet.
With 6 mouths to feed, 3 of 'em human, this would result in us being responsible for a lot more pollution than I'm remotely comfortable with.

4. Spirituality.
I am closely tied to the land I live in, the spirits of the land, the spirits of my ancestors, and the history and cultural heritage of the aforementioned.
Eating meat is a part of this cycle, but doing so while respecting the animal is key.
I respect my food.
I honor my food.
I understand it's origin and it's life.
I can not do that with food I can't track down to it's home-field.

updated by @hans-miniar-jnsson: 07/27/15 11:14:47AM

Most of your reasons are incorrect/do not make sense.1: All essential amino acids can be gotten from vegan sources. DHA/EPA and vitamin B-12 are the only issues, and they can be supplemented very easily. I personally don't have a problem with eating certain species of fish as my main issue is with factory farms.Humans need very little protein. The Okinawans lived much longer lives off less then 10% protein (40 grams). I don't say you should copy them, but if a guy like me can train and grow on 250 grams, then anyone can live off that amount barring 7 foot tall folks.2: Vegan is virtually always cheaper. Meat is expensive. The only exception is if you can eat fish/game. How do you get food in Iceland for the animals? That food also has to be shipped, so how exactly can the meat be cheaper when all associated costs with transport are not avoided by eating meat? Is it subsidized?3: See 2. Regardless, meat would cause more pollution. The food for animals still has to be shipped, animals require more food then they produce. Virtually all of the food I eat is imported aswell. As long as the food has a very long shelf life it should not be expensive. Dried foods, for instance. I can get roughly 230 gram of protein from legumes for around 2 (less actually, but whatever). That same amount of protein would cost me 6 buying the cheapest meat (cheap equals mistreated animals, by the way). Furthermore, the legumes would have a much lower protein content. Bad for dieting, good for driving overall cost down as the legumes have around twice as much total calories. 1/3 price, same protein, twice the calories. You could easily feed your family (the human ones atleast) for 1/6th of the price of meat.4: So you listen to Amon Amarth?A cow will not give a rats ass about respect and honor before, during, or after its visit to your plate. You can never be 100% certain about the treatment of an animal unless you raise it yourself. Tracking down or not.

I believe, not from scientific research, or any other book learnt fact, but from my own conscience, that if it does not come from a plant I don't need it.

I have been vegetarian for about twelve years, I had scientific blood analysis done two years ago and everything was in normal range. No supplements at all.

peace and blessings

ToTheAnkles! said:

Most of your reasons are incorrect/do not make sense.

1: DHA/EPA and vitamin B-12 are the only issues

1. I worded poorly.
There's only one place to get them all at onceand that's in meat, fish and etc.

2. Grass, wild grass, and wild herbs.
They're free range you know....

3. ^

4. No.

Its amazing how much your body changes after being avegetarian!

I was avegetarian for four years, then decided after living with mycarnivoreboyfriend for a year to slowly introduce meat into my life. After two years, or trying to eat some things, beef and milk make me sick, usually a terrible stomach ache...and a day on the pot

but if im in MX in my home town, drinking milkstraightfrom a cow, warm and frothy, i have no stomach problems...(So Strange!)

But my tummy loves raw fish, and seafood the most then cooked fish, or chicken is ok.

We get our meat from local farms or our whole foods stores, and sometimes their beef isn't as bad on my tummy, but we live in AK and eat mostly moose, bear, salmon, halibut, clams, muscles, or reindeer. He eats meat everyday, i do maybe 3-4 day out of the week, im still custom to cooking loads of amazing veggie meals!

soaring eagle said:

its my understanding that humans are not designed to eat meat and can only digest it because of microorganisms in the intestines that break it down for you. once they die, you cannot digest meat so it becomes toxic to you. or at least undigestable...its alien to the natural human diet

this is why we cook meat, humans cannot survive on raw meat..
if meat was natural to us we would have the claws and teeth needed to rip into a living animal..wed be able to kill prey with only hands and teeth, but no our hands are best for picking fruites, leaves , our fingernails arent sufficient for peircing flesh and although a bite can cause a lil blood we cant tear flesh from bone
long long ago fire alowed us to cook meat so we could eat it..this was our 1st deviation from our natural evolution..and began a long gradual weakening of the species

also, nutrients..all nutrients originate in soil water and sunlight..plants contain all the nutrients that give us life, herbivores then absorb these nutrients and carnivores absorb them second hand through the flesh of the herbavores..its seperating us from the source of life through death, digesting the dead carcass of the animal that ate the nutrients we need

I'm a vegan. I stopped eating meat over a year and a half ago and I finally managed to cut out dairy and eggs now too. I didn't really find it that difficult though because once I have my mind made up I stick to it.
My friend tried but couldn't quite stay vegan. She gives into temptation a lot more easily while I'm able to sit there eating grapes while the rest of my friends eat pizza.
I think going vegan opened my eyes to how much better I can feel without dairy though. I've found so many alternatives. Just today I had chili hot chocolate made with soy milk and coconut whipped cream.
There are so many alternatives and I feel really lucky to have found them all.

I'm a strict omnivore.
Plate full of vegetables. Yum. Plate full of meat. Yum.
I eat both as it is convenient, nutritious and cost effective.

I could survive as a vegetarian if need be, but would miss meat.
However I could never be a vegan. A vegan diet would not be able to sustain my current build and I would see loses and decrease in advancement to my athletic abilities, which to me is unacceptable.

Let me just say I LOVE milk, I grew up in a very humble barrio so chocolate milk was like a candy. But lately I've been "vegan-ized". I had dated a full on organic/vegan/raw foodist years ago when I was stationed in San Diego but I never got into it. Her kitchen was like a Jamba Juice with wheat grass growing in a container and all kinds of nuts, berries & veggies for juicing. Everything had to be locally grown & organic, even her clothes down to her organic rubber soled hemp sandals. The dreads have slowly accomplished what my gastronaut girlfriend never could, I've slowly left animal products little by little.

It started by getting more educated on hair of course, which made me take a closer look at the products I was using on my hair. Which led me to discover how harmful normal detergent soaps truly are for us and I made the switch to locally made artisan soaps from a little shop in my town ( http://www.flagstaffsoap.com ) which happen to be vegan soaps. As I learned more information I started doing away with more & more animal products. It started with red meat, I started to see improvements slowly, so I cut out poultry as well. Slowly but surely my refrigerator became a vegitable garden. The last hold outs where Ahi tuna, cheese & of course milk.

The cheese flavor I missed I found I could have simply by using nutritional yeast in my recipes. For instance tonight I will be making pasta with an Alfredo sauce made from cauliflower puree with almond milk, sauted garlic, vegan balance butter & nutritional yeast. With meat, I discovered if you substitute with highly textured foods like portobello and lots of varied beans that also fill you up quick you don't miss it at all especially if smoke them outside over misquite wood. For my Ahi tuna fish tacos I now use Tempeh and right now I'm drinking coconut milk. What I love of about vegan recipes is you really have to do your research and be intelligent enough to find substitutes & creative enough to make them taste good.

Now I'm starting to look at my clothes, my gastronaut girlfriend would be proud.

evolution takes millions of years and thousands of years of cow town diets have made us uncredibly unhealthy and obese

heart disease clogged arteries high colesterol and blood pressure

colon cancer etc etc the list goes on all caused by meat consumption thats not adaptation its self harming abuse

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1
updated by @soaring-eagle: 07/24/15 12:04:41PM