Category: Veganism

Yes, you read that right, a vegan butcher.

From
https://www.theunion.com/news/local-news/a-meaty-matter/

Marc Mongiardo is a vegan butcher at the BriarPatch Co-op Community Market’s meat department.

snip……

“I know I live in a world where most people eat meat, but I feel that being a butcher for natural meat allows more options,” Mongiardo said. “If everyone in the town ate natural meat, they’d be better off because there’s no hormones, antibiotics or chemicals in natural meat.”

Their isn’t enough agriculture land left to provide everyone with meat produced that way and meat produced that way at a price they can afford. The population of the planet has grown too big and modern agricultural has destroyed too many resources. While the animals raised in such conditions may eat a better diet, they still suffer horrible conditions and are still killed in a brutal way.

The difference in the level of cruelty ( and environmental cost ) between conventional and alternative meat production methods is at best superficial. The most noticeable difference is price. Alternative meat producers can charge you a lot more. That is why many of them are getting into alternatively labeled meat. They can use mostly the same practices they have always used, but charge people a much higher price. If you really want to do something about reducing animal cruelty or the environmental cost of your meat consumption save your money and just eat less meat. You can also go Vegan.

Having written that I have a problem with this butcher’s veganism.

The word “vegan” was coined by Donald Watson and his wife in the late 1940s. Rather than diet their definition refers to the ethical belief that it is wrong to exploit animals ( use animals for our own “selfish” purposes ). Using animals includes egg, dairy, and clothing production. The Watson’s coined this definition after having discovered that animals still get killed, still lead lives immersed in cruelty, even if they are not used for meat. The original definition of the word “vegan”, only about 60 years old, defines a “vegan” as a person holding and living by a particular ethical belief

This butcher may eat a vegan diet, but I don’t see how he could be a vegan. He eats the diet, but he doesn’t hold the beliefs that define the word “vegan”.

Philosophical matters aside, I don’t see how he can truly care about animals and cut their bodies apart for a living without some serious compartmentalization ( hypocrisy ) going on.

I had a nice experience this afternoon.

I put on a new “Vegan” t-shirt I bought at Summerfest ( https://summerfest.navs-online.org/about-vegan-summerfest/) and headed down to the mall in Washington D.C.

I walked around a lot on the mall and spent a lot of time at the Hirschorn.

Two strangers in two separate incidents stopped me and told me that they really liked my t-shirt with “Vegan” in big letters on it.

A lot of people and organizations are “afraid” to use the “v-word” ( “vegan” ) for fear of “scaring” people away by “setting the bar too high”, so many orgs use “vegetarian”. Having done a lot of direct work with the public there is a lot to this idea.

I’m sure that is still true, but my experiences today make me hopeful that as with its predecessor “vegetarian”, “vegan” is moving away from being a “dirty word” in the United States.

I believe “dirty words” stop being dirty words when people use them.

My experiences today have encouraged me to keep using the word “vegan” instead of “vegetarian” whenever I can.

Here is a picture of the t-shirt

A vegan strength coach speaks:

From
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1587252

A Dose of Remedios
An Interview with NSCA Coach of the Year,
Robert Dos Remedios
by Alwyn Cosgrove

Robert Dos Remedios is the current NSCA Strength Coach of the Year. When the biggest strength and conditioning organization in the world says that someone is the best they’ve got, we should listen.

<snip>

T-Nation: What are your thoughts on nutrition? Also, as a vegan yourself, any thoughts on vegan athletes?

Dos: I’m about as old-school as they come when it comes to nutritional recommendations. For mass gain, eat! You have to have a calorie surplus if you want to gain mass. Also, you need to train your behind off! From my experience, most folks just don’t understand what training hard really means.

For fat loss, I’m a big proponent of interval-style training. Whether it’s running on a treadmill or spinning in a cycle class, you really need to get out of your traditional aerobic state when training. It just makes so much more sense to train this way as it’s much more calorically challenging.

As for vegan athletes, I only had a couple in my career and both were female. I have some solid insight into this though since I’ve been a vegan for over 18 years. For me, it’s all about getting enough calories from varied food sources. Like any athlete, a vegan athlete should be eating all day long: snacking on fruits and vegetables, Clif bars, trail mix, etc. Soy or other vegetable protein shakes should become a part of your performance life.

I’ve had no problem maintaining muscle mass and strength and power on a vegan diet. While I’m no longer an athlete, I do like to think that I train pretty hard every day. A typical day for me looks something like this: bowl of oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, post-workout soy protein shake, Clif bar, two soy meat sandwiches and one-fourth cup of nuts for lunch, couple of pieces of fruit, huge salad with at least two to three types of beans, couple of cups of pasta with marinara sauce, fruit, pea-rice protein shake for dessert.

Guess what, guys? You can get jacked and strong as hell without ever eating a single animal product,

<snip>

Don’t believe the hype, boys. It’s always funny as hell when some 140 pound “bodybuilder” is concerned with eating anything that might have traces of soy in it because he doesn’t want it to negatively affect his Testosterone levels. Uh, sorry pal, but you got many other problems to worry about.

I’ve carried around 245 pounds with approximately 11-12% body fat for many, many years now with no ill effects. If you guys saw how much soy I eat, well, let’s just say that I should be Roberta by now.