A friend of mine forwarded me a recent pic of Alicia Silverstone the other day. The subject line was simple: Body by vegan. And yes, it got my attention. Because even though I try to work out two or three times a week, there remains that stubborn five pounds of fat that took hold right around my belly button while I was pregnant with The Barnacle (read: baby) and never came off. Now I know that I’m active and healthy, and I knock wood daily for that. But there is a vain teenager inside of every woman. And on the day that my friend sent me Alicia Silverstone’s picture, that teen spoke up. I wanted to have a body by vegan. Desperately.
My friend happens to be a vegan, mind you. And she also happens to have a smokin’ bod, which may have less to do with the fact that she doesn’t eat animal products, and more to do with the fact that when you don’t eat animal products there is really very little that you can eat. She’s also 25. Bitch.
And my raw foodie friends say that this type of diet—which also happens to fall into the vegan category—means that you have more energy throughout the day, because your body isn’t taxed by processing high density foods like meat. In fact, Ani Phyo, raw food chef extraordinaire and author of Ani’s Raw Food Desserts, swears that eating her chocolate ganache cake (which you can now buy boxed) is actually good for your body. Go figure.
There’s also the environmental factor: Livestock produce methane, which is a major greenhouse gas that some experts say contributes more to global warming than carbon dioxide. “You can’t be an environmentalist and eat meat,” is a PETA-popular phrase.
By Rachel Sarnoff, www.ecostiletto.com
*This photo is courtesy of 944 magazine’s April 2009 cover shoot, styled by the extraordinary Monica Schweiger, who contributes EcoStiletto.com’s fashion page. Stiletto-size me!
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When we dig deeper into questions it always gets more complex. I am a vegetarian, however, for climate crisis, cattle, that is ruminants are essential. Without ruminants we can not have healthy and sustainable pastures and grasslands, the largest potential carbon sink for our human carbon excesses. We used to have equal numbers of bisons roaming the planes but now we have cattle, too bad they are in feed lots. that is what needs changing.
tim
Written in July