On the Vegetarian Mental Disorders Study

So on r/Paleo somebody posted a study showing that vegetarians have a higher incidence of mental disorders.  The gist of it is that they direct-matched data from vegetarians with non-vegetarians and predominantly-vegetarian-eaters and found that depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and somatoform disorders are more common in vegetarians.  More interestingly, the onset of these disorders tends to happen after people go vegetarian.

Do we really know why?  No.  There are undoubtedly paleo and primal eaters out there who believe it is a nutritional thing... I don't.  As an ex-vegan, I have my own way of looking at this, by which I mean this finding is not shocking when you consider what disorders we're talking about.  And while vegetarianism is not an inherently healthy lifestyle, I don't think it's due to the common nutritional errors in thinking vegetarians tend to make.  I think it has to do with the kind of mental environment they are in.

Depression and anxiety are both chemical and social disorders.  What I mean by that is that there are plenty of people who get depression and anxiety for what feels like absolutely no reason... there are plenty of others, though, that get depression and anxiety due to outside pressures.  In 2006 I was working on a political campaign for several months that led to harassment and property damage.  Even worse, we lost.  It got to the point where several of us needed psychiatrists because we were suffering from anxiety and depression.  I would have panic attacks over the phone to my parents.  And actually, during Wisconsin's recall election the same thing happened for the same reason.

Now think about the social environment of the vegetarian, especially the vegan.  Vegans are in the position where they believe 99% of the people they care for, that they associate with, that they are surrounded by every day are supporting cruel and murderous practices.  They are aware that animals are being killed by humans by the thousands in their own backyards and that there is very little they can actually do about that.  And while this comparison is inaccurate and rightfully seen as absolutely insensitive to most non-vegetarians, vegans easily view this as an animal holocaust that everybody seems to support except them.

Pile in the fact that people often outright refuse to accommodate their eating choices and make them the constant butt of jokes.  They're guilted by relatives for not eating the turkey, they constantly have to ask for modifications when they go out to eat at a restaurant, and they have to deal with a lot of insensitivity from other people.

This is enough to make anybody extremely anxious and depressed.  So that doesn't surprise me.

Then you have somatoform disorders.  These are maladies for which there is no apparent medical cause... hypochondria, for instance.  And every restrictive diet makes it easy to have somatoform conditions.  Have you ever witnessed a long-term vegetarian accidentally eat something with meat in it?  Some of them are chill about it, if annoyed, but there are a lot of them who will dramatically freak out over it, thinking they're really ill.  When I was at summer camp somebody put pepperoni in the spaghetti, which one of the vegetarians ate.  She bawled for hours.  People were reassuring her on ethical grounds without realizing that it wasn't because she had killed an animal, it was because she hadn't eaten meat since she was three years old and vegetarian culture--and her parents--had told her time and time again that she could no longer handle meat.  My vegetarian friends seriously do feel that this is going to make them violently ill.  One of my Facebook friends recently wrote a rant about how using the same knife to cut meat and then cut vegetables could cause a vegetarian to become sick because she "can't handle it anymore."

Alright, let's be really fucking blunt here:  Vegetarians are not going to get sick if they eat meat unless they have a legitimate (and rare) intolerance to it.  But they aren't just being dramatic, either.  When I was a vegetarian I decided I would try freeganism and bit into quesadilla made with ingredients I had rescued from being thrown down the garbage disposal.  Because I still had that vegetarian mindset, though, I wound up vomiting and getting a stomachache.  When I flat out gave up vegetarianism in favor of paleo, the first thing I ate was a steak.  I hadn't eaten meat in six years at that point (the quesadilla incident having been far gone) and suffered no ill effects.

The problem with using this to damn vegetarianism is that it's common among all restrictive diets, like I said before.  Personally?  I feel really ill when I eat grain, especially whole wheat.  Even when I decided paleo wasn't necessary, whole wheat gave me a stomachache the entire time.  But I can't entirely rule out the possibility that it is entirely somatic, because other paleo and primal eaters constantly talk about how much sugar and grain make them feel sick.  I have no doubt it does, and it's a perfectly good reason not to eat it... but without actual tests, we just don't know.  Just using testimonials we'd have to assume that everything anybody ever omits on a restrictive diet makes people ill.  Meat, grain, fruit, dairy, cooked food, raw food, Jesus, we can't eat anything without becoming violently ill!

The point here is, of course, that studies like this don't actually damn vegetarianism... all they really do for me is confirm what I already know about it, which is that culturally vegetarianism is great at churning out certain mental disorders.

On the other hand, though, not many environments aren't.

New Scale, and a Microwave Brownie Cake

A weight update and a recipe?  Madness!

I bought a new scale today.  It's a digital scale that also gives body fat percentage and a few other numbers, and is more accurate than my other scale, which could vary five pounds in a matter of seconds.

So my weight right now is around 220 rather than 218 like my other scale said... but that's not a big deal; just a two pound difference, and my weight varies more than that anyway.  My body fat percentage is roughly 40% which, despite being abysmal, is lower than I would have expected.

I've been having sweets attacks like mad, and because of this today I made a microwave brownie.  I forgot where I got the recipe I modified this from...I'll keep looking, but I can't seem to find it.  Whatever.

Microwave Brownies with Pecans

To make this, you need:

• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin or squash.
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder.
• 2 tablespoons whey powder or coconut flour (I've tried both, I prefer the whey but they're both good).
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans.
• 2 egg whites.
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey (or another sweetener if you want, or omit).
• a few pinches baking powder (makes it fluffy... you can omit if you want to avoid the corn or sodium).
• A microwave-safe soup bowl.
• Some oil.

Oil the inside of the soup bowl.  Add all the ingredients to it and mix until all the lumps are sorted out (if it's not perfect it'll still taste OK... in my example above I didn't get all the pumpkin mixed in).

Put in the microwave and cook on high for 1-4 minutes.  If you have a microwave that burns stuff really fast like the powerhouse we use at work, tend toward one minute.  My microwave gets it in about three minutes.

If you want to avoid the baking powder, I hear from some folks that you can just whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold everything else into it.  I'll have to try that before I actually endorse it, though.

Cherry Coconut Lemonade

Yesterday I had some really wicked soda cravings.  To get through that, I made this:

It's cherry lemonade made with coconut water (I use coconut water for a lot of things because it's good for blood pressure).  I don't have the ingredients down exact, but the gist of it is:

• Roughly a half cup lemon juice.
• Roughly a cup coconut water (or regular water).
• A little over a quarter cup cherries (I used frozen pie cherries) or other fruit.
• A tablespoon maple syrup (optional, depends on what fruit you use).

Put it in a blender.  It may be the blender or the fact that I used frozen fruit or something else entirely, but I wind up with a massive amount of pleasant-tasting foam on top that does not de-foam.  I'm thinking about trying this again and freezing the foam to see if it turns out like a sherbert.  Chill it for a while so the foam and other stuff separates and when you skim it all off you wind up with something like the above.

And it was pretty good... nailed the cravings, at least.

A Weight Milestone

I didn't eat bad yesterday.  I basically ate that container of apple cider pork I photographed, bacon, eggs, avocados, and one more apple.  I don't really have much to say about it so I'm not putting a run-down.  Those are going to come more sporadically because I'm bored of 'em already and I'm sure you are, too.

My milestone today?  I am in the 210s.  I weigh 219 pounds as of today, which is four pounds away from where I left off the last time I went primal, 39 pounds away from my goal, and a full 50 pounds lighter than my peak weight.

So break out the kazoos!  OK, never mind, don't do that.  'Twould be obnoxious.

To celebrate (or rather just because it's a good idea) my new "running goal" is to walk my dog every day.  Because he's a sweetheart who deserves it.

With a face like that...

And also to prepare for Pridefest which is next week.  In diet-related terms, what I am wondering is if I should take this as a cheat day or if I should try to primal-ize the experience.  Let's be honest, I'm thinking it'll be the former, because it'll be a day of street food.  Generally it is too expensive for me to overindulge there, though, so I'm not particularly worried.

Speaking of indulging, I don't know if I brought up my big problem, which is that my dad does not understand my eating decisions.  You know those lists of "Ten Things Never to Say/Do to a Dieter?"  Dad breaks a lot of those rules.  Many of them contradicting.  When I was younger, he was the one who most ragged me about my weight--I'm too old (and male) for him to really get away with it now, but he still has that kind of attitude... while at the same time trying to "help" me by buying me food.

It makes sense.  I'm his son, I'm low-income (I can afford food, but only barely), so he thinks that by buying it he's helping me.  The problem is that no matter what I tell him, he doesn't understand the basics of my diet.  He didn't when I was a vegan and he doesn't now.  So a couple days ago I was stressed out as all hell because he decided to bring home four packages of candy.  Because it was ethnic candy from a Mexican import store and one of the ingredients in one was sweet potatoes, which I have eaten occasionally, he assumed I would like it and brought it.

Like an idiot I told him I'd use it for cheat days.  What I need to tell him instead is "don't buy me food.  Ever."  I very nearly had a sugar binge on it.  Luckily for me, it was terrible tasting stuff with weird spices and so I only one piece of each variety (a total of around 400 calories) and spat out almost all of one of them (the most calorically dense, meaning I probably only actually ate around 250 calories).  I told him this when I got home and said not to buy food for me anymore.  He said he won't, but I don't know.

Well, we'll see.  Today was a good day, hopefully another tomorrow.

Apple Cider Pork

I make a lot of lunchboxes.  This isn't ideal, but I work long hours and away from home, so it's essential that I make good lunchboxes to avoid succumbing to Taco Bell like everyone else.  This is my new favorite lunchbox filler:

Apple Cider Pork
I make a lot of pork, for many reasons.  It's less expensive than beef, it's delicious, and it's my God's sacred animal.  I make a lot of it with apple cider these days, to avoid drenching it in barbecue sauce, usually just pan-fried in a little lard with some cider thrown in halfway through the cooking process.

This, though, is my favorite recipe.

I started with two large pork chops.  Start some lard (two teaspoons this time) on my frying pan and cut the chops into strips with a meat scissors.  If you're left with a bone that still has a good amount of meat on it, toss that in there too so you have something to chew after.  I brown the outsides a little before adding enough apple cider vinegar to cover them about halfway.

At this point I cut up an apple (in this case a red delicious, any apple works but a baking apple would be better) and an onion.  When they're cut, I put them in the mix with the pork and mix it all up.  Put some seasoning on it to taste (I admit I just use a little Lawry's Seasoned Salt).  Cover the pan and let it cook down.  I like it when everything's all caramelized and gooey, you can see some of the blackness from the vinegar and water having all cooked away.  Pay attention, though, because you don't want it too burnt.

It also tastes good if you just cook it down until there's a nice apple-onion-vinegar sauce.