I'm being more aware these days, very awfully picky about what I eat and what to avoid.
Going fully organic at the moment is not feasible, as I do eat out, and most places don't order organic produce. Its also a big blow on the budget. By putting the 'Organic' label on your foods, the food marts will markup up 3-10 times non-organic ones.
Its really stupid that by not polluting or poisoning your vegetables with pesticides and inorganic nitrite fertilizers will cost more than the poisoned ones we are getting in the supermarkets.
Whenever I can, I eat some organic fruits. I also try to eat more local green organic vegetables when available. My motto is, if the fruit or vegetable is unusually way too big than it should be, growth hormones are usually used. Fruits which are more susceptible to pest like berries are usually more heavily sprayed. So Avoid!
These are the ones that are more heavily sprayed with pesticides (not in any order)
1. Peaches & Nectrines
2. Cherries
3. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
4. Bell Peppers, chillies
5. Lettuce
6. Grapes
7. Potatos
8. Carrots
9. Apples
10. Pears
11. Plums
12. Tomato
13. Passion Fruit
14. Pomegrantes
The fruits with growth hormones
1. Mango (jumbo ones we occassionally see in the markets)
2. Watermelon
3. Honeydew
4. Peaches
What organic foods I eat nowdays
I need to know more non-meat eating friends!
The lack of non-meat eaters in my social circle is hampering my gradual progress to vegetarianism. Everyone I know who enjoys food are all big meat eaters and it is definately not helping! The vegetarians i know are not big foodist and not really into exploring new food joints!
How would you balance the foodist and non-foodist in your social circle?
Do vegetarians only have vegetarian friends?
How do they survive in the world of big meat eaters?
When is Roasted Pig Skin not Pork?
Link source from http://www.flickr.com/photos/loupiote/97453730/
This happened to me, not once, but three times.
Given that I don't eat Mammals, that includes pig, one might actually realise that and stop offering me meat.
First time someone offered me Roasted Pork Skin was in Bali. Pork is huge in Bali. Its one of the rare places in Indonesia where eating the pig is allowed, so it was rather popular. The famous Balinese dish, Babi Guning (Roasted Piglet) was served everywhere. My nice Indonesian friend who treated us all to lunch ordered a Babi Guning for us to experience Balinese Cuisine. Of course i politely declined and mentioned I don't eat mammals.
She insisted and cajoled , 'I know you don't take Pork, but at least eat the skin, its well roasted and delicious'. Once again I declined, and still she continued,
'You should really eat the skin, it's not meat, taste a little.'
Second time, was the family who went to a pretty popular Cantonese Restaurant and along with the other traditional Roasted Cantonese meats promptly ordered Roasted Crispy Skin Pork (Siew York). The family insisted that I should try the pork. Once again they had forgotten that I didn't eat meat despite me reminding them constantly that I haven't been eating mammals for few years.
'Try the skin its very cripsy, don't take meat, just eat the skin'
Recently, I had a business function at a old Teochew Restaurant, Guan Hin which served rather good traditional Teochew dishes. The host had specially organised a roasted piglet for each table.
I politely declined citing I don't take red meat. The host decided that even thought I don't take mammals, I could still eat the skin. He proceeded to promptly slap a big fat portion of the pork slice and the extra skin on my plate.
'Come come, I know you don't take meat, just take the meat off and eat the skin, its not meat'
The logic of Mammal eaters, I don't get it.
No doubt "this skin is not meat issue" is gonna continue.
Here's a photo of the famous Babi Guning.
Why I decided on my No-mammal diet?
Wadda you mean
No Mammals!
My answer changes every time
It began as a health reason, I was a huge meat lover, when the faddish Atkins diets came out, I was overjoyed, thanked Dr Atkins for putting a whole stamp on this diet. Hated my veggies and deeply loved my Beef and Roo. Obsessed about anything gamey and bloody.
Being on a pure meat diet, biologically, my body was emitting so much heat or yang qi, a good friend who was a TCM student (traditional chinese medicine) actually felt hot just sitting next to me. He had mentioned I had an overly yang energy field and that brought on a lot of side effects.
I had difficulties adjusting to the warm tropical climate and often stick myself to air-conditioned places whenever I could. I was perspiring profusely and felt heavy all the time.
Then I was introduced into Theosophy and Spiritualism. I had a few spiritual awakenings while doing a lot of inner works. Through these awakenings, I came to realise it made sense not to eat Mammals, animals with higher conscious than the rest of the animal kingdom. Being on meat diet made me depressive, hot tempered, easy agitated, I had always been a rather high-strung person and being on the meat diet partly attributed that. Eliminating them from my body helped for more clearer and cleaner spiritual experience.
The old adage of you are what you eat, is definitely true. Meat lovers tend to be rather animistic in their thinking and behavior. They have rather rough and crude energy compared to those with lighter diets such as pure vegetarianism.
So what about animal cruelty then? Well, that thought didn't really go through my mind. Logically, since animals are farmed and intentionally bred as food, they are conditioned as food, therefore it was not cruel.
Before you start ranting on me on animal cruelty, I do believe these animals are intelligent beings with consciousness and by eating them, I am assimilating their energies/consciousness. If I am to seriously work on my spiritual evolution, I should eliminate these energies in my physical body, allowing a more separate and cleaner body to work on.
So there you go, why I decided on my No Mammal diet?
For now, its Spiritual evolution.
I might change my answer when it gets tired.
My Extremely Slow Journey into Non-Mammal Diet and perhaps Vegetarianism
More than four years past since I decided to go on a non-mammalian diet. Quite proud of myself for not intentionally eating mammals. It all started in 2001 when I attended one of Tony Robbins course (can't remember the name, its his first basic mass course before he convinces us all to pay for his more expensive ones). I had tried not eating red meat for 2 weeks before giving up on the notion. I was simply not gonna give up my carnivorous diet of beef and lamb, I was a proud meat eater!
What's a non-mammalian diet? Basically a no-no on eating any warm-blooded vertebrate animals Mammals are classified as having the skin more or less covered with hair; young are born alive except for the small subclass of monotremes and nourished with milk.
Simply put, no beef, no lamb, no pork, kangaroos, possums, boar, buffalo etc. Those were once my favorite meats ; no more beef or roos!.
What can I eat then? Seafood, insects, poultry and reptiles.
I dabbled with this diet between 2001-2003 before finally converted myself to a strict non-mammalian diet. Doing it on a very slow and gradual transition worked and I am even considering giving up poultry. It's a little more difficult this time and I am still unwilling to give up my roast duck and chicken rice.
Ideally my diet should consist mainly of vegetables and insects then complete vegetarianism.
Well let's see how that goes... slow and easy...
