I’A couple of weeks ago I had heard, somehow, somewhere, that Oprah was going vegan. Not that that was her goal, she was doing a 21-day cleanse that includes not eating all animal products, as well as alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and gluten. I was kind of stoked. Oprah likes a big celeb, and if she goes vegan and likes it, more than likely a lot of people who are followers will do the same thing. Either because of blind love or they listen to what she has to say and try it, too, which is awesome. So thats for the normal people that watch TV. I don’t, very often.

Now dooce, or Heather, is going for the 21-day cleanse, and I’m super excited about that. A whole other audience, and I think she has the potential to make some changes to her life and her body and be a good supporter of animal rights. I always wondered about her anyway, thinking she must be a closet vegetarian, having a dog who’s like her oldest son. Its perfectly justifiable to compare eating cow, pig, turkey, veal, lamb, etc, to eating a cat or dog. Culture’s just in the way.

What I love about this whole 21-day cleanse concept is that its just 21 days. That is so awesome. Even the most hardcore carnies, unless they’re complete pussies (which many are) would say no to a 21-day challenge. Its 3 weeks. I feel like more women are going to respond to this than men.

When people ask me about being vegan, I always tell them to try it. Even for 2 weeks. You’ll feel so different that you might not come back from it anyways. Apparently the prospect of doing something permanently scares people.

Reasons To Become Vegan/Do cleanse

if you’re not interested, don’t read this and then bitch-email me

  1. Meat’s expensive. And if its cheap, its probably not good quality anyway.
  2. It destroys the earth. Really. Tons of land is destroyed from the millions of grazing animals we kill each year.
  3. If you give a shit about animals, you wouldn’t. Whats the difference between animals and plants? Animals have the capacity for thought, fear, and other emotions. Chickens are pretty stupid, but even they have a sense of family.
  4. Its completely unnecessary. ‘Why wouldn’t you eat meat, Jen?’ Why WOULD you? You don’t need to, at all. Everything you need comes from the ground, and it doesn’t cause any living being fear, or pain.
  5. We’re not really made to digest it. We can talk about teeth all day, carnies, its NOT MEANT for it. In part our mouth is probably evolving to eat meat, but for the most part its meant to shear and grind vegetables and plants. Our digestive tract has a hard time with it. You’re eating chewy, fibrous, dense muscle of another animal. Owch.
  6. 12.5 acres of soy feeds 30 people/12.5 acres of wheat feeds 12 people/12.5 acres of corn feeds 5 people/12.5 acres of cow (grazing) feeds one person.
  7. Eating not-meat everyday really opens up your diet and palette to interesting, delicious food. I’ve had so much food I had never eaten before since going vegan. My world of beans is past baked and black. Theres pinto, navy, northern, kidney, adzuki. Grains! Bulgur, wheat, corn, spelt, barley, rye, rices.
  8. You’ll stop feeling tired, bloated, and disgusting. Your skin will clear, you’ll smell better (seriously), and you’ll lose weight.
  9. If you don’t eat animal products for 6 months, and then you sit down and eat some, like chicken, or even potatoes cooked in a pan with chicken, your body will try to reject it. This happened to me one time, I was at a friends house, she fed us those potatoes, and oh BOY did we feel awful. My stomach felt like someone had dropped a stone into it and we both had awful heartburn, which we hadn’t had since going vegan. So let me ask you this: do you think if you didn’t eat asparagus for 6 months, when you sat down to eat it again your body would try to reject it, and have difficulty digesting it, and it would make you feel like crap? NO, of course not.

I’m considering doing this cleanse. I consume alcohol and small amounts of caffeine, and definitely gluten. Gluten would be the most difficult, especially since I just bought a bag of it to try Vegan Dad’s Boneless Chikn Wings recipes.

P.S. Cheese was the hardest part. I LOVE pizza. SO VERY MUCH MMMM…. But I’ve tried cheese since becoming vegan, and you know what it tastes like? What it is. MOLD. It has that sour, rotten, molding taste of dairy to it. After that you’re not so keen on eating it anymore.