FruitMonster.com

This is the first of a series of posts that I will write on the subject of vegetarianism, each approaching the issue from a separate viewpoint.

You can have your beef

If you had asked me three years ago what I thought about vegetarianism, I would have probably laughed the idea off.  The idea of giving up meat would have seemed quite strange to me back then, as it does to most people on this planet!  Like most of you probably did, I grew up in a household where meat was the central part of each meal.  Bacon or sausage at breakfast, deli slices for lunch and a chicken/beef concoction for dinner time – whatever meal it was, meat was surely on the menu.

During those years of my life, I never had any reason to question eating meat for three meals a day.  I grew up with that being normal, with my peers and extended family all eating in a similar manner – meat serving as the central part of the meal, with sides of veggies, grains, maybe some fruit, all washed down with a glass of milk of course!  This type of meal has become pretty much commonplace in the United States (and from what I can tell so far, the same is true in Australia), with the large majority of the population consuming meat with nearly every meal.

Vegetarianism is not ‘The Norm’

Vegetarians are the minority...for now

So it is completely understandable that moving to a vegetarian diet seems foreign to people who are accustomed to this pattern.   In fact, the most common question such persons have when they consider a vegetarian diet is, “what the heck would I eat instead?“.  The idea of not having ham, chicken or turkey slices for sandwiches or hamburgers and ribs for a good old fashioned grill-out, leaves a lot of people quite confused about what would be consumed in the place of these items, as well as quite depressed about missing out on these ‘delicious’ foods.  No hot dogs at the ball game?  No beef in my queso dip?  No more shrimp tacos?  Giving up such things leads most to jump to a “No thanks!” perhaps followed by the claim “I could never give up meat”.

If this is your current line of thinking, and you are like most of the rest of folks out there eating meat for three meals a day, let me, perhaps unexpectedly concede to you that I don’t blame you and I completely understand where you are coming from.  I spent the first 23 years of my life eating meat thinking the same way you do, so how could I not understand?  (I think a lot of vegetarians forget that they too once ate meat.)  You don’t want to give up 50 cent wing night, pepperoni pizza or bacon strips, because darn-it, ‘meat tastes good’.  And as long as you continue to think that of meat in terms of only its taste, you will probably continue to eat meat.

Why Give Up Meat? It ‘Tastes So Good’

I certainly disagree, with the 'tasty' part

All this talk of meat being ‘delicious‘ and ‘tasting good‘ all naturally begs the question, “why would anyone want to give up eating meat?”.  Well, given that there are a lot of people who forgo flesh-feasting all together, there obviously must be some serious motivation to do so.  Their abstinence from things that most people find amazingly tasty, such as cheeseburgers or corndogs, must be driven by a much different line of thinking than that of the meat-eating types.  So what is going on in their heads?  What could be the reason behind such a lifestyle change?

Well the way I see it, there are three major reasons why people become vegetarians.  First, they often see an ethical dilemma present in the ‘eating’ of other beings, and are driven by some level of empathy or ‘higher moral calling’ to absolve themselves of carcass munching – I term these types the ‘compassionate’ vegetarians.  Second, some stop eating meat for health reasons which, with meat consumption directly connected to a wide variety of diseases (including cancer), is quite a wise thing to do.  Third, people often decide to eat less meat, or avoid it altogether due the very large impact that the rearing of animals for consumption has on the environment.  And as I mentioned, I will be addressing all three of these categories separately in a series of ‘vegetarian’ blogposts.

The Compassionate Vegetarian

So we begin with what I’ve termed the ‘compassionate’ realm of thought motivating the adoption of a animal-death free diet.  Wait, why such the harsh wording there?  Well, this might seem silly to point out, but it can stimulate a rather profound moment of thought when one actually stops to realize – something had to die for me to eat the meat on my plate.  Yes, I know that you are probably aware of this blatantly obvious fact, but then again I ask you to question yourself, are you really?

What am I? Chopped Liver?

When you eat that forkful of chicken marsala or beef lasagna, are you truly aware of what you are consuming?  Do you have a concept of what that mouthful of dinner is connected to?  You are eating the flesh of another being.  One that was brought into this world through the miracle of conception and was born to a mother who cared for it fiercely.  Over time, it awkwardly learned to walk/fly/hop, happily played with its brothers/sisters/neighbors and, eventually, grew up into an adult.

After maturing, its life was ended in a slaughterhouse and its carcass was sent through a processing plant, wherein its body parts were hewn apart and separated into categories of desirability.  The parts were then packaged and shipped in all different directions, until resting conveniently in the aisles of a supermarket or arriving in the kitchen of the restaurant you may be visiting.  Finally, after preparations of widely varying fanciness, a small piece of that animal’s body ended up on your fork, where it has been effectively reduced from a living, breathing creature, to nothing more than a mouthful of a recipe.  One that most people probably eat rather mindlessly while watching TV or chatting with family.

For meat eaters everywhere, this detachment that modern society provides is incredibly convenient.  For them, meat is often no more than a red-hued, saran-wrapped item in the refrigerator section of the IGA or some strange amalgamation of animal termed a ‘patty’ or a ‘link’.  There, in the sterile environment of a Wal Mart or a restaurant, meat is delivered to you blindly and guilt-free.  In this system, there is no risk becoming attached to an animal that you raised on your own.  No need to feel the fear of the animal as it is cornered, bound and prepared to be slaughtered.  No need to look it in the eyes with a weapon in your hands, and be forced into accepting the responsibility for its death.  Instead, some calloused man with a pneumatic bolt gun delivers head shots to cattle on a assembly line in Dodge City, Kansas so that you can eat your steak guilt-free.  Instead, poor immigrant workers brave the blood gurgling screams of pigs dying in a South Carolina slaughterhouse so that you can have cheap, crispy bacon on a quiet Sunday morning with no blood on your hands.

'Feed Lots'. Horrid places.

“Quick and Painless”

For those of you who, at this juncture, may take some comfort in the idea that dying with a bolt flying through your skull is ‘quick and painless’, you are forgetting that providing meat at the levels we demand it (three meals a day!) does not involved green pastures and sunshine, but rather, an unsightly, industrial scale process.   One that packs animals into inhumane spaces where they wade in their own excrement and are fed unnatural, hormone ridden, cannibalistic diets that push their bodies painfully to the point of failure.

When ready for slaughter, this process has yielded chickens whose legs are too week to hold them up, turkeys who cannot upright themselves after a fall, and cows that are so sick that they need more antibiotics in one week than most humans see in a lifetime.  Far from a ‘short and sweet’ death, the animals that are grown within the ‘factory like’ settings of the modern meat industry are sick and miserable for most of their lives.   Rest assured, there is no escaping it, meat rearing is an ugly process full of pain and suffering.  And that’s for more than just the animals, but also for the people working there.

So… What?

So what does this have to do with you as a meat-eater?  Well, returning to that forkful of chicken marsala, by taking that bite, you are supporting this process.  There is no avoiding this fact.  You are a fundamental link in the basic supply-demand curve, wherein each dollar you spend on meat is a vote of confidence in the system that provided it.  At this juncture, I’ve found that many will respond to the above with ‘yeah, but I just don’t think about it‘ or some other permutation of the ‘ignorance is bliss‘ mantra.  Well if that’s you, I urge you to reconsider your apathy.  You demanded that animal’s death and someone else provided it due to that demand.  You stop, they stop.  Who is responsible?

An Accurate Thoughtstream

Furthermore, do you realize that just by drawing that conclusion or making that excuse, you are acknowledging that there is something immoral/undesirable about killing animals?   By taking point of view, you have acknowledged that, somewhere within you, there exists the feeling, the deep knowing that killing other beings is not something to be taken lightly.  That you would feel remorseful having done so, and would rather avoid doing it.  

Think of your reactions to the death of animals when you were young.  Did you see your grandfather filleting fish you’d caught?  Watch a zebra disemboweled by a lion pride during a National Geographic special?  What was your natural reaction to such things before you were trained by society to accept them as ‘part of life’?  Before you were numbed to the reality of eating other beings by ritually repeating it thrice daily?  You used to think such things were terrible!  They probably made you feel like crying!  Truly, most of us could not perform a youtube search on animal slaughter and not shed a tear while watching.  Deep down, we know that the suffering and death of other beings is undesirable, yet most of us still live in a manner the directly supports it.   Why?  Because we can do it in a system where we consume a creature without understanding the suffering and pain involved, without ‘feeling responsible’… but make no mistake, you are.

All Hail, The Wise and Powerful Human

For another group of people, a response  along the lines of:  ’Yes, you melon-headed-fruit maniac, but humans and animals are fundamentally different – we are self aware and much more intelligent than animals are.’  Ok, if that’s you, then lets look at that line of thinking once more.  The premise here is that humans and animals are in some manner ‘separate’ and that humans are ‘greater’ or ‘wiser’ than animals and that justifies to treat them terribly and killing them without remorse.  I’d have to argue that is a very silly argument for a being of such ‘wisdom’!

You're not as special as you think

First, you are forgetting that humans are animals too.  We evolved from primate-like origins, slowly and surely, just like the rest of nature (if you are a Creationist that believes humans are made in ‘God’s Image’ and have a soul while animals don’t, I challenge you to consider what Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden (hint: not meat) for a different perspective from the one I’m currently espousing).   Thus, upon closer inspection, one will observe that, even with their more basic level of self-awareness, animals share much more in common with us that we care to realize.  They desire safety, warmth, food, companionship, affection and dislike pain, fear, cold, hunger.  They have hearts, lungs, brains, stomachs, livers and blood, and when these systems fail, they die.  They also have tongues, noses, ears, eyes and nerves, meaning that they taste, smell, hear, see and feel.

Lie: “Animals Don’t Know What is Happening to Them”

And you thought your house was small

Speaking of which, have you ever been around an animal that is about to be slaughtered?  The feeling of fear within them is intense.  Their cries are haunting.  Sure, we cannot know exactly what an animal is thinking, but the contextual clues present at the time of their death are quite clear - they are quite capable of understanding fear, feeling the pain of a blade, and experiencing the suffering of dying.  What crazy self-righteous perspective allows us to rationalize that their pain is any different than ours?  Or that they do not understand what is happening to them?  Such arguments are nonsensical.

Turn the tables for a moment, if you were wrangled into a pen so narrow you couldn’t turn around, forcibly marched into a room that reeked of the blood and urine of your friends and then hung upside down with your throat cut open, you would behave just like a pig does.  Hearing the cries of your peers ahead of you, you would feel deep fear,  you would tremble and when your time came, you would scream for your life.   So much for being ‘separate’ or ‘different’ from animals.

Lie: “It’s Okay, We’re in Charge Here”

And secondly, since when does a greater level of intelligence empower one with the right to kill a being of lower mental capability?  What kind of perverse moral logic does this suggest?  Beyond that, we must acknowledge that scientific discoveries are continually suggesting that animals are more intelligent than we think.  For example, recent studies with dolphins have shaken the assumptions that humans are the only species that is ‘self aware’ and elephants have been observed to have ‘death rituals’ and show compassion to each other, both activities that were once thought to be the defining quality of humans.  Expect discoveries such as these to continue!

Alright, Smart-pig

For the purpose of connecting this argument to ‘food’, let’s take pigs for example.  Pigs are also incredibly intelligent animals, with advanced social behavior on par with that of primates and the reasoning abilities of a three year old child.   They are known to be intensely loyal, very affectionate and also make great pets.

Speaking of pets, would you eat your pet?  Of course you wouldn’t!  This probably seems like a silly question to ask, but why wouldn’t you?  Most likely, you’ve been around your pet enough to see how ‘alive’ they are.  You understand their individual personality, their likes/dislikes.  Well guess what?  The same is true of the animals you are eating.  There is no real difference between your pet dog or cat and, say, a chicken or a cow (read ‘wings’ and ‘burgers’ by some).  Sure, it is much more ‘normal’ to have a dog or cat as a pet, but there are places in the world where a dog is what’s for dinner.  These are social constructs, things that we accept, but rarely question (kind of like eating meat three times a day…).  But when we do take a moment to re-think, we may come to see them in a different light.

And by the way, using the excuse “But it’s just a ____ ” for killing an animal is a pitiful argument.

Alright, I Feel Bad, Now What?

So at this point, there are three groups of people reading this blog post (there were originally four, but the fourth group already stopped reading, ha!).

The first is the group that already agreed with me from the start and are happy to hear another message promulgating the veggo lifestyle.  If that is you, take it upon yourself to spread this blog post (and other info) around to those you know who are questioning their meat-intensive lifestyle.  Start conversations with them about vegetarianism (note: ‘conversations’ ARE NOT ‘arguments’.  Arguments are usually pointless).  But most importantly, be an example of how fun, interesting and TASTY being a vegetarian is!  This is your mission.

The second group are the people who find the above commentary unconvincing and want to debate it further.  If that’s you, I can understand your position.  You are keen on defending your right to eat animals because it is hardwired into your lifestyle.  You don’t want to give up ‘delicious’ meat.  And until you start to think of meat differently, you will maintain a host of reasons why it is okay to kill for it.  I’m not going to be able to force you into accepting my way of thinking… only you have the power to change your mind.  If you are comfortable with the death and suffering of other beings for your dietary pleasure, I will not be able to evoke compassion from within you through a simple blog post (but I’d love to chat more sometime ).

Check out this great link

The third group are those who are considering the adoption of vegetarianism.  If that’s you, I’m thrilled you’re reading this post.  If you have one single solitary little part of your being that thinks ‘I sure don’t like all this pain and suffering stuff‘, do yourself a favor and let that part of you grow unbounded.  Let go of your preconceptions.  Release yourself from the expectations of others and embrace that inner voice.  It will take you into a happier and more fulfilling life, I promise you.  Unleash your compassionate feelings and start taking responsibility for your diet.  But don’t feel overwhelmed by the questions, by the unknown.  That’s the exciting part.  Maybe you can start with eating less meat, experimenting with vegetarian recipes.  Perhaps you could ‘go veggie one day a week‘ and see how you feel.  Eventually, or perhaps immediately, you may feel ready to stop eating meat completely.  

If you do make that decision, it will be noticeable.  Your mind will be clearer, your body will feel lighter and you will have just taken a giant leap towards being a happier, more fulfilled person.  Freeing yourself from the weight of the pain, suffering and death of other living beings brings about a wondrous change within you.  It’s no secret that compassionate thoughts are the most joyful, satisfying and happy thoughts you can have!  It’s been scientifically proven!

Not convinced?  Check back for forthcoming posts on the environmental and health oriented reasons for going vegetarian.  And I’ve got something special in mind for you meat eaters… maybe next time.

Wow, look at me, a whole post without blabbing on about fruit!  Aren’t you proud?

Just in case you have somehow failed to notice, I love fruits.  I cannot seem to eat enough of them, juice them thoroughly enough, or satiate my curiousity for blending up new awesome amalgamations of their sweet fleshy goodness.   In fact, one might equate my ravenous hunger for and obsession with fruit with that of a monster.  A fruitmonster, to be exact.  I am perfectly comfortable with such terminology

A Pitiful Pyramid

But given all the talk about fruit on this site, with the ‘fruitastic this’ or the ‘fruitmonster that’ language,  one might wonder ‘what the heck happened to  the other 5 food groups?’.  You know, the meat/poultry/beans, the milk/yogurt/cheese, vegetable, bread/rice/pasta/cereal and fats/sweets groups?   One might  wonder why I don’t tweet about monstering some of those?  I mean, sure there might be a lot of people who don’t eat meat or skip out on the dairy, but what about those poor pastas or victimized veggies?  What did they ever do to you mr. fruity-pebbles?

Well at this point, you’d be silly to think I don’t have a blog entry prepared for your inquisitive minds, so let’s move ahead!  We’ll take this discussion one ‘food group’ at a time (in no particular order..skipping over the fats/oils/sweets).  For this post, I will be focusing on the evolutionary design and digestive reasonings only, avoiding any ethical ones and sparing you from any rants about the meat and dairy industry, etc.  The point here is to work our way to realizing what foods our bodies are meant to eat – the types of foods that we thrive on eating.  Because, although many people are surviving eating the rest of the ‘food groups’, not all of them are doing so well are they?  Here at FruitMonster.com, us fruitmonster-types are interested in eating a diet that our body flourishes upon, one that yields a more vibrant way of living!  So although our body may be able to eat, digest and absorb foods from the non-fruit food groups, it wasn’t necessarily ever meant to!  Anyway, let’s get on to business!

Ok, Food Group 1:  Meats/Poultry/Beans/Nuts

Given the nature of this group, it needs to be further split into three subgroups – Meats, Beans and Nuts

Some See Meat, FruitMonster Sees Friends

1.  Meats – There are a wide variety of reasons why a fruitmonster does not eat meat, and I will, in the future, dedicate an entire blog post to the subject of vegetarianism.  For now, as I said before, we will focus on the evolutionary design side of the argument – You are not a carnivore.  Let me start off with a series of questions to highlight this.  Most people think that they are carnivores (or at least ‘omnivores’, meaning they are designed to eat plants and animals), but they need to think about what that actually entails a bit more.  When you find yourself hungry, does your mouth water at the sight of a pig or cow running around?  Do you desire to tear into its flesh, spill its warm blood over your lips, consuming its raw flesh, organs and skin?  Of course not!  That stuff probably grosses you out!  Well, guess what?   That’s not very carnivore of you.  Instead, you would need to take that meat, cook it, slather it in barbecue sauce or other flavoring devices, in order to make it acceptable to you.  Is this something that you would be able to do in your natural evolutionary environment?  No!  Now take that a step further, and look down at your body.  Take a gander at your muscles, do they ripple with the ferocity needed to chase down and kill a grown animal?  Do you have the sharp claws that big cats, birds of prey, wolves or other predators do?  Nope!  What about those teeth that you dare to call ‘canines’?  Do they have the ability to tear open the skin of another creature, dismembering its fascia and rip muscle from bone?  Think about the jaw strength needed!  The answer is no, your ‘canines’ and your weak little jaw could not perform these functions.   This list could go on and on!  For example, carnivores have short colons, yours is long like other non-meat eaters!   This means that flesh actually rots inside of you before it leaves (this is why meat intake is associated with colon cancer)!  Again, this is a sensitive subject, with many more points to be made… the subject of a future post.  Let’s not get too wrapped up on this point right now.   I think it is at least clear that meat is not our optimal food choice, if it was, we’d be much more well suited for obtaining it, eating it and digesting it!

Lame Lentils, Boring Beans

2.  Next – Beans, Legumes, Lentils, etc – So we’ve all heard the wonderful little tune ‘Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot’ or the equally humorous ‘beans, beans, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you fart’, both of which are flatulently fantastic reminders of our bodies inability to digest them!  The reason that beans often lead your butt to whistle is that your body does not produce all of the enzymes needed to break down beans properly, causing undigested food stuff to reach the bacteria laden wasteland that is your large intestine, wherein it meets an extremely smelly demise full of rot and fermentation (recall the Low Fat Diet post).  But even without the unwelcome smells, the consumption of beans, legumes and lentils also faces some logistical problems from the evolutionary human standpoint – you can’t eat these items raw!  If you tried, their bitterness and blandess would bore you and that tricky enzyme issue would be compounded exponentially, leading to very unhealthy and unsustainable results inside of you.  This food group, although often eaten by humans around the world, is not the optimal food for human beings to thrive on.

Are you nuts??? Why, yes, we are!

3.  Nuts.  It seems nearly everyone thinks that nuts are extremely healthy for you, and that we should all eat a lot more of them.  And while nuts are excellent sources of certain vitamins and minerals, are high in protein, and our evolutionary ancestors did definitely eat them in the wild, they are still not the ‘optimal’ food we are looking for.  For one, the nuts that most of us eat today are dried out, cooked, oiled and salted.  A real, raw nut, found in nature is full of digestive enzymes, is soft and chewy, and is almost juicy!  But since nuts need to be blanched or cooked in order to be packaged and sold (they are particularly vulnerable to molds), we get a rather dead and unhealthy version of them as an end product.  And then there is the problem of the very high fat content of nuts (30-40% fat), which creates all sorts of problems in our bodies.  Fats are very hard to digest for humans and in general people consume way too much fat already!  So nuts are not the ‘optimal’ food either!  We will not thrive off eating such a high fat food.

On to group number 2:  Dairy

This Image is Disturbing, But Appropriately So

At this juncture, I think it is time to ask you fruit-curious folks another question.  Can you name an animal on this planet that consumes the lactation of another species within its natural environment?  Feel free to ask Google, Wikipedia, a Facebook poll or any other source of information that you please, because they all are going to give you the same answer.  This does not happen.  Why?  Because this is a completely unnatural process!  The milk of momma-cows is designed for cow-babies.  The milk of momma-goats is meant for consumption by baby goats.  The mix of fats, amino acid combos (aka protein) and level of carbohydrates in these lactates are designed by nature to perfectly match the nutritional needs of a growing young animal of the same species.  It was never meant for your consumption.  Based on your evolutionary history, the milk of another animal cannot possibly be a necessary component of your diet.  How could it be?  The collective psyche in the developed world seems to be convinced that they need to drink milk to be a healthy person, when in reality, that is simply cannot be true.  The fact that so many people believe this fallacy is more of testament to the success of the diary industry in advertising and its lobbyists than anything else.  What’s more, when you look at the effects of milk consumption in humans, there are a whole range of health complications resulting from it!

Milk, Leave it on the Porch

Here’s a simple experiment which highlights your body’s adverse reaction to drinking milk – next time you drink it, pay attention to the mucous production that results.  Can you feel your throat covered in a mucous slime?  Does your nose run a bit or get stuffed up? Whether or not you are sensitive enough to notice it (your insides may be perpetually too mucousy and inflamed to be able to tell), your body has a strong mucous response to milk intake.  Do you know what mucous is produced for?  It is meant to trap toxins, encasing them in a fluid that prevents them from further harming your body.  This is why you have so much extra snot when you are sick – your body ups its mucous production in order to trap the disease causing elements.  Shouldn’t your throat producing a similar response to milk alert you to the body’s natural aversion to it?  What do you think occurs throughout the rest of your internal tissues when those milk-bits come in contact with them?  Yep, more angry mucous-y response.  Now, my stance on veganism and milk in particular will require an entire post of its own to properly explain, and that is forthcoming.  For now, I will draw from the above reasoning – we are not designed by nature to consume the milk (or any of its derivatives – yogurt, cheese, etc) of another animal and therefore do not need to eat it to be healthy.  The consumption of milk also aggravates your body and produces a self-defense reaction within it.  Suffice it to say that the milk/yogurt/cheese is not your ‘optimum’ source of food!  We should not consume it if we intend to thrive.

Group 3:  Bread/Cereal/Rice/Pasta

www.FlourMonster.com....*vomits*

Since the question machine has been working so effectively for putting together a coherent thought process thus far, let’s fire it up again.  Ok, here goes.  Can you explain to me how a group of ‘foods’, which, as found in nature, are completely unpalatable, undigestible and pretty much tasteless could be the foundation of optimal nutrition for your body (aka the bottom of the ‘food pyramid’ or the biggest portion of ‘MyPlate’)?  Could you go out into a wheat field and fill your belly to your hearts content?  No, you couldn’t.  In fact, you would have to harvest that wheat, separate the edible from the unedible, mill the grains into flour, mix it with other ingredients, build up a fire in an oven (that you built), cook up your flour-based recipe AND THEN, AND ONLY THEN, would you have anything that was remotely edible, which still probably is pretty boring, bland and uninspiring to your taste buds.  In the case of pastas, the situation is further complicated by the whole noodle making process.  Rice is simpler, being able to be consumed after being prepared with hot water, but again, that whole hot water/fire needed issue would have been very prohibitive to our evolutionary ancestors.  Unaccompanied rice is also frankly a waste of your tongue’s time.  Realistically, these foods have only been consumed in sizable quantities in the past several thousand years, with the rise of agriculture and the development of more organized people groups.  Only then could the logistical issues (milling flours, having bakeries, hot water/fire, etc) be solved that allow the consumption of such ‘complex carbs’.  In conclusion, breads/cereals/rices/pastas are not your natural source of food.  They are not what your evolutionary ancestors thrived on, they are not what your body was designed to eat.  Sure, we have now managed in modern society to create tasty concoctions out of these items (mostly by combining them with sweeteners, salts, oils or spices), but they are not our natural source of food.  If you care to prove me wrong, go grab a handful of flour from your pantry and start munching!  Or maybe some crunchy rice grains sound appetizing?  If you have a pleasant experience, feel free to start flourmonster.com or ricemaniac.net, my guess is that you won’t gain too many followers

Group 4:  Vegetables

First off, get that freaking tomato out of the vegetable group!  Who designs these graphics and diets anyway?  You think that they would at least be educated enough to know that tomatoes are a fruit!  In fact, just to spite these ignorant fools, I’m going to monster some tomatoes later this evening!  Alright, *breathe*, relax, settle down FruitMonster…. Ok, I’m back.  Now, setting aside my temporary tomato tantrum, let’s get onto discussing the rest of the vegetables in this group.  Once again, I’m going to have to split this group into two further subcategories – leafy greens and the rest of vegetables

Mmmm. Gimme Some Greens! Some Leafy Greens!

1. Leafy Greens - I fully, completely and emphatically endorse the consumption of leafy greens in massive quantities.  How massive?  The FruitMonster recommends that you monster at least .5 kg (1 lb) of these tasty leaflets each day!  An approximate energy intake target is about 5% of your total calories from this category.  This is best accomplished by smoothie making and juicing, which makes this level of consumption much easier to accomplish via the joys of modern technology (in fact, I believe that smoothies and juicing could allow us to obtain levels of ‘superhealth’ unaccessible to previous generations of our species).  But why leafy greens?  Isn’t that what herbivores are meant to eat?  Are you saying humans are herbivores Mr. Fruit-nut?  No, humans are not herbivores, and once again the reasoning is in our genetics.  Although leafy greens are delicious, nutritious and a natural part of our evolutionary diet, they are not our primary source of food.  We have a natural tendency to eat them, as they provide many of the minerals and phytonutrients unavailable in fruits alone.  However, since they are high in insoluble fiber (undigestible stuff) they are difficult for humans to digest and thus cannot be the foundational part of our diet.  If we were to try to eat only leafy greens, we would find ourselves unable to obtain enough calories!  So these leafy friends of ours are meant to serve as a supplement to our principle food group (I’m sure you can guess which one I claim that is…).  This ‘Leafy Greens’ category includes all broad leaved edible veggies, such as spinach, kale, chard, lettuce, cabbage, bok choy, plus herbs like parsley, coriander/cilantro, basil, etc  - anything that is leafy and tender (i.e. low in tough, crunchy insoluble fiber).  Once again, an entire post on this tasty, essential part of our diet is necessary, and forthcoming.  Then, I will be able elaborate at length on how leafy greens fit into the fruitmonster diet!

I Look at this Photo and Lust for Juice

2. The Rest of Veggies - I’m not here to bash on vegetables, that would be silly.  There is a wide variety of healthy options when it comes to vegetable intake, which are much more nutritious than what the average Joe-Schmo is eating these days.  So when momma says, ‘eat yo veggies’, I would encourage all such children to listen up!  What I am in the process of arguing, however, is that the intake of vegetables, is once again not the ‘optimal’ source of nutrition on which we will thrive.  It is important to note that there is a whole host of produce which is falsely placed in this ‘vegetable’ category when they are actually fruits!  Case and point – that darn tomato!  This also includes peppers/capsicums, squashes, zuccini, okra, cucumbers – anything with meaty flesh surrounding a seed of some sort!  So when I speak of ‘the rest of veggies’, keep in mind that these items are fruits!  But vegetables, which include roots (carrots, parsnips, beets), tubers (potatoes, yams) or cruciforms (broccoli, cauliflower), bulbs (onions, garlic, shallots) and shoots (asparagus, bamboo) all do fall into this category.  So what is to be said of all these options, which are deemed ‘healthy’ by our general societal standards?

Fiber Free, Please Drink Me!

While veggies do contain high levels of a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and other beneficial elements, the ratios of such goodies are not optimized for our bodies (vitamins and minerals need to be consumed in certain combos to be absorbed correctly!).  A lot of veggies also include elevated levels of toxic components, mainly sulfur compounds (think broccoli farts!), which are actually harmful to us.  Furthermore, all that good stuff is hard for our bodies to access because it is encased in high levels of insoluble fiber.  This insoluble fiber, specifically cellulose, is what builds up rigid cell walls within these plants, and gives veggies that characteristic ‘crunch’.  So while veggies may have components of ‘good nutrition’ within them, the high levels of starches and insoluble fiber (insoluble = undigestible) makes it very difficult/impossible for our digestive systems to process and access those resources, while also aggravating our digestive tract in the process.  Raw veggies are so difficult to digest, that a diet based on veggies alone would not allow one to intake enough calories to survive, since more energy would be spent digesting the the veggies than one could get from eating them!  Sure, we can make veggies easier to digest by cooking them, which breaks down these cellular walls and starches, but in doing so we kill off the valuable enzymes inside of them and significantly reduce their nutritional content (hence the value of raw foods – a post forthcoming and also jucing, which extrudes the nutritious bits from the fiber!).   This also adds back in the element of cooking foods, which was not easily done by our evolutionary ancestors, further placing vegetables in the non-optimal food category.  We can survive on this category of veggies, but we were not meant to thrive upon them.

In summary, veggies, primarily the leafy green kind, make an excellent supplement to our ‘optimal’ diet, and an important sub-element in the diet we thrive upon. The rest of veggies, while they can be considered healthy for us, are difficult to digest, needing some element of modern technology (cooked, juiced or blended) in order to be properly absorbed – all of which indicate they are not what our bodies were designed to eat!

Group 5:  Fruits!

Fruitastic!

So if we have eliminated the other five food groups as the ‘optimal’ food categories, that only leaves us with one food group left:  Fruits!  And are fruits that ‘optimal’ food that we have been looking for?  The one that our bodies are designed to eat as our primary source of sustenance?  The answer is a most definite, fully emphatic YES!  To draw a pretty effective analogy, fruit is to a human as meat is to a carnivore!  Think back to the questions I asked before about carnivores!  When hungry, does your mouth salivate at the sight of a big juicy mango (or orange or banana, pick your favorite!) in the room?   Do you lust after the thought of sinking your fruit-tearing incisors into its skin, spilling is warm, sugary juices over your lips and down your chin?  Of course you do!  Now, like you did before, take a gander at your body.  Does your hand perfectly fit the size of most fruits?   Do your fingers and hands have the strength and dexterity needed to open up the shells and skins of fruit treats?  Yes they do!  Are you the right height for reaching the fruits of most trees?  Yes!  Could you easily pick fruits up off the ground?  Could you climb a tree if needed?  You could do all of these things!  And think about this: does a fruit require any preparation at all for you to eat it?  Not much beyond peeling back a tough exterior!  Besides that, fruits are sweet and ready to eat!  The ultimate fast food!

What about nutritionally?  Well guess what?  Fruits are the best form of food available to satisfy our body’s needs!  Fruits are high in fructose/glucose, which are readily absorbable to our bodies, being turned to energy within minutes of eating them (in the absence of fats!).  In fact fruits are so easy to digest, that’s why a high fruit diet is great for people with digestive problems!  But did you also know that fruits deliver the perfect 1:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids that our bodies need?   No other food type provides this ‘ideal’ fat ratio!  Furthermore, a diet rich in fruits (supplemented by leafy greens) provides all the essential amino acids (proteins) required by our bodies!  You don’t need anything other than fruit and leafy greens to get plenty of protein daily!  And since fruits are ready to consume raw, we don’t need to cook them!  This means they provide all of the enzymes (these die at temperatures above 104 F or 40 C) required to break themselves down, lightening the load on your digestive system and saving your pancreas from all the extra work of producing its own enzymes!  Fruits also provide an incredibly diverse array of phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and a host of beneficial disease preventing (and curing!), cancer killing compounds.  I could go on and on about the benefits of eating fruits, and trust me I will continue to do so!

The fact is, after working our way through all of these food groups, it becomes fairly clear that within our fundamental bodily design - we are all fruitmonsters!  And by eating a diet based on fruits and supplemented by leafy greens, we are able to not just survive, but rather thrive in life.  Through monstering our way through large fruit meals, delicious smoothies and life-giving juices, we can all enjoy a vibrant way of living that yields amazing amounts of energy, smooth and efficient digestion, increased mental clarity, and elevates us to a more positive, compassionate level of being!  And all of those amazing benefits give us fruitmonsters an unstoppable desire to spread the knowledge of these joys to others!  And that is the fundamental message of FruitMonster.com!

Fruit is Life. Life is Sweet. Eat it Up!

Are you ready to unleash your monster?