Vegan, Vegetarian, Omnivore. My Journey Through The Food Groups.

A note to all my vegan friends .. this post may be triggering.

Last week I started eating meat again. It’s been exactly five years since I last had a steak, or a chicken breast. Five years ago I became vegetarian. When I lived in Bali I pushed myself even further to veganism and further yet to raw veganism. A year ago I started craving fish. This craving was coupled with a feeling of lethargy and weakness. So I became pescatarian (a vegetarian who eats fish). Last week I had an appointment with a periodontist to address an onset of rather rapid gum recession. He looked at my gums and told me I was likely anemic. Anemia is a condition in which you lack enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to your body's tissues. Having anemia, also referred to as low hemoglobin, can make you feel tired and weak. My gums were inflamed. He asked me if I was vegetarian. I said ‘yes’. ‘Well, I really suggest you either start eating meat or taking iron supplements because you need iron back in your body. You shouldn’t have these issues at your age’. I felt defeated. I had been taking iron supplements and all kinds of vitamins to subsidize anything I may have missed from eating a meat-free diet. Clearly it hadn’t worked.

I do believe that a vegan/vegetarian diet can work for some people. When I first began my vegan journey I felt like I had more energy, my skin was clearer, I felt … better somehow. I obviously loved it otherwise I wouldn’t have devoted five years of my life to it. However, I wasn’t surprised that in the end this type of diet didn’t quite work for my body. Years ago I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Dr. Mehmet Oz in Toronto. He spoke about our diets and what people should eat for optimal health. And the thing is, there is no black and white answer. How our body breaks down and adapts various foods has to do with our genes. Dr. Oz spoke about how our bodies over generations adapt to a local diet (whatever that diet is). How the introduction of processed foods and sugar into the diets of First Nations left communities ridden with diabetes and various other diseases that seemed to appear directly as a result of a new diet. He spoke about how it takes at least ten years for our body to adapt to ‘new’ foods and hundreds of years for our DNA to do so. Whether you agree with this theory or not … it seemed to answer my question. Why is a 100% plant diet not working for me? Maybe because my ancestors were nomads and I was born in a country where the diet primarily consists of red meat. In fact, Kazakhstan is the #2 country in the world when it comes to meat consumption. Most of my ancestors are not native Kazakh but they are from the Middle East, Russia, Kalmykia - also nations where people have a predominantly carnivorous diet. Also nomads.

Weeks earlier my boyfriend and I were talking about our diets and I said that I would continue to be vegetarian until the day that I had to make a choice between my own wellbeing and the wellbeing of the animal. As long as I could remain healthy consuming only plant products I would do so, but if this started to adversely affect my health, I would change my diet. Lo and behold, the day came two weeks later. In the past five years my gums had receded so much I had to book a gum graft surgery. During the surgery a portion of your top inner gum is removed to act as a bandaid for your recession. The recession is then surgically covered with the extracted tissue and stitched up. My gum graft surgery was not successful. I didn’t trust the right doctor and am now undergoing the process of recovering the funds I and my insurance company have paid for the surgery. My recession is still there, just as before, but now I have two scars in my mouth, one where the tissue was taken and the second on the surgery site. The clinic I went to in Yorkville, Toronto refused to take responsibility for what happened to me and recently tried sending me an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) telling me that once I signed it and legally gave my word to not sue them for negligence, leave the clinic bad reviews or pursue the matter further, they would refund my money. I’ve had chronic pain since the surgery at the site of the recession and the clinic employees have been rude, dimissive and gaslit me, telling me that ‘it looks gorgeous’ - referring to the surgery site. When I went to two other doctors for a consultation I was told that the surgery failed because it shouldn’t have been done in the first place on my specific case. Whether I just had an incompetent surgeon or the clinic just wanted to make some cash on a vulnerable patient is anyone’s guess. The moral of the story is - in my specific case, my gums started receding due to my diet. Since all of this has taken place I have been reading books written by dentists that all specifically talk about DIET. And how important it is to good dental health. I was astonished to see what exposure to the Western diet (refined sugars, saturated fats, white flour, lack of nutrients etc) had done to tribes where dental health was never an issue. Curiously enough, none of the books I have read mention that an all vegetarian diet is good for dental health.

My diet is still full of raw vegetables, but I have added lean chicken and lamb to my daily food intake. Overall my body feels stronger, although after meals I tend to feel more tired because it takes more energy for your body to digest meat. My teeth and gums look and feel better. My hair is shinier, my nails are stronger. I must admit I would’ve definitely preferred to be more healthy on a vegan diet but turns out that it wasn’t for me. I tried. My ancestors have spoken. I know that some of my vegan friends will shake their head at this and try to convince me otherwise but the truth is our bodies are all different. My heart and my head want to be vegan but my body is saying that if I continue to live the way I have for the past few years I will need new teeth by the time I’m 50. I prefer not to ever see a dentist ever again … I’ve been to over 20 appointments in the past 5 months. No thank you. My deepest apologies to my animal friends, I will try to include you in my diet for medicinal purposes only. I know that I could get vitamin and mineral transfusions, but for the rest of my life? What’s teh point if my body is not absorbing enough iron from vegan sources as well as it does from meat? I don’t think I can put myself through needles for teh rest of my life either.

I will continue using cruelty free skincare and makeup products just as I always have, even though my diet has to change.

That is all for now …