Humankind was not designed to be Vegan. I know.  At university, my biology professor used to explain that by mixing grains, legumes and vegetables together, the body got everything it needed to live. 

Summing up, we can be vegan. 

Did you spot the difference?

My conversion was very modest and straightforward. 

Marco, a good friend of mine, sent me a video about a slaughterhouse via WhatsApp. After that, I did not dare to eat another meal with meat, whatever animal and origin it was. 

It took me two years to give up cheese, but from the beginning, my goal was clear: to go vegan. 

From my first step to this blog, fourteen years have passed. 

And I am still alive. 

Incredible, isn’t it?

Actually, there is nothing incredible about it. 

To be completely honest, I would never go back. 

I have made mistakes during these years, I admit it. Difficult times have led to lapses distractions, and so on. In 2016 I bought a Colmar that contained goose feathers… No cap. 

It didn’t occur to me that a simple jacket could contain animal parts. 

Apart from being a normal person who makes mistakes, these faults filled my motivation to support the Vegan cause even more. 

Vegan is whatever you want it to be. Call it a trend, call it madness. It doesn’t matter. 

What does matter is knowing that it is often about much more than food, as choosing to say NO to a criminal industry (and I am kind to use that term), involves being in favour of environmental sustainability and against animal torture, whether that be through vivisection or the circus. According to recent surveys, in Europe, more than 70 per cent of respondents in interviews and signatures collected were in approval of scientific research without animals’ exploitation. 

In this regard, a newly published book describes the actions of some British activist groups aimed at shutting down companies that violently vivisected exotic animals and puppies of dogs and cats. Yes, dogs and cats are just like the ones that inhabit your homes. 

You don’t. No. It is unacceptable. 

The book was written by Tom Harris, one of these very activist heroes co-founded of one of the UK`s most successful animal rights organisations, SARC (The Southern Animal Rights Coalition), contributing to saving animals confined in laboratories, destined for martyrdom unto death. You can find the book here and a brief description of Tom’s activism at this link.  

In these anonymous buildings of terror, animals are abused, tortured and eviscerated as if they were emotionless puppets. 

The pain is tremendous. 

And for what?

For the conditioner?

Or the anti-wrinkle cream that doesn’t work anyway?

Or have you been told it’s for curing cancer?

There is an empirical way to create longevity and health, without the need to experiment with chemicals and stuff on innocent animals. 

In 2015, I worked in a double-blind project on type 2 diabetic patients who were put on two very similar vegetarian and vegan diets. The vegan diet, which was a specific macrobiotic diet called MA-PI 2, helped the diabetic patients stop taking their medication in less than a month. 

In other parts of the world, that same diet, as I said MA-PI 2 – and 3, has helped patients with other diseases, from malaria to brain cancer. 

However a certain branch of research is not interested in diets because it is better to sell remedies, it makes more money. Moreover, we as individuals are much more guilty than the companies themselves because we accept a pill more willingly than a diet. 

Am I wrong?

So, back to the book. 

Here you will find true stories of groups of brave individuals who have shut down horror companies and contributed to the change we are witnessing recently, with people finally opening their eyes to such a cruel world. During these protests, activists were able to involve people (directly and indirectly) in the nearby community where the targeted company was located. This shows that one does not have to be a convinced vegan or a militant activist to understand that these companies commit criminal acts. Daily. 

You know, I can’t stand in front of a piece of meat and not think that somewhere millions of animals are being moved on trains or trucks for hundreds of miles, suffocated, thirsty, frightened, and malnourished, to end their only life in a pool of blood, which is partly their own and partly that of those first condemned. 

I cannot remain indifferent. It hurts. That flesh hurts. It hurts the soul and the environment. It hurts even to look at it and to smell the aromas people like so much. 

My stepfather had a chicken coop of about ten hens, plus the rooster. 

He would choke a hen every four or maybe six months and put her upside down to let the blood drain away. Then someone would cook it. I saw this scene for years. 

When I dwelled with the Elves, in Italy, at their Eco-villages, they used to kill the lamb once a year. 

I have other examples, and I know you missed the point. 

Nature is wonderful and yet so terrifying. 

I have never judged individual situations, nor will I now, as there is no point. The machine of the meat industries is a monster that sacrifices over seventy billion animals a year, just considering land animals killed for food, leaving out fishes. Even now, as you read these lines, thousands of them die from electric shocks, throat slashing, exhaustion, a bullet, a stick or skinned alive. Every damn second this violence is iterated… abominable, unjust, demonic beyond belief, and unnecessary. 

Sometimes I do imagine all this, and It’s unintelligible how so many of you cannot suffer from it, so as not to change. 

Here is some data. 

From an Italian-language article: 

‘Humanity consumes 360 million tonnes of meat every year. Every day – 24 hours – 1.4 million goats are killed, 1.7 million sheep, 3.8 million pigs, 11.8 million ducks (like the ones you admire with your children in the little garden near your house), 202 million chickens, or 140,000 per minute, hundreds of millions of fish and marine mammals, and about 900,000 cows. It has been estimated that if each cow slaughtered for human consumption every day was 2 metres long and they walked one behind the other, the line would stretch for 1800 kilometres, which is the distance between Hamburg (Germany) and Naples (Italy).’

I have heard a thousand recriminations against vegans. 

Avocado is not Vegan. Or the avocado industry kills people. Plants suffer. Soya. The insects and mice that vegans apparently help kill during harvests. And the list is extensive indeed. 

As I said above, the meaning of being Vegan has very wide margins. 

What these presenters or celebrities (YT is full of this anti-veganism personalities) often forget is that today without all the vegan, macrobiotic, vegetarian, activists etc. movements, the world would be even more horrendous. 

The macrobiotic movements alone have brought to the fore ancient seeds (rice and legumes), whole grains and vegetables that immediately after the meat boom in the sixties/seventies had disappeared (leek, cabbage etc.); and hardly anyone knows it. In addition, the first organic centres sprang up. Agriculture has differentiated. There are even more sustainable forms of agriculture than traditional and organic. I can mention: biodynamics, permaculture and, best of all, MAPI polyculture. These types of agriculture involve different trees and vegetables grown in the same soil, without the use of chemicals that would end up in our bodies. Their environmental impact, according to some studies, is 90% better than the two predominant types of farming, i.e. conventional and organic. 

To those who particularly care about cockroaches and mice, and don’t give a damn about the rest, know that the movements for a better world have set their thinking and action on a 360-degree radius. 

How about you? What are your solutions?

Mine has been an incredible journey, through this macrobiotic association years ago, I learnt a lot about health and food. Here we studied ancient Oriental philosophies, modern science and how to apply new and old principles to create well-being in the community. The discoveries and results were phenomenal. 

The MADIAB project, which I mentioned above about diabetic patients, came to the attention of researchers all over the world and was published in prestigious specialized scientific journals. 

Unfortunately, commercial scientific journals have not mentioned it. 

As you see, another problem arises here. And it is always the same problem. 

You don’t know until it becomes commercial. 

Yes, exactly. Not… official, but commercial. And that’s quite different. 

The MADIAB study put an end to type 2 diabetes (the diet in question has been around since the 80s and is inspired by an earlier diet that is about a century old, which in turn was inspired by an even older diet, and so on, up to a few millennia ago), just as other diets of this calibre have put an end to malaria and cancer. 

There will be more articles on this… in the future. 

Here, suffice it to say that when you mock a growing movement such as Vegan or macrobiotics, you disregard the broader spectrum of the socio-cultural and ecological impact it has had, benefiting the community, and continuing to do so by incessantly proposing solutions and opportunities. 

In Italy, for at least 30 years, you can buy ancient seeds of rice, pasta and beans, i.e. those seeds that have been harvested by farmers and maintained over time without being genetically altered or otherwise modified by a company. The pasta you buy in supermarkets was modified in the 70s (or so), in a nutshell, you are eating a product not made by nature, not to mention that it comes from intensive agriculture that pollutes, turns wheat into flour, and endangers the health of consumers due to mycotoxins etc. 

In short, seeds as nature made them (the ancient one), grow without polluting the soil with unhealthy chemicals. 

I am still amazed that around the world, I struggle to find ancient grains, and the fact is interesting. These seeds/products are grown and processed by local companies (in Italy, like Rosa Marchetti, Senatore Cappelli and Bertone – just to mention a few) that distribute these to specialised shops. 

Translated: an eco-sustainable system to adopt. 

When it comes to Veganism, there is much more to say than what ignorant presenters or celebrities dish out to discredit the work of thousands of people who have fought and still fight to defend animals, people, lands and air. 

Continue…