Archive for meat

“Heavenly Father was gently guiding me in this direction”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, May 27th, 2017

Scott

By: Scott

Middle school seems to ravage people in a variety of ways: physically, socially, mentally, even spiritually. For me it was probably every single one of them, and, looking back, I can see that nearly all my unhappy experiences were related to my physical health. I wasn’t obese. I wasn’t that kid. But I was within that realm; I was one of those kids. I was chubby. I like to use a term that I stole from a friend: chub scout.

I was a chub scout. I “earned” that rank somewhere between eleven and twelve years of age, and I miserably maintained it until I was about fifteen-and-a-half years old, which is when I was the heaviest—215 pounds and about 5′11″ tall. I wasn’t even “fit fat.” You know, when you’re fat but there’s some muscle underneath? I was just fat. None of those 215 pounds was muscle (at least not much if it). Just bones, organs, macaroni and cheese, and fat.

Halfway through my sophomore year of high school I just was fed up. Fed up! With myself. I hated looking at myself in the mirror. I hated feeling weak and unattractive. That was probably the worst of it: I didn’t like thinking about what girls thought of me. I don’t know why, but I just decided that I wasn’t going to take it anymore. I was going to do something about it.

I knew next to nothing about health and wellness, but I had enough common sense to know that I was eating way too much food. It was a simple yet critical conclusion. And I came up with an equally simple solution: don’t eat after dinner, aka put the fork down. I was prone to having snacks, especially in the evening. My family usually ate dinner between 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., so I simply stopped eating food after about that time. After a week of doing this, something amazing happened: I stepped onto the scale and found that I had lost five pounds!

I was astounded. Utterly astounded. Dumbfounded. At a loss. Flabbergasted. The light bulb above my head flickered on—nay, it blazed like the fires of heaven from whence the epiphany came, a stark contrast to the fires of hell I had been feeling for the last four years. I couldn’t believe how easily five pounds vanished. All I did was stop eating as much. “Just put the fork down.” It was just so crazy it actually worked.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“My wife and I felt a yearning to know God better”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, October 15th, 2016

josh-wagner-familyBy: Josh Wagner

A little over a year-and-a-half ago, my wife Jamie and I felt a yearning to know God better. We began praying for help to make significant changes to be closer to Him and experience more of the gifts of the Spirit. We had no idea the Lord would answer those prayers by telling us to change how we eat.

This is how it happened: a little after Jamie and I started praying for this, we were reading scriptures with the kids while we ate dinner (we’ve learned that combining meal and scripture time reduces the chance that the kids will run off while we read). As was typical in our house (and most American houses), we were eating a protein-centric dish named for the meat it was built around.

On that particular day, I chose to read this section of holy writ which says the Lord wants us to joyfully use the things of the earth—plants and animals—to sustain and enrich our lives. But then comes this stern warning: “For unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion” (v. 20). A clear message from heaven pierced my mind to the core, “The way you eat meat is excess and extortion.”

This freaked me out. Read More→

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Taking Life

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, August 27th, 2016

Beautiful Animals Looking at CameraThis article is part of an occasional series on “Word of Wisdom Reflections.” You can also read Steve Reed’s plant-based conversion story.

By: Steve Reed

I wrote most of this back in 2014 but haven’t published it until now. In fact there was a lot more history before and after this, but I feel like this one experience was a big turning point for me. Few people know about this experience, and even fewer know the details which I’m going to attempt to convey. This event happened about 15 years ago while I was a full-time missionary.

After I share this story, I want to wrap up by exploring what doctrine, principles, and applications relate to this subject.

Winter of 2000

My companion and I were trying to reach out to a less active young man on a small Idaho farm. We got on the conversation of animals and he mentioned that they would be cooking some goat soon for Christmas dinner. My companion, who was Fijian, mentioned that he was an expert at killing pigs and could kill the goat in seconds. The young man and I were impressed with the claim and decided to put my companion to the test.

The day came and we met out at the farm, I was anxious to witness this spectacle of my companion slaying a goat with the skill and finesse that he claimed. I came from Texas where hunting is a big deal and I wanted to see how they did things island-style. We walked out to the goat pen and a large goat was selected. I volunteered to take the rope and lasso the goat, and nailed him perfectly right around the horns. My companion had a habit of calling me “Texas Ranger” and my apparent skill with the lasso caused him to excitedly exclaim, “You ARE the Texas Ranger!”

We pulled the goat out of the pen as it struggled against us. I yanked him around like the dumb animal he was while his fellow-goats cowered away.

We pulled the goat down to the ground and my companion straddled it while I held its head to the ground. A medium-sized knife was handed to my companion. I watched as he took a deep breath, while aiming the instrument and sincerely whispering the words, “Sorry, goat.” With a swift jerk, he thrust the knife into the chest of the animal and it let out a disturbing cry of pain while fiercely fighting against us. The cry was jarring, and although this was just an animal in my mind, I couldn’t help but imagine the exact same sound and physical reaction from a person being stabbed in the same way. I held the goat’s head down firmly and looked into its eyes.

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“It makes me so happy to only eat plants!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (31)
Saturday, April 30th, 2016

Laurie Hoer Hiking in PatagoniaBy: Laurie Hoer

As I write this, I have just completed hiking 156 miles (carrying a 25 lb backpack) through and around Patagonia in less than two weeks. Last year I climbed Kilimanjaro, and each day I hike 2.5 miles up a mountain outside our Utah home with 1700 feet in elevation gain. Not bad for a 56-year-old! Proof that eating a whole food, plant-based diet not only provides enough protein but enough fantastic energy to fuel my whole life!

My journey to a plant-based lifestyle began with a natural interest in nutrition and a desire to find out the healthiest way to eat. I grew up in a weight-conscious family where being thin was the goal, but how to achieve this in a healthy way eluded me. I remember following my parents as they tried the Atkins diet, the grapefruit diet, Weight Watchers, and other low calorie plans. Each new eating program usually only lasted a short time and were followed by bouts of overeating (usually junk food) when I got too hungry and fed up to continue. During the last 2 years of high school and first year of college, I really struggled with disordered eating and my weight fluctuated 20 pounds a couple of times a year during this time. Not feeling in control over this aspect of my life really made it difficult for me to feel the Spirit or to feel good about myself. There truly is a connection between feeling good physically and feeling good spiritually and having good self-esteem.

After I got married, my husband and I moved to Xian, China in 1982. It was the first time I encountered really thin, healthy, active people. They ate primarily a whole foods, plant-based diet (with relatively small amounts of animal products). I was so surprised to see tiny women literally inhale huge bowls of rice! With absolutely no processed foods available, people snacked on whole sweet potatoes, ears of corn and sunflower seeds in the shell. Could it be that what I’d been told my whole life—that eating lots of carbs would lead to weight gain—was wrong? This started me on a quest to find out how we are meant to eat. I studied nutrition books and tried to discover “the best” eating plan, but my search was frustrating because there seemed to be no consensus on how humans should eat. There truly could not be a more confusing topic than nutrition! Read More→

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“A distinct thought came into my mind, ‘You can do better.’”

By Jane Birch · Comments (17)
Saturday, April 9th, 2016

Arianna ReesBy: Arianna Rees

May of last year, as I was sitting at the kitchen table one morning, a distinct thought came into my mind, “You can do better.” It wasn’t in a tone of chastisement, but rather it came as one stating a simple fact. I sat startled for a moment, but quickly recognized the source of those words as being from the Spirit. I had recently felt prompted to study the effects of nutrition on mental health, a topic close to my heart. The research that I found was fascinating and led to further and further study and discovery of the very powerful effects that food choice can have, not only on our physical health, but also on our emotional and mental well-being as well.

That morning in the kitchen, I had just read several articles on the effects of antibiotics given to farm animals and their documented negative effects on long-term health on those of us consuming those animal products. The truth of those statements and facts, for whatever reason, spoke to me more clearly and more directly that day than ever before. And so I sat and pondered. It was then that the Spirit helped me to see that I could do better, especially since I was the gatekeeper of my family’s general diet and eating habits.

It is often said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. The teacher showed up in a big way from familiar sources that morning. I was immediately reminded of the Biblical account of Daniel gaining favor and strength due to his firm decision to eat grains and abstain from the king’s meats. I turned to the Bible to re-read the account and found myself reading a well-known story with fresh eyes. Daniel’s countenance shown and was filled with great knowledge and wisdom. What an amazing blessing! I felt so strongly that he was not only blessed for his courage in being obedient to a spiritual law, but he also was experiencing direct effects physically for having obeyed a physical law that had physical consequences. He was living the Word of Wisdom fully and experienced blessings of spirit, mind, and body.

I quickly turned to D&C 89, a section that I was so very familiar with. What was different this time in my reading was that I read each verse more literally than ever before. I no longer focused on the “thou shalt not’s,” but rather read from the perspective of the “thou shalt’s.” I had been keeping the portion of the Word of Wisdom well when it came to abstaining from drugs, alcohol, etc. I had been eating a healthy and well-rounded diet by most standards. But there it was stated so clearly—I could do better in eating meat sparingly, eating more whole foods, and foods in season.

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“Man is not made to eat flesh”

By Jane Birch · Comments (25)
Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Albert SchindlerBy: Albert Schindler

Roughly three years ago—I was 81 years old at the time—I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. My right kidney was so cancerous that the doctors gave me zero percent chance of saving it, so it was surgically removed. The cancer spread to my bladder. Consequently, over about a period of a year and a half, I had 12 chemotherapy sessions and several non-surgical probes to get the cancer in remission. Several of these chemo sessions left me with a bladder infection that took antibiotics to cure. Needless to say, my health was in a very precarious situation.

It was the twelfth, and last chemo session, plus an infection that really got the best of me. My entire body, from the neck down, ached terribly. The experience lasted for roughly two days. I say “roughly” because for the most part I was in a daze and had no recollection of time. Because of the pain, I couldn’t sleep, and I could barely stay awake. I ached if I sat up, and I ached if I tried to lie down. Near the end of this time, I suppose because I was so lacking sleep plus so weak from the pain, I started to experience hallucinations.

I had several different hallucinations, but of interest to this story is near the end when I saw before me a large grid that resembled a giant-sized, brown “Weetabix,” like is found in a Weetabix cereal box. I had a bucket in my hand and I was trying to dip out the pain I felt in various parts of my body from one square of the grid and pour it into another square. I was becoming more and more frustrated. This didn’t work! My pain was still one hundred percent there, only I kept shifting it around!

After what seemed like an eternity of fruitless dipping to end my pain, something within me said, “You have to get rid of the pain, not just mask it by trying to hide it somewhere else.” In other words, dipping it out of one Weetabix square and pouring it into another square wasn’t the answer. What was of special interest after that “Aha! moment” was a very clear, audible voice that said to me, “Man is not made to eat flesh.”

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“I can’t believe the energy I have and how good I feel”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, November 21st, 2015

Brian and Tammi SevyBy: Brian Sevy

I knew I was clearly on the wrong course when a physician friend of mine pulled me aside at church, expressed concern about the way I looked, and point-blank asked me if I had cancer. This conversation occurred about 4 and a half years ago. A few months before that I had been increasingly concerned about my health. I was overweight and under a lot of professional stress. I generally didn’t feel good. At times I felt bad enough that I knew I needed to make some changes in order to avert a health crisis.

Based on a flawed assumption that my problems would go away if I just lost weight, I embarked on one of the high animal protein diets. I lost weight quickly, but I felt worse and developed a gaunt look. Other friends pulled me aside and ask if the weight loss was intentional, implying that I might be afflicted with a serious health issue.

As I contemplated what to do next, my daughter stumbled across a documentary called Forks over Knives. She and I had done the animal protein diet together and were both so tired of eating meat that the idea of vegetables sounded very refreshing. This documentary, and my personal research that followed, was life changing. The scientific and clinical evidence gathered over decades by Drs. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn, and others was irrefutable. I have always considered myself analytical by nature, and so I was surprised and shocked to discover how thoroughly I had been duped.

In reviewing the research on causal links between animal-based foods and a host of chronic diseases, I was forced to consider the reality of my situation and the damage I had most likely done to my body over the years. My grandfather died of heart disease at an early age — only a few years older than my age at the time. The beautiful thing about this research, especially Dr. Esselstyn’s clinical work, is the evidence that a plant-based diet would not only stop the progression of these lurking chronic conditions but that it would actually reverse them.

As I connected the dots, I realized that this way of eating would not only improve the quality of my life but that it could actually extend it. Tammi and I have been blessed with a wonderful family. We are all very close and being with our family is our greatest joy. At the point I was contemplating this shift to a whole food plant-based lifestyle, I thought of our first grandchild who was about a month away from being born. My grandfather passed away when I was only 3 years old and so I really didn’t get to know him. I felt like I had been given an opportunity for a different course and a different outcome.

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“Dang it, there go the hamburgers”

By Jane Birch · Comments (5)
Saturday, August 29th, 2015

Paul & Orva Johnson closeupBy: Paul Johnson

My wife and I have always tried to eat with a mind toward health. But I enjoyed a good hamburger, barbequed tri-tips, chocolate shakes, ice cream, etc. In fact I would have been perfectly happy to have hamburgers for every meal. I still would—but I can’t do it, because I know too much about what that would do to my body, not to mention the cows’ bodies.

So my journey toward a plant-based diet came slowly. As my wife became totally plant-based, I supported her (easy to do since she looks amazing). We had mostly plant-based food at home, except for cheese and a few other things like that. She learned to cook meals that could be done completely plant-based or with a little bit of cheese or even meat thrown in.

At 46 I was in very good health, or so I thought. I was in a kick-boxing class, could do 80 pushups, and could run forever. But my feet started to tingle a lot. The tingling gradually grew into outright pain. Terrible, unbearable pain. I went to several doctors who simply couldn’t figure out what was going on. When they took x-rays of my feet they were astounded. My bones were disappearing. I was osteoporotic as an otherwise healthy 46-year-old male: practically unheard of.

After numerous tests, they discovered my kidneys were throwing out all of my calcium, causing my parathyroid glands to grab the calcium from my bones so that my body would have enough to function. The docs gave me prescriptions to help my condition. Nothing worked and the meds had weird, unacceptable side effects. During this time they also discovered I was pre-diabetic, glucose intolerant. Apparently my feet found out I was about to become diabetic and decided to get peripheral neuropathy early—thus the tingling, numbness and sharp pains in my feet. (I realize that numbness and pain don’t seem too congruent, but just ask anybody with neuropathy about that. They won’t be able to explain why, but they’ll make a pretty convincing case that it happens.)

So now I had two problems: diabetes and the kidney thing. I had also had two very bad kidney stones, requiring three surgeries between them because they would not pass on their own. I was given more medicine for the diabetes issue and was told to cut way down on carbs: go easy on the fruit and bread and eat meat. My wife was very supportive and went out of her way to make sure I could follow the standard American diet for diabetes.

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“I topped the scale at 269 pounds!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, April 18th, 2015

April ThompsonBy: April Thompson

I’m a wife and a mother of four. If you saw me and talked to me today, you would think that I’m a fitness nut. Well maybe I am, but I haven’t always been that way.

As a kid, I was pretty happy, but the divorce of my parents left me feeling a little hollow and empty. I turned to food for comfort. It was an easy choice. Every time I ate, I felt better. I would feel full. I wasn’t obese, but I was bigger than most other little girls and was teased about it. I told myself it didn’t matter, but I knew inside that it really did. These feelings continued for years.

I met Joshua, the man who is now my husband, and he changed my world. Most of the changes were great, but . . . well . . . I’m not going to blame my weight issues on my husband, however he was an integral part of them. I adopted many of his HORRIBLE eating habits, and bit by bit, they added up to me being UNHEALTHY.

Through the next 8 years, I had 3 beautiful daughters and supported Josh through graduate school, and managed our apartment complex among other things. If I was treating my body the way I should have, I could have handled the stress. But because my fitness and eating habits were terrible, I topped the scale at 269 pounds!

You heard me right.

Outside I seemed happy, but inside I was sad. I hated looking in the mirror—yuck! I felt trapped in my body but with the brain of an athlete. Not only that, I had pre-diabetic blood sugar levels.

What was I going to do about it though? I started where many start: with a few fad diets. I tried hCG, Body for Life, South Beach and Weight Watchers. As fad diets always are, these diets were a temporary fix. I would lose weight, but eventually it came back.

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“I’ve come to see food and all creation as sacred”

By Jane Birch · Comments (14)
Saturday, April 11th, 2015

Steve ReedBy: Steve Reed

I grew up in South Texas where barbecue and eating red meat are a deep part of the culture. My transition to a plant-based diet underwent a major shift in 2011 when I finally decided to regulate my personal use of meat to only those times when I legitimately needed to consume it.

I spent a period of about 6 months reflecting on past personal experiences, studying scripture, and searching for wisdom in the words of past and present Church leaders. As I studied and considered many perspectives, I felt that a transition to a plant-based diet was necessary.

In adopting this way of life, I knew that there would be consequences that I would need to address. First, I had to find suitable alternatives to the meat I had become accustomed to. Thanks to the Internet, there is no shortage of recipes out there, and I have been very satisfied with the alternatives I have found. I realized that it wasn’t the taste of meat that I liked, but the spices, sauces and flavors that I found most enjoyable. I began to find alternatives to meat to provide the foundation for those flavors. Because of the vast array of options out there, I don’t feel that I am missing out on anything. It is similar to the feeling of alcohol abstinence, I don’t feel like I’m missing out there either.

Balancing my personal food choices among family and friends has been a little tricky. How do you justify making a radical change in diet that culturally alienates you from those you care about? In my situation, my motives were driven by morals, health, and a desire to please God. I am a believer in persuasion rather than force, so I have been concerned with others thinking that my choices were a condemnation of theirs. My wife and children are free to eat what they want, and they often choose animal products when they are an option. In rare situations, I will eat meat that is served to me if I feel that to refuse would be disrespectful to my host. I found Romans 14 (CEV version in particular) to be a good source of inspiration. Animal flesh is not a prohibition like certain plants are, so the sparing use of it guided by wisdom and judgment is important. I follow the rule and deal with exceptions individually.

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