Our TV here in Australia has just had advertisements urging everyone to go vegetarian. That may not sound so strange but we, like the US, are a meat producing nation. It’s deeply ingrained in the Australian culture and identity with meat on the ‘barbie‘ and advertisements urging people to eat red meat daily. I’ve even recently heard a butcher’s advertisement using a media personality claiming that it’s un-Australian to not eat meat. Of course we could eat kangaroos instead of culling them… at least they aren’t farmed and graze on bushland not kept in fields. Indigenous Australians have been cooking kangaroo and sustainable bush tucker for millenia.

Who knows why… maybe it’s part of being a descendant of two generations of first cousins on one side, alcoholics on the other, but I have a strange body on a cellular and metabolic level and one which would make it hard to be a vegan even vegetarian.

I’m gluten intolerant (unable to digest many grains leading to significant bowel disorder and it’s developmental consequences). I’m allergic to casein (milk protein). I’m salicylate intolerant (high in most fruits, in honey, in almonds and some nuts, in some vegetables and most herbs) and have blood sugar problems meaning I have to have a low sugar diet and complex (not simple carbs). To top it all off, I’ve had Epstein Barr Virus (related to CFS) and the cold sore virus (many kids get in childhood)… both herpes viruses which are kept in check by low levels of Arginine (high in nuts) and supplementary Lysine. Raise the Arginine too high through nut intake, and this dormant virus has a party including ugly old brain odema (brain swelling) because I have a tetchy inflammatory state that has had up to 5 times the level of inflammatory cytokines that most people have (means if I get the flu the aches most people would get are myalgic, grinding leg ‘migraines’ so painful they’ve had wish I was dead until they pass. They don’t respond to pain killers and they make it hard to think or do anything until they go.

I spent 35 years with two primary immune deficiencies before recovery from them, and have a mild functional B12 deficiency (wheat, milk, eggs and meat are the main dietary sources of B12). Given that the livestock industry contributes to over 60% of greenhouse emissions and far more than all forms of transport combined, I know there’s no such thing as a meat eating environmentalist, so what can someone like me do? By design I’m poisoned by the wonderful salicylates in plant foods, and my immune system, gut function and brain function would be impaired without the B12 that I can only get from meat and eggs because I’m gluten intolerant and allergic to casein).

So recently we have wonderful advertising informing society of the terrifying forecasts if we don’t ALL reduce greenhouse emissions and that one of the biggest ways we can do that is to go vegetarian. Hmm. OK, so I’ve got to keep a diet low in nuts and seeds, got to have B12 which I can’t get from wheat or other glutinous grains and can’t have from milk products, go to avoid the fruits and veg high in salicylates and can’t take honey. Hmm. Do I need to face that some of us, for whatever metabolic chaos that may be, just aren’t designed to survive as vegetarians?

Nevertheless, I’m at least snubbing the beef industry and limiting meats and fish to every second day, not every day. If only meat eaters did THIS much, we could help change so much. Yes, Mc Donalds, Burger King and the like would have to alter their perceived wicked ways, but wow, all the rights would could unwrong. Sometimes we hypocrits have to think of starting somewhere. We may not be able to go the whole way, but maybe we can go further than we self-indulgently do.

As for those of you without my physiological challenges, what’s your excuse?

Donna Williams *)

author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter

http://www.donnawilliams.net

UPDATE:

Since this article a few weeks ago, I’ve reduced all red meat intake to around once a week (lamb, not beef, I’m not doing beef at all if I can avoid it). I have no health concerns to report, which surprised me re the functional B12 issue but seems my B12 1000mcg supplements are doing their job (usual B12 intake is 10mcg but SOME people with functional B12 problem can flood the cut with 100 times this level and end up metabolising that 10mcg of it and thereby avoid injections).

But I’ve been eating plenty of pulses (lentils, beans… and no, not farty 😉 and we’ve been using wonderful GF grains like Amaranth and Quinoa is stir fries and bakes and buckwheat pasta with low salicylate GF/CF vegie pesto.

We are about 3/4 vegetarian now, if there’s such a thing, or just less carnivorous. We’re having fish or chicken every 3 days or so and the rest is meat free. The part I’m liking best is the low salicylate roast veggies and lots more beetroot (really good to get the bowel moving and don’t be surprised if you have the gene that means you pee red because you can’t metabolise the pigment of the beetroot). I don’t look or feel ill, quite the opposite, I’m healthy, have lots of energy and my bowel is happier than it’s ever been at a rate of one healthy bowel movement a day… wow!