Vegan and Gluten Free

Just got back from visiting two friends of mine. I offered to take them out to a nice dinner, their choice.

It took them over two hours to choose a restaurant.

Once we got there, a gluten-free organic vegan restaurant, they looked at the menu and said, "We can't eat here. There isn't enough protein." So we walked down the street to a vegetarian Mexican restaurant.

They perused the menu for over an hour, asking the server all kinds of questions like what kind of beans are these, are they organic, are they locally sourced, how are they prepared.

They finally chose something and were apparently satisfied with it, but when they got home they each took a dozen or more vitamin pills, kelp pills, fiber pills, god knows what else.  Apparently, the purity of their food is more important than the purity of their vitamins, which according to research only rarely contain the listed ingredient and instead contain all sorts of harmful heavy metals.

The whole "religion" -- and that's what it is -- of veganism and guten-freeism is not based on fact or science or research.  It's a self-sustaining cult.  

Shoot me if I ever go vegan or gluten free.

I have to say though, that's rather like me explaining about the time I had two young black men try to hit me and run me off the road and then concluding that all young black men might do the same and they are to be avoided and god help me if I ever like hip hop.

You can't honestly say to me that you have had enough experience with vegans that you know the deal.
I'm still vegan, I don't behave like that and the only vitamin I take is the b-12 the doc gives me every so often because apparently my body is not great at utilizing b-12 and I need more than the average bear.

Douchebags come in all varieties.

I also take offense at the implication that it's a religion. Some people may feel it's one. A lot of us have really strong science based beliefs about the sentience of critters and our lack of a right to use them for our own ends. That's a philosophy worth discussing, but not a religion.

The weird shit people do when it comes to health beliefs is worth discussing. I think with some people it boils down to a mental illness but I don't think that line is defined by meat or bread consumption. I've seen some crossfitters who seriously needed to see a counselor and they are notoriously paleo.

Working at Saks I see that most people are weird as fuck about something. I think it's our culture. We have such a Darwinistic bootstrap culture people develop things that border on religion that they do to squeeze the most out of life- or so they think. Manic, panicky, multi-tasking, grasping, anything they think they can control will get scheduled and picked apart and examined like it's a sign from the gods. If they see a vegan doing well, all of a sudden they're vegan. Or gluten free. Or paleo. Or a republican. They don't care, just copy someone for god's sakes!