Conscious Eating & Oprah's Vegan Challenge

Ok. I still haven't seen all of the Oprah's Vegan Challenge episode, but... I have managed to see about ten minutes of clips that people have shared online. It's not enough to really make an assessment of the whole adventure, but there were some interesting points.

Image from Ex-Smith on Flickr

Oprah had Michael Pollan on as a guest - which seemed like an interestingly odd choice because Michael Pollan is not a vegan. He is a food guy though. And I have to credit his writing with giving me that last big push to become a definitively more conscious shopper and eater. From what I saw, I think that was his role for this Oprah show too - to help the audience understand what it means to be aware of what you're eating and why it is important. He pointed out that their week-long vegan challenge would really help force them all to think about how much animal product is in their daily diets.

I think it'd be beneficial for everyone to really take a good look at how much of everything is in their diet - not just animal products. But taking an element at a time will empower you to make your own decision as to whether or not you feel like maybe there is too much or not enough of that element in your current diet. And then you can take action to make a change for your overall health.

Pollan admitted that he does eat meat a few times a week but he makes a point not to eat feedlot/industrial meats. If you read his book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, you can learn more about what he means by that and how he came to that decision. But I can tell you right now that it means if he's eating fish, it's wild. If he's eating chicken, it was truly free-range and it ate what chickens are naturally supposed to eat... and so on.

The clips I watched also included a few moments with staffers and their thoughts on this vegan challenge. Some were not thrilled but one said she thought she could be vegan two or three days a week easily. And that's something I've been talking with people about lately - unless you are making sure you eat meat at every meal, you could easily consume a vegetarian or vegan meal and not even realize it. That's because many people aren't raised to frame their meals that way.

Image by karimian on Flickr

I also wondered - What if everything that was technically vegan was labeled so? Many vegan packaged food products have a small symbol somewhere near the nutritional information. But what if absolutely everything that was vegan was largely and clearly marked so? Would people turned off by the idea of veganism move away from those foods/products - even if they were foods/products they had liked? Would some people automatically assume it meant they were eating healthy?

Because that's another important key - vegan does not necessarily mean healthy. It can, but it doesn't have to. The classic example is Coca Cola. Yes, Coca Cola is technically vegan. Yet I think we all know soda is not the healthiest drink available. It has 170 calories in a 8oz bottle. Then there's the highly processed high fructose corn syrup and the caffeine. The point is you could consume a technically vegan diet and still feel crappy from eating tons of sugar or sluggish after coming down off of a caffeine jolt. You could still become overweight from consistently consuming way more calories than you burn.

The thinking is that vegans have to be more conscious of what they eat because mainstream food isn't always vegan-friendly. And conscious is a good step but it's not an instant fix. As Michael Pollan put it on Oprah's show, people are eating "too many calories, too much processed food, tons of refined carbohydrates..." (Refined carbohydrates would include white flour, sugar, and soda.)

So here's where I encountered a huge disconnect. This is the shopping list posted on the show's website.

The vegetable and fruit section is the smallest section on the whole list! And almost the whole first page is processed "replacement foods"... aka fake meat, fake cheese, fake mayonnaise... aka highly processed foods. If you eat meat at least twice a day, every day, but now it's fake meat... is that really mounds better for you?  Aren't you now eating a bunch of preservatives and possibly dyes and other chemicals?

Again, I did not see the whole episode. But between what I saw and this list, I'm not sure viewers got the full message about eating healthy because so much attention was paid to associating veganism with processed foods.

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