Month: November 2018 (Page 1 of 2)

This past Thanksgiving, I ate a substantial amount of meat, which I regret because I know that it sanctions the inhumane treatment of animals at industrial farms. On the other hand, my mother had prepared a great dinner with so much love that I couldn’t bring myself to reject it.

However, during break I also talked to a friend about the benefits of switching to a plant-based diet. I explained how this reduces the likelihood of suffering from heart disease and reduces inflammation (Adler 2018), an argument that he found very compelling since he is an avid runner.

Moreover, after thanksgiving dinner (which made me wake up with a headache), I came to the conclusion that I would benefit greatly if I adopted a (mostly) plant-based diet for the long-term. Realizing also that it wouldn’t be wise to commit to this diet religiously, because there will be moments when meat is the only available option.

I also have the intention to keep sharing my reasons for embracing a plant-based diet, even after the semester ends. In this manner, I can continue to spread awareness about the inhumane practices of the animal husbandry industry, and also share information that may help others increase their quality of life.

Finally, at the beginning of my project I foresaw constant struggle, mostly because I had the preconception that any form of nonviolent activism required sacrifice on some level. And this is true, transitioning into a plant-based diet was difficult, and in some instances of hunger I found myself craving animal protein. However, I also feel better physically, as I now feel that my energy levels are more stable throughout the day. More importantly, I feel better spiritually, since I know that my diet no longer comes at the cost of the extreme suffering of other conscious beings.

Adler, Allan. 2018. “The darker side of inflammation”. Accessed November 28, 2018.

https://healthbeat.spectrumhealth.org/the-darker-side-of-inflammation-vegan-diet-stroke-heart-attack/

While meditating about positive thoughts, I came to the conclusion that nonviolence in practice is a mindset that one has to have. Meditating has helped me form the mindset to stick to the ultimate goal of the project. To impact those one the team to provoke them to want to win games and dominate. Unfortunate for football players, but fortunate for this project it  had to be in a positive way. It has been difficult adapting to the nonviolent side of the practice, with football being the vessel, due to the violent nature of the sport, but with nonviolent communication skills learns through the process of embodying nonviolence I am perfecting the techniques everyday.

After a week of routine meditation, through nonviolent practices noticed that I have grown farther away from meats, naturally. Consuming less meat was not a problem for me because for the first 6years of my life, I was a vegan. My family and I slowly began to transition from vegan to vegetarian, and soon after unfortunately, with our busy schedules could not afford to keep up with the diet. By logging back into to that during this personal project I have noticed that my diet has become a lot healthier. I began to eat more leafy things, spinach and greens and for a snack I would find my self eating an orange or apple. I am a lot more awake throughout the day. I think that anyone can benefit from doing this once in their life because it is a learning experience. You learn how to handle situations differently due to the information you know about nonviolent techniques. Knowledge is power! With the projects coming to an end, I plan on continuing these practices going forward with the seasons here at Lafayette College. I am not trying to leave here with a couple of wins. I did not come here for that, and it needs to change. Nonviolently.

As the season came to a close, I began to think about the project in a different light. I continued with my conversations with people on the team in hopes of better communication by being on the same page. While I think the team is coming along better with communication, I figured the project should shift more internally and personally. I adopted meditating as my nonviolence tool to achieve.

I remember meditating in middle school and rarely in high school. With and busy schedule, I found the time to meditate 45 minutes before I go to bed. For 20 of those minutes I would sit still listening to my breath, my mind in thought. I would think about nonviolence and all the ways it can help us navigate life positively. With the season sending the way that it did, frustration surely built up inside and I found meditating as a way of relaxing and clearing my mind. Instead of verbally communicating something, that might have been taken negatively, I would reframe from saying them. I would then meditate.

My mind naturally drifted to those instances and because I did that, I had better night sleeps. Waking up after meditating is mind refreshing, and I would not have discovered it without this project. Going into off season workouts, I will incorporate both nonviolent communication skills and meditation techniques to further promote nonviolence.

For the past two weeks I have been trying out a new form of mediation called Metta meditation. Metta meditation is a type of meditation that focuses on compassion and love. Metta is a Pali word meaning kindness, good will, and benevolence. This kind of meditation comes from traditions in the Buddhist religion, specifically the Tibetan and Theravada lineages.  To do this, one sits down cross legged on the floor with closed eyes, making sure that the spine remains upright. To begin one generates feelings of kindness and benevolence towards yourself, and then to others. A popular progression is co concentrate on feeling kindness and compassion towards yourself, a good friend, a neutral person on your life, a difficult person in your life, all four of these people equally, and then gradually send these thoughts to the universe. This progression makes sending these feelings to people you may dislike easier by starting with yourself and loved ones. In conclusion to this meditation, you should have developed a feeling of wishing happiness to everyone in the world. Another easy trick to send these good thoughts is to visualize the suffering of others and send them love, or imagining someone and wish them happiness.

To be honest, I was a little skeptical of this type of meditation, it sounds a little cheesy to me. Nonetheless, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and the holiday season I decided to give it a shot and try Metta meditation once a day for about 15 minutes. To my surprise, I felt really good after completing the meditation each day. Wishing happiness to others, especially people I do not know personally, is something I do not do very often.  But when I started to routinely remind myself of my love for myself, family, friends, and people in the world, I found I had a more accepting attitude about my self image, and that I was getting angry less. Especially during the holidays when my huge extended family stays with my immediate family and I in our small house, tensions start to arise because we are all sharing a small space. However, I found myself getting angry or annoyed less during these tensions, because I was able to have more compassion due to my Metta meditation.

I believe Metta meditation can contribute to the greater scope of nonviolent practices because the core of this meditation is unconditional forgiveness, love, and kindness towards all kinds of people. The thought process of self love and love of others helps to humanize the enemy, and increase your compassion towards others. Additionally, the core concepts of nonviolence is to recognize the human in all people and to use kindness during disagreements or violence. Metta meditation could help many people develop compassion for themselves, friends, and family in their everyday lives which can improve relationships, as well as develop compassion for people in the media who may anger them which leads to a happier lifestyle.

In my last post, I talked about the reasons for why there is such a lack of vegetarians in the US. I went over various reasons, the last of which being due to health reasons, in other words, those who had tried vegetarian diets realized they had felt healthier prior to when they quit meat. I concluded the post by discussing the importance of iron (which happens to be found primarily in meat), and the fact that you can in fact achieve iron sufficiency without meat, it just takes a little extra effort.

On my last post, I received a comment asking me about alternative ways in which one can maintain sufficient iron levels without meat, as well as if there are currently resources available in helping new vegetarians adapt to the lifestyle. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Though the most iron dense foods around are meat (primarily beef), there are other non-meat foods that contain the component, just in lower levels per serving.

Some of these foods include lentils, beans, spinach, tofu, seeds, (such as pumpkin, sesame, and squash), dried apricots, chickpeas, and baked potatoes. Though all of these foods contain lower mgs of iron per serving compared to meat products, they can still very much get the job done when eaten regularly.

If you’re someone who for some reason can’t rely on the above foods to maintain their iron levels, then a great alternative is daily supplements.

As I mentioned before, I am very anemic, and though I do eat many of the foods listed above, my body doesn’t absorb iron as well as other people’s. Because of this, I take daily iron supplements, which are over the counter, and give you a healthy daily dose of iron. These are perfect for people who are vegetarian, or whose bodies simply don’t absorb iron as well.

If you’re a carnivore, however, you should talk to your doctor before taking these supplements. This is because unlike some vitamins/minerals, iron can be quiet dangerous when over consumed, so it’s important to make sure that iron supplements make sense when combined with your personal diet and lifestyle.

Now when it comes to resources people can use when acclimating to a vegetarian lifestyle, I’d say the best options around would be a dietician and/or your medical doctor. Since dietician’s are highly knowledgeable about the world of foods and nutrition, I think conversing with one during and/or prior to becoming a vegetarian would be highly beneficial. If you don’t have access to a dietician (which many people don’t), then I’d suggest relying on the internet to inform yourself about helpful tips and tricks to transitioning from a meat eating lifestyle to a vegetarian one. Besides that, obviously keeping in touch with your regular doctor while transitioning is very important as well.

As for my personal experience, I have started to becoming incredibly used to my vegetarian lifestyle. Since beginning my iron therapy a few weeks ago, I have generally felt more energized, alert, and healthy. And though I used to love chicken and fish, I find that I no longer crave them like I used to.

I day to day life, I have began to emphasize the natural world around me more and more, and often find myself advocating for the vegetarian diet casually among my peers. Through speaking openly about my journey, my family have also decided to hop on board, and have decided to try living a more green lifestyle. So far, they’re finding it highly doable, as well as  beneficial to their health and their minds (for moral reasons).

My goal from here on out is to continue to inform as many people as possible about the positive effects vegetarianism has had on me and my health, and continue to spark conversation about the importance of animal rights.

https://www.nomeatathlete.com/relax/

https://www.webmd.com/diet/iron-rich-foods#2

Nearing the end of the semester, I now have a collection of mandalas that I have created over the past few weeks. Though I find the mandala making process a way of relieving stress, lately it has been difficult to find time to work on this craft because I have been very busy. Even though the mandalas that I have been making do not look too intricate, the drawing of the circles and creating the patterns on the mandala involve a lot of patience. However, I have been able to create small and quick sketches. As of now, I do not have as many mandalas as I’d wish to have, but I think I am satisfied with the quality of each mandala that I’ve created.

In one of my mandalas, I incorporated a quote by Adlai E. Stevenson, which reads “Making peace is harder than making war.” The past few weeks our class has been discussing the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and I find that this quote closely relates to this topic. For years, Israel and Palestine have been experiencing an ongoing struggle and have yet to come to a compromise. This quote by Adlai Stevenson illuminates the difficulty of obtaining peace, which causes many people to turn to war because it is the easier option. Many times in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, people went down the path of war simply because it was perceived to be the easier option. While creating this mandala, I thought about how it is important to recognize that although peace is not the easier option, it is the better option.  

As our personal projects come to an end, I wish to find more time to create mandalas and continue to enjoy the calming experience of mandala making.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it revolves so much around food and togetherness. When people think of Thanksgiving the first thing that comes to mind is probably the turkey, which is like a symbol and a decoration for the holiday. What stands out the most to me, however, is the baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, biscuits, greens, and pies. Even before I became a vegetarian I thought these dishes outshined the turkey.
This year, as always, I was really excited to eat some good food and I also wanted my family to limit the number of dishes made with meat. Some people might think that there aren’t many options during this holiday for vegetarians, but I think there are plenty. My family used to be one of these people, however, this year we made a variety of dishes that were all vegetarian except for one.
It took a little bit of convincing, but my mom decided to not cook a turkey, which I was really happy about. Although, no one in my family really liked turkey we usually had it because it was a tradition. We all agreed that we should have an alternative, especially, because the turkey was too big and there was always so much leftover. Then we ended up cooking chicken instead, which is relatively smaller and arguably tastes better. It was so much fun helping my family make vegetarian Thanksgiving dishes and we felt good because they were much healthier than dishes made with meat. It was also nice seeing my family try to minimize animal suffering by avoiding meat consumption as much as they could on the holiday.

Gregory Bove

For my personal project, I have ultimately decided to create a piece of art which demonstrates the message of equality among all humans, especially between different genders in Egypt. I decided to do this because it was the best way that I deemed fit to both connect the track team and to show support for Azza Soliman, a woman’s rights activist in Egypt who is currently in prison for speaking out against the inequalities that reside there today.

After looking to Amnesty.com to find out about Azza Soliman, I was able to collect a number of statements from the Lafayette Track and Field team, as well as the Lafayette Cross Country team, about the importance of equality in our world today. I will take these sentences and create a picture out of them, which will be the gender equality symbol inside an outline of Egypt.

I believe that the effect of this project will be that the team will now have something which we can say that we all contributed to, and it also allowed me to more closely connect the Track team with the Cross Country team because we were able to come up with these statements in small groups of people which included track and cross country members.

Since my last project entry both Fatimah and I have been trying to get out of our comfort zones and challenge ourselves when it comes to our diet. My goal was to adopt a vegan lifestyle for at least a week, and hers was to avoid eating pork. I wanted to challenge myself because as I was urging people to cut meat out of their diet, I felt that it was only right that I also take the initiative to eliminate all animal byproduct from mine. The process was extremely hard for both of us. Although she was successful at times, Fatimah found it difficult to resist the fresh made bacon and egg breakfast sandwiches made at the Marquis dining hall. She claimed that it was too hard to avoid pork because most of her go-to meals for breakfast included bacon. According to Fatimah, she was so accustomed to eating pork that she sometimes forgot about her pork free diet. Even though she wasn’t completely successful in sticking to her diet, I commend her for being courageous enough to at least try it out. It is important to recognize that these changes take time because it is hard for people to completely avoid foods that they are so accustomed to consuming.

I experienced a similar struggle when I tried a vegan diet. I had already struggled with finding vegetarian options that taste good at the dining halls, so finding tasty vegan dishes was even more challenging. I couldn’t eat the crepes, bagel with cream cheese or cereal that I usually ate for breakfast. Finding vegan foods that provided the nutrition and energy I needed throughout the day posed a greater challenge than I had imagined. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to continue with the diet after a couple of days. I am planning to attempt veganism again over winter break because I will have more control over what I eat and more options at home.