Oprah's 'Vegan-ish' and TP Use Goes UP at Harpo

Thought I was busy working on other things related to my big news tomorrow related a little change that might make some people feel like winter's going to be a little better due to Lumigrate despite what the Ground Hog Day reflects (who is correct 39% of the time), I recorded and watched Oprah today. I'm glad I spent some time today on this topic.

If any of you have followed her or her history, she withstood a horrendous lawsuit years ago for having said something on a show years and years ago about her opinion about beef as she was being educated on her show.  So I was really surprised she was taking on that fish to fry again.  All puns intended. 

Overall, my reflections of the show mostly surround how far we have come in the US with how things are handled.  The biggest beef producing company in the U.S. allowed them to come into one of their facilities (in Colorado, opposite end of the state from where I live now) and film everything but the actual killing of the animal.  They allowed Lisa Ling, the reporter doing that portion of the piece, to be filmed as she observed, and her response afterward, which she said was 'intense'.  The woman representing that company on the show (GM, actually -- pretty impressive!) seemed extremely respectful and basically the consensus was 'there are many opinions and differences and no one answer is the right one for everyone'.  

Hmmmm, where have I heard THAT before?  Oh, yeah, I say it all the time on Lumigrate!  

They showed the cattle at the big facilities where they're being fed corn and in pens together which if you've ever been round them, as I was near where they filmed, end up with a horrendous smell from the concentration of waste from the animals for the amount of land they are put on.  I could tell when they went to the slaughter acility that it was one of the 50% in the world designed by Dr Temple Grandin (Dr as she has a PhD in Animal Sciences or similar, famous now for the HBO movie about her and an animal sciences professor at my alma mater, Colorado State University. 

She came in and spoke to our little group of 75 the semester we graduated ... she's quite amazing and inspirational.  And she did as much for animal humanity as Oprah has done for education of the public in the last 25 years, in my opinion. Later they went on to talk about her not once but twice. 

Essentially, Oprah's team wanted to do a story about eating vegan and they went on a challenge to eat that way for a week.  At the end of the show they reported on how many people were able to do that and some of the results people had individually.  Mostly, they used much more toilet paper at Harpo Studios than any other time in the past. 

you might think initially, but in reality  because that's how we get toxins out of our bodies, among other things! So while their TP bill might have gone up, their productivity due to having healthy employees would in theory go up as well, and hopefully the extra bathroom time is actually not a factor becasue instead of people sitting and reading as they're constipated, they're in/out/done the way nature designed us to be. 

They had differing opinions from two of the main experts they were interviewing on the show and did Oprah's usual high standard way of handling that respectfully.  The "vegan trailblazer" and author, Kathy Freston, who they show shopping with one of Oprah's team/workers and helping her in the kitchen, as it IS a whole different way of preparing food, caused me to think.  'This doesn't seem right to me, as they're advising on eating an awful lot of soy and essentially I've heard that upsets the hormone system unless it's in a form that's been fermented. They didn't really say anything about her qualifications for having her opinions and how she become a 'vegan trailblazer' but today it's not like the old days when everyone followed people with initials and formally given titles after their names.  That has it's upsides and it's downsides. 

We even find that on Lumigrate and it's something we're continuing to navigate as we grow. And you'll also see at Lumigrate that I attribute some of my health issues that occurred in my thirties to following an eating program a chiropractor had me do which didn't make sense to me but sure made me feel better.  There were aspects that were right for me, and some that weren't, to put it simply.  So I applaud and encourage everyone to learn and then check in with yourself in whatever way you do, and say 'does this make sense to ME for ME?'.  

One of the people I have included on Lumigrate at the time of the startup two years ago, is a naturopathic doctor / ND who graduated from Bastyr, an esteemed program that, as I understand it, has an educational curriculum set up to be similar to a university that trains medical doctors or doctors of osteopathy. Coursework plus hands on and internships/residency, etc.  

As I recall from listening to Christopher Lepisto, ND at a seminar in years past, our food production industry basically was making soy oil and then had all this biproduct in the past and said 'hey, let's make stuff out of this and sell it to people who are in the increasingly popular 'vegetarian' and 'vegan' movements.  (Vegetarians don't eat anything that was a live animal and died to be eaten; vegans don't eat anything that comes from animals so that includes milk from cows or goats or their cheeses, eggs, etc.)  So Lumigrate's foundational time as a website providing functional medicine from 'inside' an integrative medicine center, where Dr Lepisto has also left in the mean time, had much content from this type of thinking / provider. 

Some people don't consume these products for the animal rights or global warming concerns. (Much of the methane is reported to come from the extremely high number of animals the world now grows to meet the growing demand for humans to eat meat. This is considered by some to be contributed to climate change.) Some of the people who eat along the vegetarian/vegan end of the spectrum, instead of the carnovore/omnivore end, do so for the health reasons.  Likely most do it for a variety of reasons. 

But at the end of the hour when they talked about how many were continuing on, how many weren't, how many didn't make it a week with the change as they had agreed, it was clear to me that the most important thing was that each person certainly had to think a little bit.  A little or a lot of change occurred for them that week and every days since.  

Again, I reiterate how well the different opinions and experts operated together on the stage together, including someone within PR from the meat packing business they were granted full access to, someone who is an advocate and author about veganism, and food expert Michael Pollan.  He's actually the one closest to my beliefs and who appealed to me to put on my 'books I'd like to read' list (and websites I'd like to check out soon).   I personally subscribe and resonate currently with the concept of 'if a caveman ate it, then it's what we're built to eat', and what he said on this show fit in with that.

And at the end, Oprah even underscored what was essentially upheld in the lawsuit against her years ago by the beef industry: everyone has the freedom of opinion as long as they're giving it as their opinion.  And to have read in the past how challenging that was to her at the time, I really applaud her for doing this show and for having her sense of humor as she did about it when she remarked about not getting sued this time she intends.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy some stock in a company that makes toilet paper!  And Whole Foods and Kashi, who were featured in this heavily today. I am kidding about buying stock personally, but look for lots of resources shifting from animal-based to vegetable based in the US in the next decade, as people 'invest' in their wellness and that shifts what products are purchased, and that DOES affect stock prices, obviously.  Just my guess.  And to companies who make animal products in a way which allows for 'less is more' -- you eat it less often or less of it and have higher quality. That's what I have done so far. Just as the health care system is shifting from a quantity-based one to a quality-based one, so are people's eating habits, at least among people who have become ACTIVE / proactive about their health care.  

Here's a link to what they have on their website about this topic as of the day of, which is February 1, 2011. I encourage you to go to the website as there are a few other things related to food and production.  ~~ Mardy  

www.oprah.com/showinfo/Oprah-and-378-Staffers-Go-Vegan-The-One-Week-Challenge