I've been vegan since January 2017 and the raw vegan since July 2017 Prior to that I was vegetarian for 24 years!
Why did it take so long to go Vegan?
The honest answer is DAIRY! My dairy addictions includes cheese especially Red Leicester and Haloumi. I was also madly in love with Muller Corner yoghurts specifically the banana flavour with chocolate cornflakes and fruit topped cheesecake.
I'm going to take you back to when I became vegetarian. In an ideal world I would have become vegetarian for moral and ethical reasons but my reason was simply that I went off meat!
I know what your thinking...how is that possible? How do you just go off meat? The honest answer is I don't know but I know that I'm not the only person this has happened to!
This happened to me when I was 15 years old. A few years before that my schoolfriend who was vegetarian would always lecture me on how cruel the meat industry was but none if shocked me into going vegetarian.
It happened that I gradually went off meat but not because of what she said, like everybody else I had become desensitised to the suffering of animals.
My mum used to task me with cleaning chicken legs before she would fry them and I suddenly found myself being seriously grossed out by it! The pale flesh, the slimy skin and dont get me started on plucking the hair! I had become squeamish to dealing with raw meat.
Visiting the butchers had now become traumatic; the smell of animal carcases was jarring and made me want to vomit. Every time I walked into butchers the smell was like being punched in the face.
If I walked past a butchers van which was open with animal torsos on display I Had to look away as the sight and smell was disturbing to my senses. Walking down the meat isle in a supermarket was just as horrific.
I found myself trying to get out of preparing and eating meat, it was then then I eventually made up mind and told my mum I was going vegetarian!
She was of course not impressed...it's very unusual for a Ghanaian not to eat meat even though Ghanaian cuisine still tastes amazing without the meat. She told me I would have to cook my own food and that was fine by me!
Having said that she eventually couldn't help herself and would cook in way where I could have some of the food such as vegetable fried rice because she would prepare the meat seperately.
In her own way she accepted my choice because when she would go shopping she would buy up vegetarian foods on offer such as Quorn products or frozen vegetarian pizzas.
Can you believe my favourite takeaway before going vegetarian was a McDonald's Big Mac? It was one of regular self treats and I was more than happy to give it up!
Becoming vegetarian meant some unexpected weightloss and I was constantly reminded that I was skinny! Not eating meat was more important than my appearance and so I ignored the negative comments.
In my mid to late teens I relied heavily on vegetarian processed foods and only learned to cooked tasty vegetarian meals in my mid twenties.
Fast forward to late 2012...it took all that time to make the connection between what I ate and my chronic conditions!
During this period I learned about Big Pharma and how profitable the medical industry is, especially cancer!
I suffered from sinusitis and would get horrific sinus infections in the winter. On a day to day basis air conditioning units would set off my sinuses and people would always ask me if I had a cold or would say that it seems that I always had a cold! The fustrating thing was that they acted as if they would catch it and this was annoying as it had nothing to do with a cold or flu!
I started my periods at 9 years old and then from age 10 they became extremely painful and got more painful over the years.
They became a lot heavier and often with dark red thick clots - (sorry for the graphic description). I got accustomed to taking the full recommended daily dosage ibuprofen for the duration of my period just to function! I would also be extremely tired and spent my time outside of work curled up into a ball with a hot water bottle.
There were occasions when I threw up and also a time where I was in so much pain I had to call in sick to work because I was doubled over in pain and couldn't stand up. I once also sneaked out of school because I was in so much pain I couldn't concentrate on the lesson.
During 2012 I became more spiritual and self aware and I think that's how I start to connect which foods caused me the most pain du ring my cycle.
I switched to brown/wholefood foods because I realised that my body was not compatible with white foods/white flour products. Below are foods that I used to consume that caused menstrual cramps and what I replaced them with.
White sugar ➡ Brown/demerara sugar.
White flour ➡ Whole Wheat Flour.
White rice ➡ Brown Rice.
White bread ➡ Whole Meal Bread.
White pasta ➡Whole Wheat Pasta.
White potatoes ➡Sweet potatoes.
Tofu ➡ Quorn Chicken Style Pieces/Quorn & Linda McCartney vegetarian 'meats'.
Milk➡Soy Milk (I now appreciate that soy milk is also detrimental to health but at the time it was the better option!)
I noticed if ate the white flour products/white foods dring my cycle within 2-24 hours I was in agony and would pass thick clots. When I avoided them during my period the pain was a lot less and with minimal clotting.
I've added milk to the list but it didn't cause menstrual cramps but it did cause mucus build up in my throat and nasal passages which caused my sinusitis. The reason it's on the list is because I switched from milk to soya around the same time. I had run out of milk and bought soya milk in its place and noticed a week later how clear my voice sounded and that there was no mucus in my throat! Clearing my throat every few seconds was second nature so when it was no longer necessary it was very noticeable!
I did later find out that cheese also contibuted to my sinusitis and so reduced cheese to a one off treat once a month/every 2 months.
Switching to brown foods did give me some relief from menstrual cramps and did lessen the pain but the pain was still there and I still had to take tablets to manage the pain.
Click here for part 2
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