Olympian Meagan Duhamel Explains Why She Went Vegan

[bananas]

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2014/02/19/olympian-meagan-duhamel-explains-why-she-went-vegan/

Olympian Meagan Duhamel Explains Why She Went Vegan
BY JOAN REDDY FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Silver medalist in the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics figure pair skating team event, Canadian Meagan Duhamel from Lively, Ontario, attributes her good health and skating success to a vegan diet.

Twenty-eight-year-old Duhamel says that she adopted the diet in 2008 after purchasing a copy of the best-selling book “Skinny Bitch,” in an airport bookstore. “Skinny Bitch” advocates for a vegan diet based on both its health benefits, and because of animal cruelty. Duhamel says that the morning after reading the book in just one sitting, she purged her kitchen of all animal products. “I guess I’m a very compassionate person so hearing about animal abuse kind of triggered something in me that maybe I should try it,” she said.

The health benefits of a vegan diet also inspired Duhamel’s decision to become a vegan. “I’m really into health and fitness and wellness, so this kind of tied into it. I thought I was just going to do it until the (2010) Olympics, but then I didn’t go to the Olympics, and then I ended up liking it so much, I think I’ll be a vegan for the rest of my life.”

<snip>

Duhamel and her partner Eric Radford, have won the 2013 World bronze medal, the 2013 Four Continents championship, and between 2012 to 2014 they were three-time Canadian national champions. When she previously skated with Craig Buntin, they won the 2010 Four Continents bronze medal, the 2009 Canadian national silver medal, and the 2008 and 2010 Canadian bronze medal. In this year’s Russian Winter Olympics she won a Silver in the team pairs, and followed it up with a seventh in the individual pairs.

Although in her professional career as a skater, Duhamel has won gold, silver and bronze medals, she says that “One of my proudest accomplishments has been going vegan.” Living life as a vegan, “transfers into my attitude, everything in my life has just become a lot calmer, everything I’m putting in me is clean and genuine and organic and in turn, the way I live my life has started to follow that path.”

[dhill926]

1. good for her............

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. Humans were meant to eat meat

see history of teeth.

But humans should also be eating much better foods, especially organic vegatables.

I know plenty of male bodybuilders who are on pure protein diets... eggs, beef, chicken, salads, fruits.
No carbs, no sauces, no soda! Very boring meal plan, but very healthy.

[Warpy]

4. Our teeth are not meant to tear raw flesh from a carcass

We have the teeth of fruit, root and leaf eaters.

However, once we discovered how to denature proteins so we could chew them, either by heat or mechanical means, eating meat probably is what gave our brains a boost.

So just because there are two undersized canines off to the sides, don't trot out our teeth as proof of predisposition to eat meat.

Our guts are also too long for raw meat. We need to kill parasites and bacteria off with fire or they'll kill us.

Eat what you want, your brain probably depends on it. However, don't try to trot out physiology as any sort of justification. There is no "there" there.

[DontTreadOnMe]

6. Science is your friend

There is no doubt that human evolution has been linked to meat in many fundamental ways. Our digestive tract is not one of obligatory herbivores; our enzymes evolved to digest meat whose consumption aided higher encephalization and better physical growth.

[Warpy]

7. Of course, but pointing to the teeth as justification

is not only unscientific but downright silly.

Before we had fire, our protein likely came from grubs and termites.

[DontTreadOnMe]

9. Our teeth do not resemble other herbivores.

If people were designed to be strict vegetarians, we would have a specialized colon, specialized teeth and a stomach that doesn't have a generalized pH-all the better to handle roughage.

You teeth are linked to what you put in your stomach.

Relevant too in this respect are archaeological findings showing that tooth decay occurred much in groups of humans whose diet contained grains, and very little in those who mainly ate meat. This confirms that human teeth were originally adapted to eating meat, and therefore that humans were meat-eaters of origin.

Australopithecus, an ape-like creature and ancestor of humans, was originally a herbivore. Between 2.5 and 2 million B.C., forced by drought it started eating some meat to supplement its diet, probably by picking up small crawling animals and scavenging (so not necessarily by hunting initially), and it is thought the extra nutritional value of (and/or certain substances in) the meat allowed Australopithecus' brain, and therefore intelligence, to grow over generations, resulting in the first human, Homo erectus, around 1.8 million B.C.

Learning to use fire, has no connection to early man eating meat.

[HuckleB]

8. Vegetables are definitely good for us.

Whether they are organic or not makes no difference, however.

[SoCalMusicLover]

3. I Have A Crush On Her

nt

[RedstDem]

5. Vegans taste good!

- the lion....