Veganism is on the rise, and this is a good time for Malaysians to rediscover their plant-based diet, writes Aznim Ruhana Md Yusup
VEGANISM is a dietary choice that some people make to only consume plant-based foods. Vegans don’t eat animals and animal-based products, such as honey and dairy. They may also choose not to wear silk or leather.
Many vegans will say their diet isn’t so much a choice but a moral obligation. They feel compassion for animals and do not want to see them killed. They find modern animal husbandry practises cruel and objectionable, and do not want to support them in any way.
Lately, veganism has also become an environmental issue. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the livestock sector is a significant contributor to global human-induced green house gas emissions, which in turn contributes to climate change.
The sector also uses up vast amounts of finite resources like land and water, both to raise the animals and to farm the fodder to feed them. “Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country (in South America),” says the World Wide Fund for Nature.
By contrast, vegetable farming is much less intensive. Reporting on a 2014 research paper on agricultural practices in the US, the Smithsonian magazine says: “On a calorie-to-calorie basis, potatoes, wheat and rice require two to six time less resources to produce than pork, chicken, eggs or dairy.
“But beef requires far, far more resources than any of those other protein categories. The team calculated that beef requires 28 times more land, six times more fertiliser and 11 times more water compared to those other food sources.”
You can say the compassion vegans feel for animals has expanded towards something much, much bigger. Similar to conserving water, eliminating single-use plastic or separating trash for recycling, being vegan is one of the ways in which an individual can help the planet.
A friend from school, who is a vegan, works as a dive instructor in Timor Leste. So she doesn’t eat fish, even though it’s easily available at the island’s markets. To her, it is not sustainable or responsible consumption, given the overall depletion of fish stocks worldwide from human consumption. Fish are friends, not food.
STRICTLY HERBIVORES
World Vegan Day started in 1994, half a century after the founding of The Vegan Society in the UK. The date chosen was Nov 1, and it’s commemorated worldwide through talks, exhibitions and workshops.
The Malaysian celebration of World Vegan Day for 2018 happened over the weekend of Nov 10 and 11 at Publika Shopping Gallery in Kuala Lumpur.
“We wanted to hold it the previous weekend, closer to the actual World Vegan Day but the venue was booked,” explained organiser Tan Whei Li. “We’re lucky to have support from the Malaysian Vegetarian Society, which has many vegan members, as well as our sponsors.”
Tan mentioned a film titled Forks Over Knives that strengthened her decision to become a vegan. It’s available on Netflix, and it was not the most relaxing documentary to watch after my dinner of lamb kurma and fried belacan (shrimp paste) snow peas.
Meanwhile, one of the speakers on World Vegan Day, Dr Kalamanathan Sappani, argued that human beings are not designed to eat meat. He’s a medical doctor and has been a vegetarian since he was 12.
“Our intestines are longer like herbivorous animals because of how we process food while our teeth are similarly more suited to chewing. We don’t have big incisors and it is impossible for us to eat meat without cutting and cooking it,” he says.
“When we eat food that is similar to us genetically, the body will have to process it more intensely. It gets confused because it recognises itself, then the cells will go on a path of destruction and will mutate. When we eat plants, it’s much easier to digest. People don’t realise that by eating meat they are poisoning themselves.”
Strong words from the doctor to the crowd, which consisted of vegans and curious members of the public. I’m not sure how many of the non-vegans were swayed by this argument but no one was objecting either, at least not loudly.
He added that plants and other non-animal products can supply the body with all the necessary nutrition it needs. Given the trendy aspect of a vegan diet, an audience member asked if another popular health trend is suitable for vegans.
“Intermittent fasting is the new fad. In general, fasting is an excellent practice and has been followed by different cultures for a very long time,” Dr Kalamanathan elaborated. Intermittent fasting doesn’t specify what to eat but when to eat. Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16-hour fasts or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week.
FASHIONABLE FOOD
Meanwhile, it wouldn’t have been a Malaysian event if there had been no food available. World Vegan Day had more than 30 vendors including vegan restaurant Sala, ice-cream chain Kind Kones and restaurant Sushi Kitchen.
Sala has jackfruit tacos which I bought together with a mushroom taco for RM18. Jackfruit is used like meat is some vegan dishes and there are plenty of recipes online. In Western countries, tinned or packaged jackfruit is used but I hope Sala uses fresh ones since the fruit grows locally.
Coconut also grows locally and are relatively easy to find, which is why it’s strange to find a stall selling canned coconut water. A fresh coconut water stand by the side of the road would still be vegan, no?
I understand that present-day vegan consumption is a culture of its own and is tied in an ecosystem that includes products such as kombucha, granola and cold-pressed juices. It’s fashionable with a dash of altruism and self-righteousness, and looks good on Instagram. But while vegans aren’t the only ones who look to trends from the Wes , I believe this is a missed opportunity as we Malaysians have resources and food cultures of our own.
Yes, those trendy foods are exciting, and also good for the body and environment. But widespread meat and poultry consumption is relatively recent here, which means that for a very long time, we were eating a mostly plant-based diet.
It’s worth rediscovering those recipes instead of relying on the Internet to tell us what to eat.
FORKS OVER KNIVES
RELEASED in 2011, the film Forks Over Knives advocates a whole foods, plant-based diet to fend off, arrest and even reverse non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers. The food must also be minimally processed and low in fat.
It centres on medical doctor Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and medical researcher T. Colin Campbell. They’re both Americans in their mid-70s and had separately concluded that an animal-based diet is bad for our health, before finally meeting in the 1990s.
“Cancer starts with genes,” Dr Campbell says in the film. “It might be genes we’re born with, it might be genes that are actually changed by a chemical. So, those genes that become capable of producing cancer cells, whether we do or do not get cancer, they are primarily related to how we promote those cancer cells to grow over time.
“That’s where nutrition comes into play. They grow much more rapidly when fed animal protein,” he asserts.
Meanwhile, Dr Esselstyn’s work focused on heart disease. When told that a diet with absolutely no meat (including fish and chicken), no dairy and no oil — which he espouses — might be extreme, he answers: “With a Western diet, this guarantees there are going to be a half a million people in this country (US) this year who will have to have the front half of their body divided, their heart exposed, then veins will be taken from their leg and sewn on their heart. Some people would call that extreme,” he said, describing bypass surgery for the heart.