Why WalMart Employees Don’t Respect Their Customers

Today I was at WalMart as I often am. It is not so much because I enjoy the place or particularly care for their special brand of customer disservice, but rather because they simply do have the lowest prices. I often wonder why the customer service is so terrible. I know that they pay a pittance for wages, so perhaps that is the reason. Maybe it is because they just have to work so darn hard, after all that will wear you out. As I ponder I am perplexed because Chick-fil-a doesn’t pay particularly great wages and the employees there work very hard, yet every single customer experience is amazing. Then what could it be? The florescent lighting? Standing all day on the hard tile floors? Today I realized that it all boils down to one thing,
As I made my way through the grocery section I watched as three managers approached. Certain that they would stop or slow down so that I could continue on my way, I did just that. I was amazed. Not only did they not slow down, but they all walked directly in front of me, one of them nearly running into my cart. I stopped and allowed them to pass in front of me with their large cart that one of them was pushing. I was sure that someone would say excuse me, but nothing. I was so shocked that I just stood there. I didn’t really know what to do. I decided that I would speak to the managers about it.

As I approached the managers, I realized that it wasn’t just department managers or assistants, but the General Manager , and two Co-Managers. Now I was really upset. I asked them if I could bring something to their attention. They seemed annoyed, but said I could. I explained to them that the only thing that kept me coming back to WalMart was the prices and that I was considering shopping elsewhere after something that I saw today in their store. Now I had their attention and they seemed concerned. I explained that every time I shop in their store that the employees never seemed to be happy to be there and that they were almost never helpful or courteous. They were very interested now. I told them that I discovered why the employees treated their customers that way. One of them asked, “well sir what happened today?” I explained to them that the three of them had just cut me off and almost run over me and that they didn’t even bother to say excuse me or to even acknowledge that anything had happened. I told them that I understand why the employees don’t respect their customers. It’s because the management team doesn’t respect their customers. One of them said that he was sorry and they the didn’t see me. I explained to them how that was the problem. They were so busy doing other things that they didn’t pay attention to the customer. The GM hung his head in shame and thanked me for bringing it to their attention.

The one reason that WalMart employees don’t respect their customers is that their leadership doesn’t. For those of us who work with customers, they pay our pay checks so they are the top priority. For those of us in a leadership role, we have to remember that our employees will only follow our example. If we don’t take care of the customer, then our employees won’t either.

There’s a quarry in my belly!

Hello everyone. It’s me again. I am so happy to be back. I have been away due to a number of reasons. The biggest being a kidney stone, which I am pretty sure is a fate worse than death (never been dead and don’t know for sure). But here I am, two months, two trips to the emergency room, three doctor visits, a few thousand Percocets (grossly exaggerated as a literary device) and one minor surgery later.  I haven’t been able to go without researching where the little stony creatures come from and how exactly to avoid them in the future. And while there are some people in this world that I may not care for, there are none that I hate enough to wish upon them a kidney stone (and I’m not just saying that). So here it is, the definitive guide to avoiding a kidney stone for you and my enemies.

Before you can understand exactly how to avoid kidney stones, you have to know what a kidney stone is. As defined by The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, a kidney stone is a hard mass developed from crystals that separate from the urine within the urinary tract. They are considered to be one of the most painful urological disorders and amazingly but not surprisingly has been plaguing humanity for thousands of years, being found in an ancient Egyptian mummy.

Normally, urine contains chemicals that prevent or inhibit the crystals from forming. These inhibitors do not seem to work for everyone, however, so some people form stones. If the crystals remain tiny enough, they will travel through the urinary tract and pass out of the body in the urine without being noticed. But there are times when these stones do not pass on their own and they continue to build. When this happens it sometimes requires doctor intervention which unlike days of yore is not very invasive and is generally done on an outpatient basis.

A less common type of stone is caused by infection in the urinary tract. This type of stone is called a struvite or infection stone. Another type of stone, uric acid stones, are a bit less common, and cystine stones are rare.

Any of this sound like fun? Ok, let’s examine how to help keep from having to go though this terrible experience. Keep in mind that these are just some tips are are not designed to be medical advice. You need to discuss your options including your diet and lifestyle with your doctor.

Tip #1 To Avoid Kidney Stones, drink water.

Things you can do to avoid kidney stones include drinking water. Your body needs enough fluid to remove waste from your body. If your body doesn’t have enough water you will start to collect pieces of waste in your kidneys and this turns into kidney stones. You should drink enough fluids to make 2 liters or urine per day. Doctors have recommended drinking 8 eight ounce glasses of water a day or adding at least four 8 ounce glasses of water to whatever you are already drinking. Coffee and soda do not count, you need water to remove the impurities from your system.

Tip #2 To Avoid Kidney Stones, increase fiber and decrease protein in your diet.
Eating a diet high fiber and low in protein helps to avoid kidney stones. People with diets high in protein and low in fiber run an increased risk of kidney stones. Uric acid stones are produced if your diet is too rich in protein. You shouldn’t eat more than two servings of meat a day if your body forms kidney stones. A serving should be no more than six to eight ounces. Uric acid type kidney stones are produced when there is too much acid in the urine. Uric acid type kidney stones also can be formed if you are on chemotherapy. When your body decomposes red meats a substance is produced that ends up in your urine.

Tip #3 To Avoid Kidney Stones, decrease the amount of calcium in your diet.
Decreasing the amounts of Calcium you are eating can also help avoid kidney stones. For most people one to two servings of dairy products are okay, even if their body produces calcium based kidney stones.

Tip #4 To Avoid Kidney Stones, decrease sodium intake.
Decreasing your sodium intake also reduces your risk of kidney stones. You should limit your intake of sodium to below 1,500mg daily. Limiting your sodium intake means not only not adding salt to your foods. Limiting sodium from your diet means you read labels and do not eat foods high in sodium. Just because you don’t add salt to everything doesn’t mean that you don’t have a lot of sodium in your diet.

Tip #5 To Avoid Kidney Stones, be active.

Being active will also help to avoid stones. People who are bedridden have an increased risk of kidney stones. Being physically active is good for your overall health. If you are unable to regularly exercise you should still get up and move around on a regular basis. If you lead a sedentary lifestyle you are at risk for kidney stones.

Tip #6 To Avoid Kidney Stones, avoid cranberries.
I know, you are told if you have bladder infections cranberries are the cure-all. If you produce kidney stones cranberries can actually cause you more trouble. Avoiding cranberries and avoiding eating large quantities of tree nuts can help you to avoid kidney stones.

Tip #7 To Avoid Kidney Stones, increase citric acid/vitamin C in your diet.
Increasing the amount of citrus you eat helps your body to dissolve kidney stones. You can do this in many ways, one of the easiest is to add a small amount of lemon to your water that you are drinking. You can also add fresh citrus fruits to your diet along with adding bell peppers and canned mandarin oranges. Fruit juice also helps, just remember if you are trying to avoid kidney stones you probably don’t want the calcium fortified juices.

Tip #8 To Avoid Kidney Stones, listen to your body.
The best tip I can give you is to listen to your body. If you end up feeling sicker after certain foods you should probably avoid them. If you find that drinking a certain amount of fluids is best for you go with it. You can tell when your body is feeling its best.

Most importantly, follow your doctor’s advice. Ask questions. And trust your own judgment (unless you have been proven to not know what you are doing, in that case trust your doctor).

Want to know more? Here are some links you can follow for all the latest:

The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse

WebMD

Looking behind us . . . the history of the rear view mirror

While I was waiting for my lunch yesterday at a popular country eatery with a store in front I found a nifty pair of sunglasses with built in rear view mirrors. What an interesting concept. Now with the way that my brain works, I couldn’t help but wonder how the concept of the rear view mirror came to be. Who was the amazing person who created such a simple concept that is so very useful? So I did some digging and here is what I found.

The earliest recorded use of any device that resembles a rear view mirror was in 1911 in the inaugural race of the Indianapolis 500, by Ray Harroun in his Marmon racecar. He mounted a mirror on one of the struts so that he could see behind him. This wasn’t as much a safety feature as it was to lighten the load. As was the custom of the day, a mechanic would ride along with the driver to among other things watch behind to see the position of the other racers. Harroun didn’t take the credit for himself though. He claimed that he had seen a similar mirror mounted on a horse drawn carriage in 1904.

While Harroun’s car was the first record of a mirror mounted on a motor vehicle, the first recorded mention of a mirror to look behind you while in a vehicle dates back to 1906 by author Dorothy Levitt in in her book The Woman and the Car which noted that women should “carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving” so they may “hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic”, thereby inventing the rear view mirror before it was introduced by manufacturers in 1914 by Elmer Berger, the man usually credited with its invention.

No matter where it gets it’s origin, it is rather amazing that a small peice of reflective glass can allow us to look behind us and know what surrounds us. As simple an idea as it is, I wish I had thought of it.

Give me a black eye . . . pea that is.

So, it’s New Years Day. 2009 is here and 2008 is now the past. Hopefully you have had your greens for money and your black eye peas for luck. Not sure if this really works or not, but eating black eye peas for New Years is a tradition as old as Egyptian times.

Interestingly, the belief that black-eyed peas are a symbol of good luck in the New Year originates in the Babylonian Talmud from the early centuries AD.  A Talmud is a compilation of rabbinical discussions outlining Jewish law.  There is evidence that Jewish immigrants to the American south were another source of proliferation of the black-eyed pea.

Also, let’s not forget the Union soilders. It was not uncommon for Union soldiers, after conquering an area of land, to destroy or steal the crops.  The Yanks however, considered common beans, peas and corn inferior products, suitable only for animal fodder.  Subsequently, these items were often sparred .  This oversight, in addition to helping sustain the southern population, allowed for the continued popularity of black-eyed peas. Many believed it “lucky” that these field peas or black eye peas were left behind, seeing it was about the only thing.

So make sure you eat your black eye peas for luck this year. If you don’t believe in that eat them anyway, if for no other reason because they sure are yummy.

Men can suffer from Postpartum Depression too.

It is a little know fact that new dads can suffer from Postpartum Depression, that is until recently. James F. Paulson, PhD, of the Center for Pediatric Research at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA recently spoke to WebMD about their recent research which says that 2 out of every 1000 new dads meet criteria that meets the standards for moderate to sever Postpartum Depression. The study also shows that new fathers have a 3-5% higher chance of being depressed than the general population.

There is even more shocking news, according to Paulson.

“What we found,” Paulson says, “is that both moms and dads who were depressed were significantly less likely to engage in interactions such as reading, telling stories, and singing songs to their infants.”

But only the dads’ behavior significantly affected their child’s development at 24 months — “specifically in terms of how many words the child used,” Paulson says.

“If their dads were depressed and didn’t read to them, the infants had a much smaller vocabulary,” he says. And according to Paulson, there was no noticeable link between postpartum moms and their children’s vocabulary at 24 months.

For more information, please read the article at WebMD. If you think you are suffering from depression after the birth of a child or if you just want to know even more, visit The Postpartum Dads Project (full disclosure: My wife’s site), Postpartum Men.

For insight into the life of a new father dealing with depression, please visit my other blog, Diary of  Real Man.

I Suffer From Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia

Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is a condition that billions of people worldwide suffer from. Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, also known as icebergers syndrome, brain freeze or ice-cream headache, is a painful condition. But fear not. It is not fatal and is only temporary. I am sure that you have at some point in your life gotten brain freeze, and I am sure that you already know that it comes from eating or drinking something cold too quickly. But what exactly is taking place when this horrible condition strikes? Well today we clear up that mystery.

The pain is caused by the rapid cooling of the roof of the mouth, which is close to the sphenopalatine nerve, a section of an extensive bundle of nerves running from the face up into the brain.When this nerve gets cold, it fires off a danger signal that the entire head is about to become chilled and warns the vascular system to start pumping more blood to the brain to keep it warm. Vessels open up and the sudden in-rush of warm blood causes a painful sensation, which lasts anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. By that time the body has rewarmed the sphenopalantine nerve and the blood flow to the brain reduces to normal levels, stopping the pain.The source of the pain has been described as being similar to that resulting from sticking hands chilled in winter into a bucket of warm water. The sudden increase in blood flow and associated expansion causes pain. Brain freezes are called “referred pain” because the pain occurs in a location (the brain) that’s different than the location of the stimulus (the roof of the mouth.)

One third of all people are statistically susceptible to brain freezes. They are more often caused by eating ice cream than drinking an iced beverage because ice cream is colder than ice. Also, they are much more common when the weather is warm than when it’s cold, suggesting that it’s the rate or amount of temperature change that’s important.

The quickest way to relieve a brain freeze it to take a drink of warm water and hold it against the roof of your mouth. Since they are over so quickly anyway and it’s unlikely that you’re going to be holding a cup of hot water in one hand at the same time that you are holding an ice cream cone in the other, the next best thing to do is press your tongue against the roof of your mouth to rewarm the nerve.

Prevention is simple: Give up ice-cream . . . OR eat and drink very cold foods slowly.

Reference:

Wikipedia – Brain Freeze

AnswerBag.com – What Causes Brain Freeze?

7 Things You Didn’t Know About PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an organization that is dedicated to seeing that all animals are treated ethicly and fairly. Though on the surface this sounds like a great idea, but the organization is also known for it’s radical and extreme protest style, such as throwing red paint on people who are wearing fur. Most recently PETA was in the news because some of their members pelted Lindsay Lohan with a flour (yes baking flour) bomb for a fur stole that she was wearing at a nightclub (see Josip.com).

Here are seven things that you probably didn’t know about PETA, compliments of The Center for Consumer Freedom.

1) According to government documents, PETA employees have killed more than 19,200 dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens since 1998. This behavior continues despite PETA’s moralizing about the “unethical” treatment of animals by farmers, scientists, restaurant owners, circuses, hunters, fishermen, zookeepers, and countless other Americans. PETA puts to death over 90 percent of the animals it accepts from members of the public who expect the group to make a reasonable attempt to find them adoptive homes. PETA holds absolutely no open-adoption shelter hours at its Norfolk, VA headquarters, choosing instead to spend part of its $32 million annual income on a contract with a crematory service to periodically empty hundreds of animal bodies from its large walk-in freezer.

2) PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has described her group’s overall goal as “total animal liberation.” This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing, and pet ownership. In a 2003 profile of Newkirk in The New Yorker, author Michael Specter wrote that Newkirk has had at least one seeing-eye dog taken away from its blind owner. PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at curing AIDS and cancer.

3) PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified “domestic terrorist” group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to Rodney Coronado, an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) serial arsonist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing memorandum, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich has also told an animal rights convention that “blowing stuff up and smashing windows” is “a great way to bring about animal liberation,” adding, “Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.”

4) PETA activists regularly target children as young as six years old with anti-meat and anti-milk propaganda, even waiting outside their schools to intercept them without notifying their parents. One piece of kid-targeted PETA literature tells small children: “Your Mommy Kills Animals!” PETA brags that its messages reach over 1.2 million minor children, including 30,000 kids between the ages of 6 and 12, all contacted by e-mail without parental supervision. One PETA vice president told the Fox News Channel’s audience: “Our campaigns are always geared towards children, and they always will be.”

5) PETA’s president has said that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.” And PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, solely because they support animal-based research aimed at curing life-threatening diseases and birth defects. And PETA helped to start and manage a quasi-medical front group, the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, to attack medical research head-on.

6) PETA has compared Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust to farm animals and Jesus Christ to pigs. PETA’s religious campaigns include a website that claims—despite ample evidence to the contrary—that Jesus Christ was a vegetarian. PETA holds protests at houses of worship, even suing one church that tried to protect its members from Sunday-morning harassment. Its billboards taunt Christians with the message that hogs “died for their sins.” PETA insists, contrary to centuries of rabbinical teaching, that the Jewish ritual of kosher slaughter shouldn’t be allowed. And its infamous “Holocaust on Your Plate” campaign crassly compared the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide to farm animals.

7) PETA frequently looks the other way when its celebrity spokespersons don’t practice what it preaches. As gossip bloggers and Hollywood journalists have noted, Pamela Anderson’s Dodge Viper (auctioned to benefit PETA) had a “luxurious leather interior”; Jenna Jameson was photographed fishing, slurping oysters, and wearing a leather jacket just weeks after launching an anti-leather campaign for PETA; Morrissey got an official “okay” from PETA after eating at a steakhouse; Dita von Teese has written about her love of furs and foie gras; Steve-O built a career out of abusing small animals on film; the officially “anti-fur” Eva Mendes often wears fur anyway; and Charlize Theron’s celebrated October 2007 Vogue cover shoot featured several suede garments. In 2008, “Baby Phat” designer Kimora Lee Simmons became a PETA spokesmodel despite working with fur and leather, after making a $20,000 donation to the animal rights group.

10 Things you probably didn’t know about Thanksgiving.

Okay, so you probably already know that today is Thanksgiving day. You are probably also about to or have already stuffed yourself with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce and all the other fixings that go along with it. You may have even watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or have the TV tuned to your favorite football game. We can probably all agree that these are all things that are associated with Thanksgiving. You probably didn’t know these ten things that are all about Thanksgiving.

1. The 1st Thanksgiving was not a feast – The first Thanksgiving was a time when Native Americans helped Pilgrims by bringing them food and helping them build off the land. The truth of the matter is that it was only dubbed Thanksgiving because the Pilgrims that survived the long journey to America were thankful to be alive. The entire event lasted three days.
2. Thanksgiving wasn’t a National Holiday until 1863 - Sarah Josepha Hale (no relation to this author), a magazine editor, started a campaign to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday in 1827. It took her 36 years, but in 1863 Thanksgiving was recognized as a day for national Thanksgiving and prayer by Abraham Lincoln.
3. George H.W. Bush was the first President to “officially” pardon the White House Turkey – Each year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board have given a turkey to the President of the United States at a White House ceremony. Since then, presidents have been more likely to eat the turkey rather than give it a reprieve. A notable exception occurred in 1963, when President Kennedy, referring to the turkey given to him, said, “Let’s just keep him.” It wasn’t until the first Thanksgiving of President George H.W. Bush, in 1989, that a turkey was officially pardoned for the first time.
4. 65% of the 280 million U.S. Thanksgiving turkeys come from only 6 states - 44.5 million is the number of turkeys Minnesota raised in 2005. The Gopher State is tops in turkey production. It is followed by North Carolina (36.0 million), Arkansas (29.0 million), Virginia (21.0 million), Missouri (20.5 million) and California (15.1 million). These states account for 65% of the United States Thanksgiving turkeys.
5. Jingle Bells was originally written as a Thanksgiving song - The author and composer of Jingle Bells was a minister called James Pierpoint who composed the song in 1857 for children celebrating his Boston Sunday School Thanksgiving. The song was so popular that it was repeated at Christmas, and indeed Jingle Bells has been reprised ever since. The essence of a traditional Christmas is captured in the lyrics of Jingle Bells and the sound effects using the bells have become synonymous with the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus to the delight of children of all ages.
6. More than 40 million green bean casseroles are served on Thanksgiving – Believe it or not, according to research by the Food Network green bean casserole is the number one side dish on thanksgiving after dressing and cranberry sauce.
7. Canada also celebrates Thanksgiving – Although, Thanksgiving is widely considered an American holiday, it is also celebrated on the second Monday in October in Canada.Canadians often refer to the American Thanksgiving holiday as “Yanksgiving” so as not to confuse it with the Canadian holiday.
8. In 1939 Thanksgiving was moved to November 23rd to help the economy and extend the Christmas shopping season – In 1939, President Roosevelt proclaimed that Thanksgiving would take place on November 23rd, not November 30th, as a way to spur economic growth that year and extend the Christmas shopping season. This proclamation only applied officially to the District of Columbia, but was  observed by the rest of the country as well amid much debate.
9. The tradition of pro football being played on Thanksgiving started in 1920 – It was recommended in 1920 by President Woodrow Wilson that professional football be played on Thanksgiving day to give people something to do after they ate a big meal. The games that year were:
   AKRON PROS 7, Canton Bulldogs 0
   Decatur Staleys 6, CHICAGO TIGERS 0
   ELYRIA (OH) ATHLETICS 0, Columbus Panhandles 0
   DAYTON TRIANGLES 28, Detroit Heralds 0
   CHICAGO BOOSTERS 27, Hammond Pros 0
   All-Tonawanda (NY) 14, ROCHESTER JEFFERSONS 3
10. Macy’s was not the first department store to hold a Thanksgiving parade – The parade is billed as the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the country, having started in 1920. Like other parades of its type, it features balloons, floats, high school marching bands, and celebrities. When the parade first started out it was called the Gimbels Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was called this because Ellis Gimbel, one of the founders of Gimbels Department Stores, wanted his toyland to be the destination of holiday shoppers everywhere. He dressed up over 50 store employees and sent them out on their first Thanksgiving day parade. Another big part of the parade was seeing Santa Claus arrive. Gimbels created the Thanksgiving Day Parade here in America and there example has caused others to continue in there tradition. This tradition still occurs today. It is now called the 6abc IKEA Thanksgiving Day Parade.

So, that’s that. hopefully you now know more about Thanksgiving than you did before you read this. Not that you wanted to know, but now you do.

Shave and a haircut, and a tooth extraction, and some bloodletting

I would venture to say that most people probably know what a barber pole looks like. You may even still have one hanging outside the local barber shop in your town. But, do you know what the barber pole represents? It’s history is quite shocking. The local barber shop hasn’t always been just a place for a shave and a hair cut.

In the Middle Ages barbers also performed surgery, tooth extractions, and bloodletting. French authorities drew a fine distinction between academic surgeons (surgeons of the long robe) and barber surgeons (surgeons of the short robe), but the latter were sufficiently accepted by the fourteenth century to have their own guild, and in 1505 they were admitted to the faculty of the University of Paris. As an indication of their medical importance, Ambroise Pare, The father of modern surgery and the greatest surgeon of the Renaissance, began as a barber surgeon.

The barber pole as a symbol of the profession is a legacy of bloodletting. The barber surgeon’s necessities for that curious custom were a staff for the patient to grasp (so the veins on the arm would stand out sharply), a basin to hold leeches and catch blood, and a copious supply of linen bandages. After the operation was completed, the bandages would be hung on the staff and sometimes placed outside as advertisement. Twirled by the wind, they would form a red white spiral pattern that was later adopted for painted poles. The earliest poles were surmounted by a leech basin, which in time was transformed into a ball.

One Interpretation of the colors of the barber pole was that Red represented the blood, Blue the veins, and
White the bandages. Which has been retained by the modern Barber-Stylist.There are others that hold the position that barber poles were originally red and white, and that the blue was added by Americans to match the colors of the American Flag and to quell it’s gruesome symbolism. Regardless of which is true, the barber pole today is representative of the tradition of going to get a haircut, a shave and good conversation.

Unfortunately, the barber pole has begun to slowly disappear into oblivion as we see the influx of quick cut joints, specialty salons and spas. So, if there is still a barber pole in your town, cherish it, for tomorrow it may be gone as are the roots of the barber pole itself.

The Barber Pole – TheVillageBarber.com

Barber’s Pole – Wikipedia.com

Is the vegan diet really healthy?

In my original post my position was that vegans could not live a healthy life. This position was due to misinformation. I have edited the post below to reflect my change of heart.

A comment on my blog entry yesterday on SPAM from the folks at Vegan.com has got me thinking. I have heard many things about the vegetarian lifestyle and what it means. Can you truly be a vegetarian and be healthy. Yes. But there is a difference in someone who considers them self to be a vegetarian and someone who is a vegan. The main difference is that vegans don’t consume any products that come from animals which includes honey, dairy, or eggs. This poses the question of whether a vegan can truly be healthy.

Let me start by saying that there are many people who live a 100% vegan lifestyle for the betterment of society, animals and the like. Though I may disagree with these people’s views, I can certainly respect their actions and choices, as they need to do what is right for their own morality. So, on that topic I respectfully agree to disagree. This post is about the health value of eating a vegan diet.

I’m sure there are many who call themselves vegans who are very healthy. But it is difficult to get all of the nutrients that the body needs and still be a true vegan. The biggest concern is the body’s need for vitamin B12, and unfortunately B12 is only found in animal tissue. It is not found in any plant. Though B12 is found in some yeasts and molds, some vegans do not include products made from these in their diets.  So how can you get B12 without consuming any animal products? Most “vegans” supplement their diets with B12 in the form of vitamins or other foods fortified with B12, those supplements contain yeasts or molds.

The body needs B12. One of the most important functions of Vitamin B12 is its ability to work together with Folic Acid in the production of DNA. Because of the way it is able to recycle certain enzymes, it plays a significant role in maintaining the proper functioning of cells, blood and nerves. An imbalance of either Vitamin B9 or B12 can negatively impact the way red blood cells divide and lead to a condition known as pernicious anemia.

Vitamin B12 also works to reduce levels of homocysteine, the amino acids that can damage artery walls and increase a person’s risk of developing heart disease. Vitamin B12 is also responsible for ensuring that nerve cells function properly. It’s also possible that Vitamin B12 can treat symptoms associated with a loss of calcium including osteoporosis and damage to the teeth. This vitamin may even be able to relieve some symptoms of depression. It is proven that mothers who do not obtain adequate vitamin B12 in their diet while breastfeeding can cause severe and permanent neurological damage to their infants.

Another concern in the vegan diet is protein. It is certainly possible to gain protein from vegetables and legumes, but it is very important to make sure that enough protein is included in the diet. This is mainly because animal based proteins are absorbed into the diet much faster than synthesized proteins and plant based proteins. Lack of protein can cause severe health issues which include growth failure, loss of muscle mass, a weak immune system, weakening of the heart and respiratory system and the most severe of health issues, death. There are also numerous issues with the lack of protein that are simply just undesirable, though not necessarily health issues, such as the loss of hair, weakness and lack of energy and decrease in sexual desire.

Although it isn’t still well studied- research shows that iron deficiency is more present in vegans than in the general population.  It is important to note that iron deficiency is one of the most common nutritional deficiencies that’s why many nutritionists and dietitians recommend a daily multivitamin. Because of how common iron deficiency is, it is extra important that vegans supplement. There is also evidence that vegans are at a higher risk for vitamin D, calcium and iodine deficiencies. Once again, bringing up the importance of supplementation. Iodine can be supplemented as easily as using iodized salt.

So, back to the question on whether or not you can live a healthy life as a vegan. The answer is yes, but beware. It is of the utmost importance for vegans to supplement their diet to insure proper nutrition. So for those unwilling to take additional supplements, the vegan lifestyle is not for you. Now before you jump on me, understand that I do believe that you can live a healthy life as a vegan, but what it boils down to is that you simply can’t be a vegan and be healthy without educating yourself thoroughly. To do so would simply be detrimental and foolish. I certainly welcome comments to the contrary.

Vegan Diet: Recipe for Disaster?- chetday.com

B12 Suplement Fact Sheet – National Institute of Health Office of Dietary Supliments

Thinkquest Vegitarian Library – Thinkquest Library

Vegan.com – Vegan.com