by Matthew Smith

Created on: May 24, 2008

I don't believe that vegetarians live longer and healthier lives than meat eaters. I followed a vegan diet for 2 and a half years and I believe it almost killed me and that I'm still not out of the woods yet, due to the damage it has caused, to my body. A vegan diet contains no animal products of any kind, no fish, no eggs, no milk, no cheese, no honey, nothing from an animal. It is different from vegetarian diets. Vegetarian diets include dairy products and usually honey. Many vegetarians will also eat, possibly chicken, fish, or eggs. In my opinion, it is healthiest to eat all the above foods and also beef. The more exclusions you make, the greater the risk, you are taking.

I would urge anyone considering a vegetarian diet, especially one more on the restrictive side, and especially a vegan diet, to think more than twice about it. Definitely, talk to your doctor, before you go ahead with it. I become a vegan in 2002, at age 22. I finally quit at age 25, in 2005. I was in excellent health before starting. Immediately after beginning this diet, I began to lose weight. I began having diarrhea every day. For the first six months, I felt more energetic, lighter on my feet, and able to get even more done than I ever had before. Right away, within the first month, I did notice some strange things. It seemed to me that my body was beginning to smell different. Actually, the first time I noticed a different smell from my body, it was a good one, I smelled just like oranges. Then one day, I was washing my armpits in the shower and my armpits smelled just like freshly baked cookies, just a little off, but overall it was a very good smell. I thought for a second that I was not in the shower at my apartment, where I lived alone, but that I was in the shower at my Mom's house and she was in the kitchen baking cookies. From there, it went downhill. I started noticing a stale smell, but did not really realize it was me.

At about the six month mark of being a vegan, I suddenly became extremely tired. At about the same time,my body odor became unmistakably terrible. At first, I noticed I began to smell like fish, then like mold, then like, this is no exaggeration and I mean this literally, like shit, especially my feet. My hygiene habits had not changed, there was some internal problem causing the odor. I once even had a strong ammonia fume emanating from my body and almost passed out. It was affecting all persons around me, who were complaining of headaches and extreme dizziness

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>