Malabsorption and Theoretical Empathy

Hello, this post is about malabsorption, which is difficulty absorbing nutrients from food, and vegans who become ex-vegans.

Malabsorption
The definition of malabsorption and symptoms. I'm going to be captain obvious here and point out something: there is such a thing as malabsorption. There is also such a thing as absorption. Vegans are people and they are not exempt from having either of these in varying degrees. If one didn't exist the other wouldn't exist. If everyone had a headache, there would be no headache as there is nothing to compare it with. If this whole page was bold, nothing would stand out. I say this silly crap because I still read really bizarre things from very educated and otherwise bright people just not getting how someone could fail to thrive on the vegan diet. After all, it's just a matter of this or that nutrient, nothing is special about meat. Well, the animal has done all the processing for you, so if your intestines sucketh, there you go! You eat that meat and you get the nutrients out of it because it's coming with the fat and already converted vitamins. Plus, far too many people bought the lie about no fat dressings and low fat diets (VegNews gave an award to a low fat vegan blog). If you've been reading this blog, I've cited many studies indicating that if you eat your food with fat, you absorb significantly more nutrients. Much of the reason why there are ex-vegans, provided they did everything else right, is they were not absorbing enough nutrients from their food for some reason or another.

Theoretical Empathy
This is only directed at some ex-vegans, there have been some, I'm sure, who do not want to eat meat or animal products yet they were feeling like crap on the vegan diet they were practicing. My mother keeps her meat, eggs, and dairy consumption to a bare and practical minimum, at 100% she felt bad. This is something sustainable for her.

I'm only referring to some ex-vegans, the ones who completely flip to the otherside, the "darkside", if you will, evangelizing the doctrine of the Weston A. Price Foundation or another "we are the only true diet there is, so screw you" mentality. (The vegan diet is loaded with those ingredients too.) But what current vegans can't understand the complete flip of philosophy. "What about the compassion and the suffering you know about? How can you eat meat with gusto?"

What I want to point out is the difference between theoretical empathy and genuine empathy: seeing oneself in others. A vegan who has rescued a farm animal, has spent any time with them, and/or relates to them just as one would as their own cat or dog, would go to the end of the earth to avoid eating meat. Supplements here I come! My father in law, Jack, born to a dairyman, had a pig he loved, his family slaughtered the pig for Christmas dinner. (Peace on earth, yeah right!) Jack has been a vegetarian for over 40 years because of that pig. There's a huge difference between becoming a vegan by theoretically thinking about animals, reading about them and agreeing with the the logic behind the ethics, and real genuine empathy because you deeply connect with them as your own fellow beings.

Pain is only a theory until you feel it for yourself. And compassion and empathy are the same way.

A final observation: In the Tao or Buddhism (I can't remember), it essentially says that whatever you push up against with force will push back with equal force. Many "absolutists" do complete flips. Even Buddhists or Taoists know this and have to watch their minds. People end up eating their own words. And for vegans, they end up eating more than words, they end up eating meat. It's as if the toxicity of the militant, in your face, exclusivity, veganazi attitude festers in one's own mind, then it poisons the body.