Run with Love (Motivation for a Plant-Based Diet)

February 20, 2020 by JoAnna 14 Comments

“Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow.”  River Phoenix

Joaquin Phoenix quoted his late brother in his recent Oscar acceptance speech. It was a moving speech. Here’s more of my favorite parts:

“I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.”    ___Joaquin Phoenix

The whole speech:

 

In his speech, Mr. Phoenix reminds me about animals suffering in the dairy industry. This encourages me to return to my goal of becoming vegan which means consuming no animal products. While I’ve done fairly well in abstaining from most meat over the last four decades, I’ve found it hard to give up fish and dairy (especially cheese) for good.  The 40 days of lent starting next week give me strength to do better, to show myself what I’m capable of. Going vegan for lent in the past helped me be done with chicken and reduced my dairy consumption after lent. Maybe this will be the year I’ll be done with dairy. As far as seafood goes, we’ll see. For now, my goal is to be vegan for lent.

Here are three reasons to move toward a plant-based diet:

1. A plant-based diet is healthier as long as we don’t eat a lot of junk food.

2. It’s better for the environment because it takes way less energy to produce plants than to produce plants to feed to animals in an industry that adds more pollution. Animal agriculture is a significant contributor to climate change.

3. A plant–based diet reduces animal suffering and leads us in a direction of kindness and peace.

 

 

Please consider joining me in reducing our consumption of meat and dairy products. Every small step makes a difference and prepares us for the next step.

If you’re not already a vegetarian or vegan, you might want to consider something like Meatless Mondays.

Thanks for reading.

Vegan Chocolate Pudding with cocoa, almond milk, and avocados. Delicious!