by Lorette C. Luzajic

I saw a t-shirt on the weekend that said “Vegans taste better.” Crass and clever, I must admit. Advocates of the tired, outdated, unscientific idea that cholesterol and protein gunk up your arteries are big believers that “vegetarians do it better.” You need to free willy from the obstacles to his blood flow, and you need to be lean and healthy for great sex.

Meat makes people “sick, fat and boring in bed,” according to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.) Earlier this year, their ad campaign was pulled for being too racy- featuring hot vegans suggestively pleasuring themselves with veggies. “Studies show vegetarians have better sex,” the ads said.

Everyone wants to be better in bed, so the ads were designed to hit below the belt. They were selling sex, just like beer or denim commercials. That there are no such studies never fazes PETA. The ‘studies’ came from doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn, both members of the Physicians Committee for “Responsible” Medicine, a “medical” link to PETA and other much more extremist animal rights advocates, like terrorist group Animal Liberation Front.

I have no doubt that many vegetarians are hot and sexy. I was one, case in point! Compassion is always sexy. But lying? Not so much.

The irony lost on these groups is that Veganism is historically an ascetic practice meant to squash the sordid, sinful libido. Certainly, many eastern religions avoided animal foods to avoid the karma of killing wherever possible. But it was also a way to avoid a healthy sex appetite. Meat inflamed lust, they knew, exactly the opposite of today’s argument. Even Leo Tolstoy’s vegetarianism had a lot less to do with caring for creatures and a lot more to do with his abject disgust at lust.

But it gets better- North America’s veggie platform began in the 1800s with a fellow named Sylvester Graham. A Graham cracker, as it were. Sylvester was an ornery fella who didn’t like sex one bit. He believed doing the nasty should take place once a month or less. To control the unnatural voraciousness of human appetites, he prescribed a high fibre vegetarian diet. His legacy is indeed the Graham cracker (of campfire s’mores fame.)

An ailing libido is a symptom of protein deficiency, and that’s just what the doctor ordered later in the 1880s, as the sex-phobic “natural hygiene” movement came into full swing. Natural hygiene was a fancy way of saying raw food vegan diet with no lust- inciting fats or proteins. Many advocates of natural hygiene were utter crackpots, and some, like Dr. Shelton, had negligent homicide on his hands.

One of the more influential doctors of the movement was Dr. J.H. Kellogg, whose obsession with fibre turned into a cereal empire.

Far from today’s propaganda that a plant based diet with grains for breakfast makes you “do it better,” the vegetarian platform was to make sure you didn’t do it at all.

It’s widely known but impossible to prove that dear Doc Kellogg never even did it with his wife.

Nonetheless, the man was obsessed with sex, and even more obsessed with the bowel and its functions, especially constipation.

Don’t get me wrong- I have nothing against vegetables, which make up the, er, bulk, of my diet. And while I’m healthier veering away from too many grains and starches, I’ll concede of course that they are far healthier than soda pop and processed meat. But our national preoccupation with fibre started with Graham and Kellogg, who were obsessed with its ability to reduce the sex drive. That was evidence for them that it was the healthiest way to go, pardon the pun.

But fiber is overrated. Yes, overrated. Many cultures that eat nothing but meat, blood and milk have perfectly healthy digestive systems. Natural bacteria bulk up the waste machine. And while fibre helps clean toxins from our body, it also sweeps out calcium, confirmed earlier this year by Dr. Abhimanyu Garg. Contrary to the oft-repeated misinformation that animal protein “leaches” calcium from the bones, excess fibre is a culprit behind calcium loss- and iron, and other vital nutrients. After modern medicine subjected millions of colitis and IBS sufferers to fibre, fibre, and more fibre, it’s now known that grain free diets are the most healing to digestive inflammation!

With our obsession for ‘regularity’ we shove as much fibre as we can down our throats, making our bowels dependent on large quantities of waste to function normally. Naturally, they function normally on reasonable quantities of real foods. That’s why you get constipated if you raise your intake of meat and eggs and lower your intake of grain and starch- not because the latter is better for you.

Our ancestors often ate nothing but fibre- and often they ate no fibre at all. Knowing how wacky the natural hygiene movement is may help you to stop obsessing about getting enough fibre. You’ll get enough, don’t worry, if you eat a well balanced diet.

Constipation, the good doctor was sure, was one main reason for sexual excitement. (Hmm, I’m not sure that’s when I’m at my randiest, but I may be missing something.) When chunks of impacted fecal matter form in the rectum (no I’m not making this up) they apparently push against nerves that cause erections, and vulva and bum stimulation. Hoovering as much bran and grain as possible to keep the back door in motion is key.

Kellogg’s constipation fascination would be funnier if he didn’t advocate torture to quell sexuality, in addition to vegetarian eating. He advocated clitoridectomy with carbolic acid and anesthesia-free circumcision to fix naughty inclinations. Fifteen minute ice baths before bed were prescribed to dull the genitals, and regular use of enemas to keep all systems on go.

Part II of “Sex. Lies, and …Fibre to Combat Vice?” by Lorette C. Luzajic will appear soon.  

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 2:09 am and is filed under Lorette. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.