Orthorexia Nervosa

The acceptable eating disorder

𝗢𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗮 𝗡𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘀 a is a fixation on righteous eating, first diagnosed by Colorado physician Dr. Steven Bratman in 1997. The term is derived from the Greek word "ortho" meaning straight and correct, and refers to a psychological syndrome where one's food choices grow progressively narrower over time under the auspices of health. When vegetarians learn there's an even more restrictive diet plan available - the way of the 𝘃𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗻 - dairy products like milk or cheese, subclasses of poultry products such as eggs, and refined bread ingredients involving yeast or white flour are summarily stricken from their diets as well.

Nothing is allowed inside the body of a devout vegan which might be psychologically interpreted as a toxin. Their daily struggle to keep the "poisons" out and remain uncontaminated by the "wrong" food results in a total reliance upon what other vegans are doing to keep themselves alive, since they're the only ones who can ever be trusted. Like an oil painter who arbitrarily refuses to use yellow, a vegan diet is an attempt to gain control over at least one simple aspect of a person's otherwise ordinary life—a "less is more" aesthetic taken to conceited extremes.

Extremes like 𝘃𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱, completely free of meat or animal derivatives, composed of only organic vegetarian ingredients like soy, peas, carrots, and sunflower oil. Is there nothing a dog loves more than the wild, hearty grains of a rolled oatcake?

And woe to the meat-eater who tries dating a vegan—even for a single evening. Dr. Bratman's treatise on orthorexia cautions that an excessive vegan lifestyle is socially restricting—eventually coming to rule a person's life to the point where all thoughts and activities revolve around what is and what isn't "allowed". Where people with anorexia and bulimia focus on quantities, people with orthorexia focus obsessively on the psychological qualities, the purities, of their food.

The decision to become a vegan has perilous side effects, not the least of which is a near-constant struggle to prepare meals which fool the body into thinking it's getting what it really wants. Vegans force themselves to go through a great deal of labor and preparation just to make food taste more like meat, with weird-ass spices from around the world sprinkled atop "exotic" (and mandatory) sauces, curries, fungus, Boca burgers, textured vegetable paste, Tofurkey, and other processed blends of soy and gluten

Looked up any vegetarian recipes lately? There's a lot of disgusting shit out there—and if you thought fat people were ugly, take a goggle-eyed gander at vitamin-deficient vegans. The universal hallmarks of a long-term vegan diet absent in proteins are pallid gray skin, stringy straw-like hair, knobbled witchy finger knuckles, cracked lips, diminished muscle mass, protruding bones, yellowed teeth, a smug sense of self-satisfaction, and enough lanugo peach fuzz to carpet the moon.

All the plant eating hominids died out because their diet is contrary to nature. No matter where we evolved on this planet, we ended up with canine teeth. Remember that.

Maybe veganism is an attempt to substitute for virginity and reach a state of bodily innocence that the subject has lost (usually traumatically - the loss is in and of itself traumatic). The ‘empathy’ for the meat is a projection and anthropomorphisation, the meat becomes a container and vessel for the subject’s innocence. When she mourns the ‘cruelty’ inflicted on the calf, she mourns herself: “why, oh why, did I have to grow up?”. Maybe.

In January 2006, a Miami jury convicted Lamoy and Joseph Andressohn of felony child neglect for enforcing a strict diet of raw fruits, vegetables & wheatgrass. Their baby weighed less than seven pounds when she died of malnourishment, too weak to lift her head or sit without help

In the last three days of her life, she could only roll back her eyes. The autopsy reported that at the time of death, the child had "a grassy odor" and a bloated, distended abdomen. You wouldn't feed a cat, dog or 𝗯𝗮𝗯𝘆 vegan food. Right? Cause its not a diet. At all.

Other children in the Andressohn family never saw a doctor, but received 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗮𝘀 in lieu of traditional western medicine & testified they were taught that cooked foods were "evil." Shortly after the children were removed from their home by authorities, they discovered a new love for tacos.

Lamoy Andresshon, left, and her husband Joseph, second left, as they hearing their sentence from Judge Sanford Blake in Miami Dade County Court. Just eighteen months probation. PLOT TWIST: They're not honkys

The next time someone tells you they don't eat meat, there might be a valid reason for it. It can be religious, or maybe a means to fight heart disease without medication loaded with caveats and side effects. Hell, they might even be allergic to it. If they bring up the environment, don't pity them. A wiser man and I once said "If you don't like the smell of burning meat then get the fuck off the planet".

Righteous eating and the need to proselytize that shit is just one of the countless surrogate activities people can undertake with their time, money, lives and souls to avoid dealing with real problems in the here and now.

You know who else was a vegetarian?