The 1st Middle East Vegetarian (MEVEG) Congress, Part 33 of a Multi-part Series

And now, I’d like to invite Anastasia, and she’s going to share how we can actually do our own little research. Because we can’t be dependent on asking questions or attending forums, we have to do some of it. She has been a vegetarian for over a decade and like many, turned to the lifestyle after serious health issues. Anastasia wears many hats; it would be an understatement. A bachelor’s degree in IT from Wollongong in Dubai, she is also a certified English teacher, and she holds an audio engineering diploma, and she’s enjoyed producing a lot of live events. Currently, Anastasia is working on her second bachelor’s degree.

“Yesterday, this was mentioned, our diet is the most intimate connection to Earth. Ground yourself with the diet. At the end of the day, an ideal diet is something that works for you. A diet is not something where you have to force yourself to essentially cut out the foods that you don’t need. It has to be something that you want to do.

Here is an expert telling me that, ‘Sorry you have to eat meat.’ But on the other hand, if you look at the people in India, for instance, who are, quite a huge amount of them are vegetarians, they’re healthy, relatively, and they’re one of the smartest cultures out there. Why is that? And our very own MC had health issues before she’s gone vegan. That is a real-life example. She’s cut out all the meat. She’s gone vegan. Her health issues have decreased. So are you telling me that I should trust the word of an expert over a real life example in front of me?

Every time you read a newspaper, so and so food is bad for you. A few weeks later, you read, possibly even in the same paper, you read studies that say the exact opposite. For every expert that says one thing, you can find another couple of experts that say the complete opposite. So where do you draw the line? You draw the line from within, from yourself. You have to think rationally. You have to do your own research.”