Ex-Vegan (2 Years): Deceived Vegan Breaks Free of the Cult

Watch on YouTube · 2018-02-17 · 29 min

0:00 Let's do this.

[video] 0:02 Ready?

0:03 Yeah.

[video] 0:05 Are we live?

0:06 Yeah, you can introduce yourself. It's not live, but I'm recording.

[video] 0:11 Okay. My name is Jesse Saunders. I was a former vegan. I was a vegan for... Well, I guess we can get into that. But my name is Jesse. I'm a personal trainer. I live in Virginia. And that's kind of my background for now.

0:28 Okay. Yeah. How did you find my video? Do you want to tell that?

[video] 0:34 Yeah, so I found you from Jake's, who was formerly the Flat Earth Asshole, now Jake the Asshole, found you from his recent video, that vegan video that he made. And I think I saw your comment on there or something. Or no, he said that he used your footage or like your video footage for that video. So I checked you out. And you had a lot of good content on there and I thought a lot of interesting content. So I subbed to you and then you just recently posted this vegan thing here and I was like, hey, let me help out. Let me get the truth out there. Yeah.

1:18 So when did you get into it and who told you about it?

[video] 1:24 Veganism?

1:25 Yeah.

[video] 1:27 So it started from vegetarianism.

[video] 1:32 I met my wife in 2012, and she's born and raised vegetarian. It was something that I never, ever really considered doing until I met her. She seemed really healthy to me, and there was this whole kind of spiritual aspect to it. So it was intriguing to me. So I started out as a vegetarian. I was vegetarian for probably two years. And during that, I definitely noticed some decline in my muscular strength. As a personal trainer, that's something that's really important. And so that kind of started to fade. I didn't really pay any attention to it. All my focus was on the diet. And so after about two years of vegetarianism, I went to veganism because I saw a lot of vegan YouTubers.

[video] 2:25 doing their thing and they were all talking about how healthy it is and the meat is so disease-causing and all that stuff. So then I got into veganism and I was vegan for almost two years and within those two years I also experimented with fruitarianism and raw food. So I would kind of go through spurts where I would eat maybe two to three weeks of just raw food, like raw fruits and veggies. I also experimented with liquidarian diet a little bit. There were some aspects to it that felt good, like it felt almost like this cleansing feeling, but the overwhelming weakness that I felt was just too much. I couldn't handle the weakness any longer.

[video] 3:26 And that's essentially what took me back to eating meat again. I just felt like I couldn't lift any weights. When I lifted weights, I couldn't put on any gains. I felt very fatigued, very tired all the time. And it was just like a never-ending journey of becoming more and more sensitive to everything. I just couldn't handle anything anymore. I couldn't handle exercise. I couldn't handle certain foods anymore. All of a sudden, I was allergic to cats. I had never been allergic to cats or animals in my life. I felt like my nose was congested all the time. I was having a hard time sleeping. It was stuff I had never really experienced before.

4:19 Did you also develop allergies to other foods?

[video] 4:26 I don't think allergies, but I became hypersensitive to foods. If I were to eat something that was a bit more refined or processed, it would just totally destroy my system. I couldn't handle it whatsoever.

[video] 4:48 Any kind of chemicals or anything that was outside of the organic, natural food spectrum... would really mess me up big time. So, you know, I know that there's a lot of vegans out there who are like, oh, well, you probably weren't eating the right diet. I know they like to say that. They're like, oh, you were, you know, you were eating junk food or whatever. Not at all, man. I was like strict as hell. I mean, we were eating beans and, you know, lentils and rice and, I mean, really healthy vegan food.

[video] 5:21 But the problems persisted. It just never got better. I was kind of like waiting in those two years. When's it going to get better? When am I going to start feeling stronger? But it just doesn't happen. I just kept feeling weaker, weaker, weaker, and it just never stopped until I had to go back to meat. It was the only solution. How old are you? I'm 31.

5:51 Okay. Yeah, because most of the people who promote it are around 20, and they don't understand how when you get older, the harder it gets. Most people who fail are beyond 30, 40, it gets harder. 50, it's really hard to do it.

[video] 6:08 Yeah, I think that's probably true. A lot of these vegans are really young, and their bodies can kind of handle it at that age. But yeah, once they get a little older... And I mean, I don't like to blame things on age, but it is true that, you know, things kind of start to slow down a little bit.

[video] 6:29 But yeah, it was just, you know, it was such a, and once you get out of it, you kind of realize how much of a sort of cult that whole movement is. I don't think, you know, not everybody who's involved with it is like that. I have a personal trainer, co-worker of mine who's vegan and she's very, you know, relaxed about what everyone else does and doesn't mind what everyone else is eating. But the majority of the movement, I think, is like really, I don't know, really firm in their belief and they push it on to other people. And if you don't believe exactly that way, then, you know, you're out of the cult, basically. So when you join, you kind of feel like you have to be like that. You have to develop this mindset. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[video] 7:15 There is no other way than to think exactly like that. And I became just like that, man. You start hating other human beings. You start hating the human race. You start putting animals' lives above humans'. It was getting bad. I was becoming very unmotivated with work. I became very unmotivated with material things and wanting to get more wealth and material things.

[video] 7:44 And when you're raising a family, that's a problem. That's a big issue. You can't be like that when you're trying to support other people. And so it was definitely a downward spiral. And it took me going to India to actually go back to eating dairy and meat again. I didn't transition back to meat and dairy until I went to India. We stayed in India for like six months. We were there in 2016 from August until February of 2017. And I ate some dairy for the first time in I don't know how long. And it felt amazing. Like all of a sudden, I got this sort of renewed strength just from a little bit of dairy. Like that was it. Yeah, yeah. It was an instant feeling of like, whoa, like, okay, I feel better.

[video] 8:41 Something feels like it's nourishing me that I haven't felt in a long time. And that's what opened the seal. I went back to dairy. And then that very night, I was thinking about eating meat. And I was like, oh, man, it was a hard night. Because I had to ignore all the vegan brainwashing in my head. All the videos of animal cruelty and all that stuff, man. All the vegan gain stuff. And I had to ignore it and just listen to my body. And I couldn't ignore my body any further. And essentially, that's what brought me back. I listened to my body, and I ate the meat the next day, and sure enough, I felt like my strength was coming back. It was undeniable what was healthy for me and what was not. It couldn't have been more clear for me.

9:41 Many people report this when they first start eating animal foods again.

[video] 9:45 Yeah.

[video] 9:48 And I'm happy people are starting to make videos like this. I think this is like a scary topic for a lot of people to put out on the internet because of how aggressive the vegan movement has become. You put on one anti-vegan thing and they all come attacking. I mean, I'm sure this is going to get a bunch of, we're going to get a bunch of haters on here.

10:10 I've had death threats. Really?

[video] 10:15 Yeah.

10:16 Not surprising.

[video] 10:17 Not surprising at all.

10:18 And they want to kill people who are technically animals, and then it makes no sense at all.

[video] 10:27 Yeah. They think that they're fighting for peace for everyone, and then they end up becoming more aggressive towards humans than they ever have been in their entire life. And all of a sudden they're spewing all this hate and they don't see it because they're so blinded by the dogmatic vegan view. It totally masks what they're actually doing. And yeah, it's unfortunate. Hopefully it slows down or dies down at some point.

11:07 Did you believe that killing animals is wrong? Definitely, yes.

[video] 11:14 Yeah, I believed any form of killing any sentient being was wrong. So that included the fur industry, that included bees, the use of getting honey from bees and stuff like that.

[video] 11:32 Yeah, all of it. And I mean, it's a difficult realization to come to because the sentiment of veganism is good. The idea of no harm to all beings is a really good sentiment. And it's a valid sentiment. But the only problem is that our biology doesn't allow us to live like that. At least I think the majority of us can't live healthy as a vegan. We just can't do it. As much as you want to believe it in your head, your body is going to tell you otherwise. That was my experience. I wanted the vegan diet to work so badly. I wanted it to work so badly. But I had to be honest with my body. I had to be honest with where my life was going once I started being vegan. And when I really was honest about it, I couldn't continue that any further for myself or for my family.

[video] 12:31 It just wouldn't have been right.

12:36 Do you have children also? Or do you not want to talk about that? Did you feed them a vegan diet?

[video] 12:44 I went vegan when my first son was probably like one or two, I think.

[video] 12:55 He was born vegetarian, and then as I became vegan, I started pushing my whole family to become vegan, as vegans do. So we all basically became vegan. I mean, I was like a Nazi about it, just super strict. So he was vegan for quite some time. I mean, he was vegan throughout my whole vegan experience. And we actually conceived our second son while we were vegan. And so we had him when my wife and I were both vegan and my first son. Yeah. It's so funny because he was born by vegan parents. But once I started eating meat again, he was like a true carnivore, man. He couldn't get enough of the meat. Like he was...

[video] 13:53 He was all over it, and I think his body was just missing it so much. It was such a natural thing for him to eat. He had no problems with it.

[video] 14:04 And so, yeah.

14:07 Was your wife still breastfeeding him? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Because a lot of vegans believe that there's vegan children out there, but don't realize that all of them get milk, because that's... The same thing, it's full of cholesterol, B12, and so on. And there are no vegan children who only eat plants as actual vegan children or babies, because there's so many cases of them dying. I don't know if you have heard about it. And the hospitals say that there's thousands of cases, but there's some kind of almost like a cover-up. It goes all unreported. In Belgium, for example...

14:52 You're saying if kids who don't, their mothers don't breastfeed them? Vegan women who maybe they are not able to breastfeed, but the babies who die because they try to feed them only plants. And the vegan mothers and the people who are into it don't realize that if they get the milk from the mother, that's it because it's animal milk and it has everything you need. True.

[video] 15:18 Yeah.

[video] 15:20 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she breast-feeded for a full year.

[video] 15:35 What do you think is going to happen with this whole movement? Do you think it's on the rise still?

15:40 It's hard to say. I would hope that it's going to die because I don't want more people to get hurt.

[video] 15:49 Now, have you met vegans who are really healthy?

15:52 No, never met any healthy ones. I don't think that they exist.

[video] 15:58 Well, actually, I just met with an old friend who was vegan when I met him. And he was a big player in me going vegan. And I met with him maybe six months ago, something like that. And he was still vegan, of course. He was looking... Not very healthy at all. He was looking very weak physically. If you're watching this, buddy, I love you, but you've got to get stronger. He's still vegan, I think. Like I said, one of my co-workers is a vegan. I don't know how long she's been vegan.

[video] 16:42 She seems healthy right now. I don't know how long she's been doing it. And perhaps some people's bodies can handle it longer than others.

16:51 Right. It all depends on vitamin A, for example, how much you have saved up in the liver. Because vegans then show their blood tests and don't realize that they start eating their own body. So you start getting the vitamin A from the liver, the B12 from the liver, which you have stored up from the animals that you used to eat. Or you start getting the calcium from your bones and your bones start to deteriorate. And then they say, my calcium levels in the blood are fine, but that's because you're eating yourself.

[video] 17:24 Yeah, that's exactly how it felt. It honestly feels like you're being eaten by yourself.

17:31 It's a fast. That's what Dr. Natasha Campbell said. I don't know if you have heard of her. You could look into it. There's a video called Want to Go Vegan Vegetarian. I uploaded it on my channel. She talks about it. all of this stuff that people go through and explains it. Once you look into nutrition, you understand what's going on. That's the problem with veganism. They mostly talk about so-called morals, which are man-made, so good and bad, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Not much about nutrition. If you look at the documentaries, it's 90% about killing animals is wrong.

[video] 18:14 Yeah, that's true. Hardly anything about the actual science nutrition behind it. Now, I feel like it's becoming mainstream. Did you see the new Star Wars movie? No. Okay, so I honestly feel like the vegan agenda was being pushed in that movie. Okay, tell me. I don't know. There's a scene with Chewbacca where he's about to eat this little bird creature that he's already... cooked and then he's about to eat it and then one of the live birds comes up and starts or it has like a really sad face it's looking at him like oh don't eat my buddy don't eat my brother yeah and he he chooses not to eat it yeah and that I mean that you've never seen anything like that in any Star Wars before to me it felt like a little like a small little vegan like you know absolutely man

19:14 There's a lot of this stuff, actually. And when you start thinking about cartoons that we see as children and how animals are portrayed, then it really clicks because it's totally messed up because all animals are shown as these friendly beings. And because we live in a city and we have no, a lot of us, we have no connection to how animals actually are and what they eat and so on. And then we... want to see them as these friends. Then we can say, don't eat your friends. That whole thing also doesn't make sense.

[video] 19:53 Well, I wonder why it's like, why is this agenda being pushed? I mean, this is, you know, it's happening in cartoons, it's happening in movies, you know, celebrities are doing it and they're pushing it. I mean, is this some agenda that's going on? Like they're trying to push everyone into veganism? And if so, why?

20:15 Absolutely. For one thing, it's depopulation because a lot of people go infertile and the women lose their periods. But that happens more on fruitarian diets. But after a while… Yeah.

[video] 20:34 Yeah, go on. Well, that's my experience. I mean, that was my whole experience. I honestly felt like I gave it 110%. You know, you could ask my wife. I mean, she was there. I was a total pain in the ass with her in just like how serious I was about it. And I mean, I didn't eat any processed food. I mean, I cut that out completely. I was eating healthy, you know, whole foods, vegan whole food diet, just like, you know, your big YouTubers tell you to do. And I gave it a a solid effort, almost two years. I mean, it's a long time to do it and didn't work, was not good, not healthy. I do not recommend it to people. Yeah.

21:26 If you look at the food pyramid, it used to be grains, vegetables, fruit, but sort of some kind of meat also. Then it got less, less, less. And now it's two little pieces of meat. You can hardly even see it in my plate. It's what they came out with. And then there's even fake meat added to it and soy. Yeah.

21:52 So at some point, they're just going to cut out the meat. And once they do that, then they will easily cut out eggs and dairy and officially say that veganism is super healthy and everybody should go vegan and

22:06 It's hell. Yeah. That really happens.

[video] 22:10 Well, and then I wonder what happens then. At that point, do they start outlawing meat or saying that nobody can eat meat anymore? Outlaw hunting. Nope, can't kill any animals. They're not meant to be killed. I mean, that could be the end scenario there.

22:29 It looks like it. because everything is pointing to it. They talk about how animals are dying in the wild, so they will make it illegal to hunt. And it is already hard because in a lot of places you need a license. For me, it's the same thing. And then they are producing this fake meat right now. So much of it, in the United States especially, and you can't even tell when you buy what is real. And if you buy fast food, you could easily get fake meat. Yeah, yeah. So there's a reason they are making all of this, and there's a lot of investors behind it, Bill Gates, and all of those huge companies are totally supporting it. And it's good money for them, of course. Right. And the big pharma, the supplement industry, those pills, did you take anything B12 or so?

[video] 23:27 Yeah, I was taking... I did a good amount of stuff. I mean, I would take spirulina. Isn't spirulina supposed to be a really good source of B12?

23:38 It actually has a B12 analog, which the chemical structure actually only resembles B12. It's not even B12. So what it does, it can even... The actual B12, it can mess you up even more.

[video] 23:56 Yeah. I didn't take any...

[video] 24:01 B12 supplements, I don't think. I mean, what are the only ways that you can do it? Don't you have to, like, inject it or something? I don't know.

24:11 Or take the pills. And what is the pill made from? That's another story, because 99% is made from sewage sludge, so basically shit and piss. Get it out of it, because there really is B12. we go to the toilet but the whole point for humans to make a little bit even if you have super good bacteria it will be in the large intestine then you would shit it out to feed the soil so the plants grow and so on if if we could do it and that's a whole other question but um when you when the bacteria ferments and everything yes in the end you can get before out of it but uh the whole process of how it's made, what you actually end up with is not B12 at all. It's basically called cyanide because that's how it breaks down.

25:08 And then there's another version, which is pretty expensive and that supposedly works, but there's no proof of it because there's no proof that any supplement works. D for example is made from irradiated vegetable oil. That has nothing to do with vitamin D because that's an animal hormone. And you can get animal hormones from vegetable oils. Because they find a similar structure, they are allowed to sell it as vitamin D. But it's a business.

[video] 25:41 Scammed, man. Scammed. Yeah, no, I didn't do any of that. And a lot of vegans would always say... you know everyone's vitamin or everyone has vitamin b12 deficiency they would say meat eaters are just as deficient as plant eaters or vegans so i didn't do anything i don't think in particular for that i doubt that was the reason why i was uh you know getting weaker i don't think that was the reason it wouldn't help help you anyway as i said there's no proof that any of it helps the vegans simply live from the b12 in their liver

26:18 And at some point they just use it up and that's when they feel like shit.

[video] 26:22 Yeah.

[video] 26:26 Yeah. So that's my story. I hope it was helpful, man. I hope your viewers find it helpful. You know, this was my God's honest experience. And in my personal opinion as a former vegan, if you're going to, you know, be careful when you try it. It's not... It definitely wasn't healthy for me. I'm in the fitness health industry. This is the field that I'm in. So my health is paramount. I have to be in tip-top shape physically and mentally. And so I had to stop doing it for that very reason because it was starting to impact my work, everything. It was starting to impact everything in my life in a negative fashion.

27:12 Did you have any other health issues you maybe forgot or was that it?

[video] 27:18 Uh, that really was pretty much it. I mean, um, yeah, I mean I was, like I said before, very unmotivated, became very unmotivated and my thinking became kind of paranoid. Um, that, that was pretty much it. No, no, no serious physical ailments luckily. I imagine if I had continued it, it possibly would have manifested. Yeah. You know, I nipped it in the bud early. Yeah. And I'm not, it's because, you know, I don't follow the herd. I mean, I wanted to try veganism because all these people were saying it was really healthy and they were swearing their life by it. So, okay, let me try it. If this is really the healthiest thing, let me try it out. Tried it, didn't work.

28:09 Did you have any friends who were vegan?

[video] 28:13 Yeah, so the one who I used to work with, he moved to North Carolina. He was a vegan. He talked to me a lot about it. And he was another big influence on me going vegan, for sure. Because he's a real kind of spiritual dude and very chilled out and mellow. And he's a wise dude.

[video] 28:37 vegan diet. I connected the wisdom and all that stuff with vegan diet and spirituality, but I didn't have a lot of other vegan friends outside of that. Where I live, it's not really prominent. In Northern Virginia, it's not a ton of vegans. If I were in California, Something like that. It's probably a lot more popular era, I imagine. Okay.

29:14 All right, man. Cool. Thanks for sharing.

[video] 29:17 Absolutely. It was my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity. Okay.

[video] 29:23 I'll see you around on YouTube then, yeah? Yeah, man. I'll be watching your video.

29:26 Yeah. Okay. Take care.

[video] 29:28 All right, brother. Bye. Bye.