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  • Brittany Bunk - Extropian Transhuman

Long story not cut short (showing the multiple steps):

When I was under 6 years old, my parents would catch fish from the ocean. I would swim in the ocean, but didn't like the smell or taste of the ocean water. So when I saw the fish, I had a hunch, and when I tasted it, it tasted like the same bad ocean taste, just with heavy metals (which I later found out is Mercury, but I would think it's others too. Tasted like lead, bromine, tin, among others). I only had 10 meals in my life that had seafood, and almost half were just taking one bite and disliking it, having it accidentally in my food, or pushed on me (I lived in a seafood community. My parents would share the fish with the entire neighborhood). Later on in life, seafood would make me ill (I just ate a lobster bisque to see if I could many years later, but then couldn't and didn't even taste good, as it was making me too swollen to eat it).

When I was 10, I decided to learn about health and took out maybe 10 books and read 6 from front to cover and glazed the rest. One was a dummies book. I liked to learn about subjects from A -> Z. At the time there was a vegetarian in my family, but since they ate chicken and fish, I didn't think of it (turns out there was another vegetarian who made me pancakes for my birthday dinner - I didn't know they were when I was 5/6 years old).

When I was 12, my friend said she was vegan. I gave her the typical spiel: 'where do you get your protein', 'why did you go vegan', and I said it wasn't for me and got disgusted. Later, I said she had an impact on my life when I was 12, I decided to do the opposite of McDonald's double quarter pounders with cheese, fries, and soda each week: go healthy. That was a turning point. I decided to change my taste buds to like yogurt instead of ice cream (I thought it was healthy until later I found out that it had 42 grams of sugar and the first ingredient was high fructose corn syrup followed by sugar). It took me 6 months. Around 3-4 months, I decided to go back to eating Big Macs, but they tasted terrible. I never went back.

This is when I feel I became a health influencer - for the entire world. Then I believe I started the health craze of 2003 - I went healthy and asked my city to as well (I said to put in a healthy vending machine in for kids, which they did years later, because they started a health program). Back then, there was verbnow, pass the plate (maybe that came later), and other programs along with all the diet books that I just read a lot about. Then I found out what I was eating wasn't healthy: the food said no trans fat - but it had it (under 0.5g).

So it took me 3-4 years to find the truly healthy food around 16 I ran into health problems, but the internet was just building and there were no answers to what is backed by a lot of knowledge today. So it made me really look into the question I always wanted to hear, but got no straightforward answer to: where did the beef come from? It was at the Isla Vista Co-op where I would read what I normally didn't see and hear what I normally didn't hear and there I found out about where food came from and didn't like it and went vegan then. I failed 5 times until I found out that I was missing Vitamin K2 (which is different than K1 and hindered my absorption of vitamins, especially zinc).

In that time though, when I was in college, there was a meat-free Monday and I thought I wouldn't make it, because my family always said: 3 sources of protein per meal. However, it tasted better. Also, at that time, I would eat steaks to donate blood until they said the iron's too low. Turns out beef doesn't have much iron, as the food with the most iron is thyme. Now my iron is in the normal range.

Still my health wasn't doing well (like muscle aches), so I became a vegetarian in 2011 instead and got better. My body changed to have a higher metabolism but more food sensitivities, as I changed my diet and what I ate as a kid (like soy), I couldn't eat anymore. I also did it for convenience, so that I wouldn't have to create a calendar to know what to eat when (like some fish every 2 months, beef every few days, etc.).

It took me 7-8 months to transition until my sister said, just do it already if you say you are. Years later, I told my sister I was a vegetarian, and she said: you're so cool. Someone I knew said: how do I go vegetarian. I became popular from it. Then she went vegan.

My health after 7 years of that declined more (I couldn't eat milk anymore, and eggs hurt my muscles), I went to a raw vegan meetup, and they were like: do it. So as I started to go vegan, my sister went less and less that way. Now I'm transitioning to being more raw (or at least uncooked), as that's what I prefer. My grandparents used to grow their own food and that helped me shape my viewpoints towards vegan food. I actually prefer the taste of plants, because I liked fruit as a kid. I feel better, but since I was rushed, instead of eased into the transitions, it's still hard to be vegan.

Along the way, I got a health science degree and it helped out many people become healthier and I notice when they stop being vegan, they get aches, pains, and severe health issues that they blame on age, when it's never on age.