Herbivores of big business: from Ford to Durov. No fish, no meat: the most famous Russian vegetarians Pavel Durov is vegan
Siganism is gaining popularity around the world - a new diet of celebrities, including Telegram founder Pavel Durov and singer Jennifer Lopez. Here's what you need to know about sigans.
How did cyganism appear?
In 2016, friends Amy Kramer and Lisa McComsey published the book Xigan Kitchen: The Beauty of Healthy, Sustainable Seafood, which became a bestseller. Both girls lead an active lifestyle: they participate in amateur marathons, triathlons, and bike rides. Several years ago, they consciously came to veganism - they abandoned not only meat, but also milk, eggs, honey and other animal products. They described their experience in the book “Cheat List for Vegans,” where they proposed a program for a step-by-step transition to a new diet (designed for 21 days) with recipes.
Cover of the book “Sigan cuisine: the beauty of healthy, environmentally friendly seafood”
Then healthy lifestyle activists decided that the body needs omega-3. These unsaturated fatty acids are needed to strengthen the immune system, lower triglycerides (blood fats), blood pressure and cholesterol, reduce joint pain and inflammation, and fight menstrual cramps, asthma and depression. The problem is that you can't get enough of them from a vegan diet. Then Amy and Lisa included fish in their diet - two to three times a week, while continuing to eat fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and grains, but avoided dairy products, eggs and meat. They called this diet “siganism” (from the English sea – sea + part of the word “vegan”).
How do Sigans differ from vegans and pescatarians?
The name very clearly characterizes this diet: in fact, these are vegans who allow themselves seafood and fish. Also, cyganism should not be confused with pescatarianism (Italian pesce - fish, English vegetarian - vegetable eating), in which it is allowed to eat dairy products and sometimes eggs. The new power system was appreciated not only by the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov. According to the authors of the diet, Bill Clinton, Ben Stiller, and Jennifer Lopez also adhere to it.
How to choose the right fish
In their book, Kramer and McComsey advise avoiding fish high in mercury. It is better to exclude from the diet Chilean sea bass, Atlantic cod, sea bass, king mackerel, Atlantic salmon, all imported shrimp, swordfish and tuna. Load up on sardines, crab, haddock, rainbow trout, Arctic char, black cod and Pacific salmon. Wild seafood is a valuable source of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, iodine and taurine. When choosing between local and imported fish, give preference to the former.
Why are “marine broilers” dangerous?
One of the biggest evils, according to the authors of the diet, is aqua farms where salmon are bred. They are not fed crustaceans like in the wild, that would be too expensive. Instead, dyes are added to the food: usually canthaxanthin (food coloring E161g), which can literally cause blindness if it accumulates in the iris of the eye. But producers have the opportunity to make the color of meat to order - they are given a special “fan” with a palette of shades, like in paint stores. In Russia, deep orange shades are in demand, but in Europe they buy more pink salmon. Therefore, it is better to choose wild fish. By the way, the sea bream, beloved by many, is bred in rooms with special light so that its meat is white. Wild sea bass is listed in the Red Book, so it cannot be bought legally. And the one in restaurants and stores is grown on farms in Turkey and Greece.
How to cook fish the Sigan style
Definitely with fresh herbs. One recipe: place chopped basil leaves and tomatoes on the fish, season it with sea salt, wrap in foil and bake. Another option is to drizzle the fish with lime juice and cook with cilantro, corn and tomatoes. Or you can pre-marinate it in a mixture of tarragon and a tablespoon of dry white wine. Vegetable oil should be avoided - the authors of the diet warn that it provokes heart disease and clogs blood vessels.
Frozen fish
The founders of Siganism think sensibly and understand that not everyone lives a five-minute drive from the ocean, like Pavel Durov, so they are quite liberal in their attitude towards frozen fish. But only the one that was deep frozen right on board the ship. This is usually indicated on the labels. General tips: Look for fish with shiny scales in tightly sealed containers. Do not buy if you notice ice crystals or traces of blood on the carcass.
Canned fish
The Sigans are not particularly against canned food and preserves - “a great option for a snack or unexpected company.” Salmon, sardines, anchovies, herring, crab - such preparations are ideal for sandwiches, pasta sauces, salads and so on.
Recently, in his Telegram channel, Durov wrote that for “clarity of thought” he went on a hunger strike: for six days he sat only on the water. The 34-year-old programmer is known for his passion for proper nutrition: a year ago he stopped eating eggs, dairy products, eliminated gluten and fructose from his diet, and has not eaten meat for 15 years and does not drink alcohol, tea, coffee or soda. Since May 2019, Durov switched to the Sigan diet.
Unlike agricultural products and farmed meats, which were added to our diet more recently (about 15 thousand years ago), wild fire-cooked fish is a food that our ancestors have been accustomed to consuming for millions of years. The Cigan diet makes a lot more sense to me than veganism or a raw food diet.
An entry in the microblog of Pavel Durov (one of the creators of the social network VKontakte) has currently received almost 20 thousand likes and has already made these rules something like new commandments for users of the largest Russian social network.
1. Find out what you really like. The golden rule is: do what gives you true pleasure, and then you will become much happier.
2. Avoid trash that you eat, drink and smoke every day. No secrets or tricky diets - natural food, fruits, vegetables, water. There is no need to become a vegetarian and completely give up drinking - you just need to limit sugar, flour, coffee, alcohol and all plastic food as much as possible.
3. Learn foreign languages. This will expand the depth of perception of the world and open up unprecedented prospects for learning, development and career growth. There are 60 million Russian-speaking Internet users. There are a billion English speakers. The center of progress is now on the other side of the border, including the language border. Knowledge of English is no longer just a whim of intellectuals, but a vital necessity.
4. Read books. An approximate circle is your professional field, history, natural science, personal growth, sociology, psychology, biographies, high-quality fiction. If you don't have time to read because you're driving, listen to audiobooks. The golden rule is to read/listen to at least one book a week. That's 50 books a year that will change your life.
5. Make the most of every weekend. Go to a museum, play sports, go out of town, skydive, visit relatives, go to a good movie. Expand your zone of contact with the world. The more impressions you let through yourself, the more interesting life will be, and the better you will understand things and phenomena.
6. Start a blog or regular diary. It doesn't matter what it's about. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have eloquence and you will have no more than 10 readers. The main thing is that on its pages you can think and reason. And if you just write regularly about what you love, readers will definitely come.
7. Set goals, record them on paper, in Word or blog. The main thing is that they are clear, understandable and measurable. If you set a goal, you can either achieve it or not. If you don’t put it in, then there are no options for achieving it at all.
8. Learn to touch-type on the keyboard. Time is one of the few treasures you have, and you should be able to type almost as quickly as you can think. And you should think not about where the desired letter is, but about what you are writing.
9. Ride the clock. Learn to manage your affairs so that they work almost without your participation. For starters, read Allen (Getting Things Done) or Gleb Arkhangelsky. Make decisions quickly, act immediately, don’t put it off for later. Either do everything or delegate it to someone else.
10. Stop playing computer games, aimless sitting on social networks and stupid surfing on the Internet. Minimize communication on social networks, leave one account. Destroy the television antenna in the apartment.
12. Learn to get up early. The paradox is that in the early hours you always get more done than in the evening. If on a summer weekend you leave Moscow at 7 am, then by 10 you will already be in Yaroslavl. If you leave at 10, you will be there by lunchtime at best. 7 hours of sleep is enough for a person, subject to high-quality physical activity and normal nutrition.
13. Try to surround yourself with decent people, honest, open, smart and successful people. We are our environment from which we learn everything we know. Spend more time with people you respect and can learn from (especially your bosses).
14. Make the most of every moment and every person in order to learn something new. If life brings you together with a professional in any field, try to understand what is the essence of his work, what are his motivations and goals. Learn to ask the right questions - even a taxi driver can become an invaluable source of information.
15. Start traveling. It doesn’t matter that there is no money for Argentina and New Zealand - the quality of your vacation is not related to the money spent. When you see how diverse the world is, you will stop focusing on the space around you, and you will become more tolerant, calmer and wiser.
16. Buy a camera and try to catch the beauty of the world. When you succeed, you will remember your travels not only by vague impressions, but also by the beautiful photographs that you brought with you. As an alternative, try drawing, singing, dancing, sculpting, designing. That is, do something that will make you look at the world with different eyes.
17. Play sports. You don’t have to go to a fitness club where jocks, pick-up artists, Balzac ladies and freaks hang out. Yoga, rock climbing, cycling, horizontal bar, parallel bars, football, running, plyometrics, swimming, functional training are the best friends of a person who wants to tone the body and get a surge of endorphins. And forget about the elevator.
18. Do unusual things. Go somewhere you’ve never been, take a different route to work, figure out a problem you know nothing about. Get out of your “comfort zone”, expand your knowledge and horizons. Rearrange the furniture at home, change your appearance, hairstyle, image.
19. Invest. Ideally, you should invest part of your income every month, because a rich person is not the one who earns a lot, but the one who invests a lot. Try to invest in assets, minimize liabilities and control expenses.
20. Get rid of junk. Throw away any items you haven't worn or used in the last year. Leave only what you like and need. It's a shame to throw it away - give it away.
21. Give more than you take. Share knowledge, experience and ideas. A person who not only takes, but also shares, is incredibly attractive. Surely you can do something that others really want to learn.
22. Accept the world as it is. Give up value judgments, accept all phenomena as neutral. And even better - as unequivocally positive.
23. Forget about what happened in the past. It has nothing to do with the future. Take with you from there only experience, knowledge, good relationships and positive impressions.
24. Don't be afraid. There are no insurmountable obstacles, and all doubts live only in your head. You don't have to be a warrior, you just need to see the goal, avoid obstacles and know that you will achieve it without a single chance of failure.
25. The last one is the first one. Do what you like. Learn. Teach. Develop yourself. Change yourself from within.
Each person determines for himself the principles of life, nutrition, behavior, and so on. Some are based on their own experience, some on scientific data, some blindly follow other people's dogmas, without trying to understand the essence. Some people's positions resonate with you, while others are completely rejected.
After reading the principles of Pavel Durov (on his 33rd birthday published my rules for a healthy life), I would boldly sign up for five out of seven, namely:
- I don’t drink alcohol, but I don’t consider someone drinking a glass once a month a crime against health.
- I am against any drugs and against any form of smoking. This is the most unwise habit, in my opinion.
- I stopped drinking tea, coffee and other tonic drinks. Sorry about the adrenal glands. They will be useful to me again, I hope.
- I don't eat fast food. It's better to be hungry. I don't drink soda under any circumstances. For me, these drinks are like technical fluids. It would never occur to anyone to use kerosene. :)
- And in my house no one watches TV for a long time. We can watch a movie, but no TV shows, talk shows or similar information flow. I find out news on the Internet.
But there are two points with which I categorically disagree: giving up meat, dietary supplements and medications.
When it comes to meat, I have a very simple principle: you can’t beat nature and you shouldn’t even try. We can only make our own adjustments. For example, the anti-aging therapy that I do will not give anyone immortality, but it will help you live longer, and in your right mind, on your own two feet and not depend on the help of other people. In other words, it helps to be free, healthy and reasonable. And also look younger than your peers, which is great.
So the point is that we are not herbivores. No matter how much vegetarians try to convince us that cows don’t eat meat and yet have such impressive muscle mass, it doesn’t work. The human digestive tract is designed in such a way that plant proteins cannot be completely digested and absorbed in such a volume that a person does not end up in a protein deficiency.
We do not have a book-shaped stomach, a very long intestine, and the fermentation system is slightly different. In addition, it is the combination of animal and plant proteins that gives us the opportunity to obtain all the amino acids, micro- and macronutrients and synthesize the necessary nucleic acids and proteins.
The world must be accepted as it is. Eat meat, preferably high-quality meat.
As for the pharmaceutical industry, my position is as follows. Let us now not talk about serious pathologies, where without medicine a person will simply die. We're talking about relatively healthy people who want to live happily ever after.
Once upon a time, people lived in excellent physiological conditions: they went to bed at sunset, drank clean water, ate healthy food, and had healthy intestinal microflora. And then they really could not use dietary supplements, since they got everything from food.
Now, when the level of stress cannot be compensated by the body’s capabilities, when the amount of glucose consumed is off the charts, when obesity has become an epidemic and even a pandemic, it is almost impossible to maintain health without additional support through functional nutrition and the use of biological supplements.
