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YouTuber Kalel has admitted she is no longer vegan, and has recently been eating animals and eggs.
The social media personality, who has nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers, made the comments in a 40-minute video titled So….Apparently I’m A Man.
During the video, she listed a number of health complaints, including depression and hair loss and said she had undergone extensive medical testing, and has so far received some results but is waiting for others.
Testosterone
“I have an ungodly amount of testosterone in my blood,” she said in the video. “My doctor was seriously shook over how much testosterone I had. He said I had as much as the average 25-year-old man which truly makes a lot of sense.
“I’ve always felt more masculine than feminine mentally at least, and let’s be real, I have always had the balls in my relationship.”
She added that she tested positive for pathogenetic fungus, and low levels of iron, zinc, and lysine.
Aside from the commentary on veganism, Kalel received some criticism over the title of her video and the way she spoke about testosterone, which some viewers saw as insensitive to the trans community.
Eating animals
“I would say calcium, iron, zinc, lysine, and B12 are the most difficult things to get on a vegan diet without supplementation or consuming fortified foods,” she says. “Vegans love to act like it is easy to get everything you need on a vegan diet, but I am here to tell you, that I disagree.
“It wasn’t until I started logging my food on chronometer that I realized exactly how difficult it was…my blood tests show I am not absorbing the iron, zinc, lysine I am consuming in plant form. And I have to say, honestly some days I probably got hardly any zinc or lysine because they are hard to get.
“I could have taken supplements…but I just feel if you have to supplement so many things, is it really the diet your body is designed for? That’s just my stance. I don’t want to make the vegans mad…I have started to supplement my diet with pasture-raised eggs and small amounts of meat. I’m not happy about it…but know that it is a very thought-out choice.”
Kalel admits she has started eating animals again
Supplements
A number of commentators on Reddit questioned why the YouTuber was happy to ingest supplements which had been fed to animals via meat but was not prepared to take supplements herself.
“So if the animals she eats are fed supplements it is fine, but to take supplements directly is bad?” one wrote. “Hard to find any logic in this.”
“She said ‘if I have to supplement so many things (it was three or four things like iron and lysine and a couple more) this diet probably isn’t ideal for my body’ but if someone has to die for you to eat, your diet definitely isn’t ideal for them,” another added.
Part-time vegan
The news follows a controversy earlier this Summer, where Kalel admitted to eating non-vegan candy. She said she was ‘just not ready’ to replace candy bars and popcorn with vegan alternatives.
The admission quickly became a hot topic on Twitter, garnering mixed reactions, with one user saying: “I wish I could sympathize with Kalel’s ‘I’m not really vegan’ video but I really can’t. I completely understand accidental f*ck ups, and things we just need to deal with that are out of our control. What I can’t understand is consciously buying and consuming nonvegan foods.”
But others were more supportive, including one social media user writing: “Vegans are out here wasting their breath on people like Kalel who are 98 percent vegan when most people are still zero percent…shouldn’t we be grateful for people like her?”
Vegan activism
Kalel’s admission this Summer about the non-vegan candy and this week’s revelations about eating animals have come to a surprise to many, as she used to be an outspoken vegan advocate, even working with animal rights charity PETA on a number of occasions.
Earlier this year she blasted clothing brand Alice and Olivia for including fur in its line.
“How can you justify killing foxes and rabbits for this horrid sweater?” she wrote. “You should be ashamed, @aliceandolivia!”
