there are just so many Reasons to Go Plant based...

I wrote this back in April, but I only today went live with this website so I thought I would put this one up higher on the chain. I could write 100's of pages on this and if you want to read 100's of pages just get the China Study, Whole, Engine 2, Preventing and Reversing Heart disease and Eat to Live... etc etc. I am going to break it down in short form here... 

Animal protein consumption over 10% of our daily calories has been shown to contribute to the promotion of cancer, heart and artery disease, diabetes, dementia, MS and many other diseases (most of these diseases are totally preventable if we ate the right diet.)  We need 10% protein a day to achieve nitrogen balance and function well. That is not a type-o folks, 10% is perfect. Any more than that is detrimental to the tune of cancer promoting, heart disease causing etc.   We have been so brainwashed into thinking that protein is what is keeping us thin, and alive and that carbs are evil. It took me eating this way to realize that I would feel amazing and would actually lose 7 pounds within two weeks of starting this "diet". That is all I needed to lose and I have upped my food intake to maintain. I rarely get hungry the way I did when I was eating animal protein. I think I'm getting so much nutrition that my body isn't craving other things. 

White bread, candy, white pasta, doughnuts etc are not good carbs and not whole foods and have no place in a whole foods plant based diet. They, are what have given carbs the bad rap that carbohydrates now have. Thanks to the Atkins, Lo Carb, and Paleo camps for furthering the fear of eating anything but protein and all the fat that usually goes along with it! Nicely done. I can find 100 diet books on the shelf at the library and you could probably lose weight following any of them (come on, remember the "cookie diet" ... I had friends who lost lots of weight on that pile of crap).  Losing weight does not cancer/heart disease/diabetes proof you, like a WFPB diet does. Most fad diets are also not sustainable. You lose the weight then go back to eating how you did before, and of course this is the reason that 90% of people gain the weight back after following a fad diet. 

We do not eat enough nutrients if we have high consumption of meat and processed foods. I firmly believe this. Not only because it's scientifically proven in literature, but because personally, as I mentioned above, am so satisfied now that I eat this way, and I don't have that feelings of hunger (cravings) that I had when I ate animal protein. Once we cut these foods out, we are nourished from a variety of plant based foods. We get high amounts of micro and macro nutrients including lots of inflammation fighters. More and more studies are indicating that information reeks havoc on our bodies. From our arteries, to our gut, to our immune system, we are constantly inflamed. Animal protein is a known source of contributing to this inflammation.   Here is one of the explanations of how meat causes our systems to be inflamed.  Eating this way gives us everything our body needs (with the exception of vitamin B12 which is a supplement many vegans take). A lot of people will argue that a meatless, dairyless diet will not give us enough protein, fill us up, or keep us strong. They are WRONG. Research supports this and I have to say that I  never felt stronger or better since I went veggie. More and more athletes are switching over to a plant based diet as they are seeing how it enhances performance. 

It is tough to be obese on a whole food plant based because what you are eating is not super caloric. Because it is so nutrient dense, it is very filling. Most of these foods are also not addictive (as calorie dense meat, sugar, and processed foods are) so people generally do not overeat them.  

Here are some seriously depressing stats courtesy of the CDC:

• Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are obese: 35.9% (2009-2010)
• Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are overweight, including obesity: 69.2% (2009-2010)

• Percent of adolescents age 12-19 years who are obese: 18.4% (2009-2010)
• Percent of children age 6-11 years who are obese: 18.0% (2009-2010)
• Percent of children age 2-5 years who are obese: 12.1% (2009-2010)

Here are some environmental reasons to leave the cows alone.  Raising and killing animals is insanely taxing on the environment. Below are some examples of how the environment is suffering courtesy of us loving meat so much. 

• It takes 5000 gallons of water to produce 1 lb of beef while it takes 250 gallons to yield a loaf of bread. 5000 gallons a pound of beef!! Whaaaaatttt??!! That is a lot of water for a couple of endothelial cell killing burgers. 
  
• Entire Brazilian rainforests have been decimated to make way for raising animals for human consumption. We are running out of room to graze cattle and to grow the food to feed them. Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation (Nepstad et al. 2008). 
• Cows poop... a LOT and it and the fertilizer and pesticides on the enormous crops required to feed them run into our waterways and are producing nitrogen build up and dead zones where other animals and sea life suffer from lack of oxygen in the water due to bacteria and algae blooms. It is a chain reaction, and an ugly one at that.
• Cattle also burp a lot and they are the number 1 producers of methane, a potent greenhouse gas
• Raising animals produces more damage to the environment than ALL forms of transportation. Get an electric car AND stop eating meat. 

I know we all want to believe that grass fed beef and organic free range chicken is better for us but there has been no research to support that. Also, it is completely unsustainable. One of my blogs refer to an article by Meat magazine that proved that grass fed and regular beef have the same nutritional quality. Yes, there is a Beef magazine. Even if it was better for you, there's no way we would ever have enough land to graze enough cattle and chickens to feed the amount that people are presently consuming. Rain forests are already disappearing and that is just to grow food for cows penned in little boxes. Would be even less land available of they were grazing.  I think people just feel a lot better about thinking about cows roaming freely and chickens doing the same. They still going to the same slaughter houses and get their heads chopped off or throats slit. For so long I was able to ignore all of this and eat meat. When I stopped eating meat, and knew that I was making a commitment to it, I started reading more about that process and I'm not gonna go into all that on this blog or website. It doesn't take much to explore the Internet if you want to go there. Don't plan on eating meat anytime soon (if ever) if you do though. 

As I mentioned there are lots of other reasons to go veggie... scroll down and read through the blogs of our adventure in veggie land!