The New Year is upon us, and at PETA, we're encouraging people to, for their new year's resolution, give a healthy vegetarian diet a try.
Just last month, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta celebrated that the average cholesterol level in this country has fallen to 199, which is below (just barely) their stated target of 200. It's too bad the CDC is happy with a 199 average in this country, since at 199, people are still dropping like flies from heart disease.
Heart disease kills more people in North America than does any other cause of death. Up until the 1980s, it was assumed that as people get older, their arteries inevitably become clogged. If you didn't get hit by a bus or die of cancer or something else, your arteries would eventually close, causing either your brain or your heart to give out, and that would be it. Enter Doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn, two doctors with 100 percent success in preventing and reversing heart disease, using a low-fat vegan diet.
If you know someone who has had a heart attack or suffers from heart problems, please stop listening right now and buy them Dr. Esselstyn's book, Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease, which details his work at the top heart clinic in the world, The Cleveland Clinic. He covers both the skepticism of his colleagues, and also his 100 percent success taking people with advanced stages of heart disease, people who were told by their cardiologists that they were going to die, and stopping the disease in its tracks and even, in most instances, reversing it . The book will change, and perhaps save, their life.
The average vegan American's cholesterol level is about 133, while the average vegetarians cholesterol level is 161. And the average meat-eater's cholesterol level is now at 199. Although the medical establishment may say, "Well, you've done your best," at 199, people are still dying in droves. As Dr. Charles Attwood pointed out, this is insane: If people were being run down by trucks at the same rate that they're dying from heart attacks induced by meat, eggs, and dairy products, drastic steps would be taken.
And it's not just heart disease that a vegetarian diet is good for. The American Dietetic Association, the world's largest organization of nutrition professionals, performed an extensive review of all the scientific studies about vegetarian diets. They found that vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and obesity than meat-eaters, and wrote a position paper on vegetarian and vegan diets which concludes that vegetarian and vegan diets are appropriate for all stages, including infancy and pregnancy, and that in fact they have, "health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."
And it's not just disease prevention that a vegetarian diet helps -- most vegetarians report increased energy and concentration, among other advantages. Consider a study from a school for troubled youth in Miami. Dr. Antonia Demas from Cornell University put kids there on a vegan diet, resulting in a The Miami Herald headline, "Brain Food: Student Vegans See Boost in Grades, Energy." School Principal Mary Louise Cole explained that the students "seem to have a lot more energy -- they don't have the down times." Gabriel Saintvil, stated that "I used to get tired when I ran laps or lifted weights. Now I get endurance and keep on doing it."
It works for adults, too. Carl Lewis, named "Olympian of the Century" by Sports Illustrated, says, "[M] y best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look."
And Atlanta Hawks guard Salim Stoudimire reports that his veganism, "does amazing things for my basketball game. I essentially never get tired [so] I have certainly became much more of a pain to guard because I have a lot of energy. And at the end of games, when everyone is not jumping as high, I now get a ton more points in the paint and rebounds. And I don't get sick very often. I can't shake the feeling that more athletes should try eating this way."
Of course, new year's resolutions tend to focus on weight loss more than anything else, and vegetarianism is helpful there, too, since vegetarians are one-third as likely to be obese as meat-eaters are, and vegans are about one-tenth as likely to be obese. You can be an overweight vegan, of course, and you can be a skinny meat-eater. But on average, vegans are 10 to 20 percent lighter than meat-eaters. Temporary diets don't work, but a lifestyle switch to a vegetarian diet does, in instance after instance after instance, as documented in books like Dr. Neal Barnard's Food for Life or Dr. Dean Ornish's Eat More, Weigh Less.
The cancer prevention properties of a vegetarian diet were covered on HuffPo last year about this time in Michael Huffington's new year's resolution column about his own vegan commitment after he read Dr. T. Colin Campbell's best-selling book, The China Study, so I won't revisit them here.
Of course, a vegetarian diet is also the best diet for the environment and animals, as has been discussed admirably in the past on HuffPo. I grew up in Minnesota and Oklahoma, and when I was first presented with the idea of not eating meat, it sounded to me about as plausible as not breathing oxygen. But upon further examination, I came to see that my progressive ideology requires of me an openness to new and challenging ideas, even if they strike at the foundation of my existence -- what I eat.
Readers interested in meal plans, cookbook recommendations, recipes, and more, can find it all at www.VegCooking.com. For more information on all aspects of vegetarianism and the meat industry, please visit www.GoVeg.com.
Happy Eating and Happy New Year!
Follow Bruce Friedrich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/brucegfriedrich
Until I get abducted (hopefully no butt probe) by UFO's and get a hot redhead I'm going to keep eating dead animals.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/CelebSnapshots/popup?id=3534182&contentIndex=1&page=1
And this was a big feature in today's New York Times about Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, a new vegetarian cookbook that was # 6 on the NYT Bestseller list (the book that preceded it, Skinny Bitch, hit number 1):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/dining/02skin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The B12 discussion is a good one--we do all want to make sure we're healthy. There's a good discussion of the B12 and other issues about healthy vegetarianism here:
http://goveg.com/optimal_vegan_nutrition.asp
For folks looking for some weight loss advice, check this out:
http://goveg.com/obesity.asp
There's a lot of bad science on the Web and one has to be careful; the reason we use mainstream sources like the American Dietetic Association and doctors you can find out more about (e.g., Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Dr. McDougall, Dr. Barnard--you can read about all their credentials, etc., easily) is because there is so much silly assertion online.
If someone says something but doesn't provide good backup, it's wise to be wary. All the "eat meat or die" and histrionics vis-a-vis B12 is nonsense and can't be backed up with science. Everything in my article, above, is based on peer-reviewed scientific sources, as noted.
This whole site, also, is packed with citations to good science on these issues:
http://goveg.com/healthConcerns.asp
Protein
Fats
Carbohydrates
Now, which of these did homo sapiens consume the most of to evolve into the modern model he/she is today? And I don't mean in the last 8000 to 10000 years ago. Go back at least a couple of million years.
What do vegetarians have to supplement their diet with to keep from developing problems that could lead to death?
Which of the major food groups causes the pancreas to load the body with insulin and what are the consequences of constantly consuming carbohydrates creating an abnormally high amount of insulin in the body? What kinds of veggies are safer to consume than what others? Read up real carefully on insulin before you comment.
Oh, how many professional athletes are vegetarings? Never mind the people that perform physically exerting jobs.
What is something that one should do to bring the diet into balance with good health?
“I have an argument against eating meat. I start with an assumption about right and wrong that most people agree with, when they think about it. Then I add a bit of explanation and some simple facts, before drawing the obvious conclusion. Here it is.
1. It is wrong to unnecessarily cause suffering and death.
2. Suffering and death are unnecessarily caused when we could live just as well without causing them.
3. Eating meat causes suffering and death.
4. We could live just as well without eating meat.
5. Therefore, eating meat unnecessarily causes suffering and death.
6. And therefore, eating meat is wrong.
Rob
Philosophy Professor”
This and several other of Rob’s posts and posts by ‘Wordster’ at another forum on this topic are of the most brilliant I have ever read. I would definitely recommend checking it out. Here is the link:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julies healthclub/2007/06/vegan-mom-could.html#comments
Oh and by the way have you heard that in addition to study after study showing that a vegan diet is not only the healthiest, their is a study which shows that vegan have higher IQ’s than the general population. I apologize if this offends anyone, however this may explain why the posts which try to defend the indefensible, eating murdered animals parts, ring so hollow and vapid and devoid of logic, but most sadly, devoid of compassion and heart. After all, is not the best gage by which to judge the character, how one treats the most innocent and vulnerable among us? There is hope however for all... Choose kindness. Honor the Creator of this amazing gift of life. Choose Love. Go vegan.
And I am filled with even more tragic bafflement when I read of those who attempt to justify cruelty against the innocent, based upon the shape of teeth. My teeth are shaped this way, therefore cruelty against an innocent life is justified…
After witnessing first hand the horrifying, unimaginable, unfathomable cruelty which is livestock farming, practiced by humans whose misguided criteria for moral decisions has impaired their vision so dangerously that they are able to ignore the obvious, I now do all I can to help end this insane cruelty. If people only knew - could be brave enough to wake from the lie which dulls the ability to acknowledge the obvious, it would change. If the things done to 'livestock' were done to dogs or cats, it would be inexorable outrage seeking protection of the innocent. It takes courage to strip away the defenses of an ignorant attempt to placate the conscience and justify the unjustifiable. I believe in the goodness of human beings - we were all made by God and there is hope for all - even for those who use teeth or ‘it tastes good’ in an attempt to justify cruelty.
Being a vegan is also about a moral and political commitment to compassion that also exteneds to the clothing that a person wears. When a person makes a choice to live more compassionatly and wants to share that info... why do so many people like Xenabarb get so tweaked out? I think it has more to do with their own denial that the flesh they eat is completely eaten for selfish reasons ONLY. You do not have to eat animals to live a long healthy happy life. In fact the humans eating animals cycle is causing so much suffering on this earth it is worth the time to look at what the effects really are.
I've been to "meat eating" parties and I'm amazed at what humans will stick in their mouths. It only proves how un evolved and backwards our species really is.
Going vegan represents a rejection of animals as only a commodity for humans to consume rather than beings who deserve a right to live.
If you disagree at least go look at the slaughterhouse footage at Meat.org
But, the most compelling reason, and the reason I chose a vegan lifestyle, is because of the animals. Ten billion animals are slaughtered every year just in the US alone. The cruelty these animals experience causes suffering on an unfathomable scale.
Now, whether you want to look at this spiritually or physiologically be my guest, but the animals we eat are stressed out, in pain, and suffer enormously before they're slaughtered. Most are killed while they're still conscious. When we eat their "meat" we are taking all that suffering into our bodies. It's been scientifically documented that animals release the same chemicals that we do when they are stressed and terrified. These chemicals go into their bloodstream and muscles. We, in turn, literally ingest their stress and pain.
So, this year, make a resolution to not only get healthier, make a resolution to reduce suffering in the world. This is cruelty you can do something about. No one should have to die for your taste buds, especially with all the healthful vegetarian options that are abundant in this country. The joy and peace you'll feel from opening your heart to these animals will even outweigh your newly slimmed waistline.
For a more complete listing of diseases that have been helped by a vegan lifestyle, see the testimonials at http://www.hacres.com.
I wonder why the American Heart Association is not promoting the findings of Ornish and Esselstyn. A vegan diet is very inexpensive, whereas the interventions and medications promoted by the AHA are costly. Do the board members of the AHA take money from the drug industry to make sure that this information is not widely disseminated?
If we weren't meant to eat meat,... why does it taste so good?
At least in moderation, meat is good food. I like my place in the food chain, and love being an omnivore.
The only really good arguements I really accept for racheting down the amount of meat one eats are:
1) The loss of caloric energy in converting vegetable calories into meat calories in a food-stressed world - along with (of course the conservation of water, other energy, and other resources)
and
2) The personal health benefits of having a higher fiber, lower fat calorie diet in general.
I already go meatless 2-3 days a week, and rarely have a meal based around huge hunks of meat, so what's the big deal of eating the meat that I do eat?
As a 15-year vegetarian, I'm just writing to say "thanks for the post."
"Never eat anything that grows in dirt."
I've had the misfortune to attend several "vegetarian" parties, and I'll tell you what, there was nothing delicious about it. I hate pasta. Rice and beans are fine, in the burrito next to the Al Pastor.
I don't run around proselytizing my diet and insisting that others adopt it. You want to eat bunny food, that's fine with me. I'll eat the bunnies.
When PETA jerks try to interfere with my hunting of fish, I consider that an intrusion.
When PETA hands out fliers to my kid that contains hyperbolic, misleading information about fishing, I resent it.
PETA is as bad as the right wing Xian fundies who want women to "submit graciously" to the howling hominid they're married to, who deny women health care, who involve themselves in telling gays and others how to live. It insists that it has the right, nay, a calling, to dictate the dietary practices of others.
If I'm ever stuck on a desert island, I hope it's with a party of PETA jerks. I know what's on MY menu!
The argument that we were designed as omnivores is backward. It's not what we evolved from, but what we're evolving to. Me, I'm evolving into a more compassionate being. Not sure about others.
It's odd to see a PETA fellow arguing for vegetarianism based on personal health. I guess most people don't care much about ethics.