The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of “real food for real people,” you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.
—Neal D. Barnard, MD, President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
I was raised on a meat and potatoes diet, by WWII era
parents who knew how to stretch a dollar and waste-not-want-not. We ate meat daily: pot roast, liver and
onions, steak and kidney pies and puddings, the occasional sweetbreads (brains)
and tongues, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, traditional holiday turkeys and
hams. Preparing for rural Alberta
winters we stocked the freezer with cows and sheep and baby pigs from the
neighbouring Hutterites. We didn’t
indulge in junk food or sodapop, our “food” was always fresh, never processed,
and it was all considered very normal.
When we talked about it we were never accused of preaching, or trying to
convert anyone, it was just conversation.
At college, with
perpetual acne and with weight that fluctuated by 10 lbs (which I’d heard is
unhealthy), I began to question this tradition. I was studying (among other things) human health, and I was
active in the Green Future Club. We had organized a Rainforest Awareness Week
and one of our guests spoke about the benefits of a plant based diet.
I didn’t think he was trying to convert us, nor did I
consider his words preachy. He was
Michael Klaper M.D., and he had information backed up by science and common
sense. I was inspired to radically change my food intake and become
vegetarian. It was a transition,
I’ll admit I cheated periodically through the next decade, but I felt that I
was on the right path. My
environmental footprint was significantly reduced, my emotional highs and lows
leveled out, and those ten pounds simply disappeared.
Twelve years ago I
became vegan in exchange for space in a shared living environment. If I had known how significant the
shift from veggie to vegan would be, I’d have done it years sooner. I’ve learned a ton, I feel better
physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
My acne is finally gone, and my food conversations have, understandably,
shifted gears. In the wrong crowd
I’m sometimes accused of being preachy.
Veganism is, apparently, considered a religious cult. Why? Because our food talk is different than your food talk? You know what? I don’t care. I am so absolutely convinced that the vegan lifestyle is the
most powerful choice we can make to save our personal health, our environmental
health, and move us towards a world of peace and compassion, I refuse to shut
up about it. If you’re open-minded
and open-hearted enough to care why I believe that, read on. Much of my research is US-based, but
I’ll bet it’s similar in Canada.
Veganism for human
health
The doctor of the future will
no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent
disease with nutrition. Thomas
Edison.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans each ate
about 120 lbs of meat and 294 lbs of dairy products annually. By the mid-2000s,
those figures had risen to about 222 lbs of meat and 605 lbs of dairy annually
per capita.1
In the 60s, doctors and researchers noticed that
coronary artery disease began to increase. Heart disease is caused by an excess of dietary cholesterol
(a fatty substance found in animal products) in the blood stream which builds
up and restricts blood flow to the heart. The Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine (PCRM) reports that dairy products “are the number one
source of saturated fat in the diet,” and contribute significant amounts of
cholesterol which can lead to heart disease, and hypertension.2
Over 500,000 Americans go under the knife annually for heart bypass surgery (where a vein is taken from the leg and stitched on the heart’s blocked artery) costing around $100,000 each, about 50 billion dollars in total.1
Over 500,000 Americans go under the knife annually for heart bypass surgery (where a vein is taken from the leg and stitched on the heart’s blocked artery) costing around $100,000 each, about 50 billion dollars in total.1
According to the World Health Organization,
cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of death and disability
throughout the world. In 2010,
according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, it took 597,689
lives.3
Comparatively the traditional diet of Japanese and
Chinese people is primarily plant based and, in the early 1970s, the risk for
heart disease in rural China was 12 times lower than it was in the US.1
“You need to drink milk to get calcium and prevent
osteoporosis” is a common myth perpetrated by the industry. Where do you think the large herbivores
- the cows, pigs, horses, elephants etc - get their calcium? Not from consuming another species’
milk.
There’s actually research connecting the consumption of
cow’s milk to overall calcium loss from the bones. Milk (and
other forms of animal protein) acidifies the body’s natural pH. This causes the body to respond to
correct the imbalance. Because
calcium is an excellent acid neutralizer, it is pulled from bones to escort
digested animal protein as it travels through the body. Since the average
American’s diet is protein-heavy, some experts say that eating lots of dairy
foods may actually cause people to lose calcium. “When you eat a protein food,
such as milk, you may be swallowing calcium, but you turn around and excrete
calcium in your urine,” says Donna Herlock, MD, spokeswoman for PCRM.4
In fact, “clinical
research shows that dairy products have little or no benefit for bones.”2 A 2012 report published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, based on a study from Harvard University, tracked
fracture rates in 6,712 adolescents. “The results showed that active children
who consumed the largest quantities of milk actually had more bone fractures
than those who consumed less.”5
In addition to negatively impacting heart and bone
health, the PCRM advise that prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers have been
linked to the consumption of dairy products. For example in 1958 there were only 18 proven autopsy deaths
from prostate cancer in Japan. In
the same year, with about twice the population, the number of prostate cancer
deaths exceeded 14,000 in the USA.1
Insulin-dependent (type 1 or childhood-onset) diabetes
is also linked to consumption of dairy products. Then there are the connections between milk and rheumatoid
arthritis, migraines, and acne. Milk also contains contaminants including
recombinant bovine growth hormone which increases the amount of milk a cow will
produce. Treated cows, producing
more milk than nature intended, may contract mastitis, an inflammation of the
mammary glands. When they’re
treated with antibiotics, those enter the milk supply along with pesticides,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins, which are cancer causing
contaminants.2
You may argue that the human life span, overall, is
longer than in previous generations, so what’s the problem? It’s true that there are a lot of
medications out there, a lot of surgeries, that extend life. But surgeries are kinda radical,
invasive and expensive, and prescription drugs have side effects of their own.
One popular pill that’s prescribed treats erectile dysfunction. It takes care
of the problem, right? Well,
actually, no. Erectile dysfunction
is an early warning sign that the arteries aren’t working. Drugs treat the symptoms, but not the
cause. Locally, you can read Alan
Cassels’ regular column in Common Ground magazine to learn more about the dangers
associated with prescription drugs.
What about fish?
Well, because of environmental pollution and disasters like the
Fukushima nuclear meltdown, fish (even wild fish) contain increasing amounts of
mercury in addition to dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Fish
consumption influences clinical neurologic outcomes in adults including
ischemic stroke, cognitive decline and dementia, depression and other
neuropsychiatric disorders.6
A
study conducted by the American Medical Association in 2003 explains:
Methylmercury is formed through microbial
action from inorganic mercury that has deposited in aquatic environments and
bioaccumulates through the food chain … Exposure occurs primarily through
consumption of seafood, freshwater fish, and shellfish. Methylmercury exposure
is of particular concern because it is a well-established human neurotoxin [a
poison that acts on the nervous system] and the developing fetus is most
sensitive to its adverse effects.7
You may not know, if you’re not vegan, that many
alcoholic beverages (especially wine) often contain shellfish. WTF, right?! There’s a website – barnivore.com
– where you can inform yourself about what booze is vegan and what’s not.
Decades of research and
data collection has inspired many researchers and doctors to explore the
benefits of a whole food, plant based diet. The fact is, we vegans have lower cholesterol and lower
blood pressure, making us 32 per cent less likely to die or be hospitalized with
a heart condition, according to new research from Oxford University which
spanned 11.5 years and analyzed almost 45,000 people.3
Doesn’t all this beg the
question: why aren’t the enormous
heart and cancer charities advocating a shift to a plant-based diet?
Not only are vegans less
likely to burden the collective with increased hospitalization costs, we’ve
also got solutions for the global climate crisis and world hunger. And, of
course, there’s the animal rights component. Stay tuned for more on all
that. And please, consider that
when we dare speak with passion about our lifestyle, it’s only because we
care. From there, it’s up to you.
