Plant-based lifestyle

Heart disease is the leading cause of death. Dietary cholesterol intake – only found mostly in animal foods is directly linked to living a significantly shorter life. Fiber intake – only found in plant foods – is directly linked to living a significantly longer life. Consuming the amount of cholesterol found in just a single egg a day may cut your life short as much as smoking five cigarettes daily for 15 years, whereas eating a daily cup of green leafy vegetable worth of fiber may extend your life as much as four hours of jogging a week. (Don’t give up jogging now) More than 20 years ago,

Dr. Dean Ornish showed that heart disease could not just be stopped but actually reversed with a vegan diet, arteries opened up without drugs or surgery. Since this lifestyle cure was discovered, hundreds of thousands have died unnecessary deaths. What more does one have to know about a diet that reverses our deadliest disease? Cancer is killer number two – but look at this hopeful science. According to the largest forward-looking studies on diet and cancer so far performed, “the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegans.” The link between meat and cancer is profound! Flesh from a dead animal absolutely causes cancer, there is no doubt about it. “Grass fed meat,” “organic meat (whatever that means),” meat from animals that were massaged, taken to Disneyland and given vitamin B12 shots still is all the same when it is so decoratively placed on your plate – it is flesh from a dead animal and flesh from a dead animal causes cancer and heart disease…..That simple! After Dr. Ornish’s team showed that the bloodstreams of men eating vegan for a year had nearly eight times the cancer-stopping power, a series of elegant experiments showed that women could boost their defenses against breast cancer after just two weeks on a plant-based diet. If you or anyone you know has ever had a cancer scare, this research will make your heart soar. Because there is real, true hope — something you can do to stave off “the big C.” The key to preventing strokes is to eat potassium-rich foods. Though Chiquita may have had a good PR firm, bananas don’t even make the top 50 sources.

The leading whole food sources include dark green leafy vegetables, beans and dates. The average person eats so few plants that 98 percent of Americans don’t even reach the recommended minimum daily intake of potassium. Alzheimer’s disease is now the sixth leading killer. We’ve known for nearly 20 years now that those who eat meat — including chicken and fish — appear three times more likely to become demented compared to long-term vegans. Exciting new research suggests one can treat Alzheimer’s using natural plant products such as the spice saffron, which beat out placebo and worked as well as a leading Alzheimer’s drug. Diabetes has almost become as common as the flu. Plant-based diets help prevent, treat, and even reverse Type 2 diabetes. Since vegans are, on average, about 30 pounds skinnier than meat-eaters, this comes as no surprise; but researchers found that vegans appear to have just a fraction of the diabetes risk, even after controlling for their slimmer figures. Suicide is a leading contributor to deaths….. Oh yes, vegan food even has something good to offer on this one! Cross-sectional studies have shown that the moods of those on plant-based diets tend to be superior, but taken in just a snapshot in time one can’t tease out cause-and-effect. Maybe happier people end up eating healthier and not the other way around. But this year an interventional trial was published in which all meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were removed from people’s diets and a significant improvement in mood scores was found after just two weeks. It can take drugs like Prozac a month or more to take effect.

So you may be able to get happier faster by cutting out animal foods than by using drugs. Take this little study on your own and visit a meat eating restaurant, listen to the tone of conversation and observe the aggressive attitudes of meat eaters as they dive into their pound of steak. Notice that flesh eaters are tense and even hostile as they dine on their meal. Also observe the redness in their face as their cholesterol and blood pressure rises and also notice their weight….. Now, move on over to a vegan restaurant and observe the quieter tones you hear, the peaceful mood, the healthier skin color and healthier body mass……This is certainly not scientific but it will change one’s approach to transitioning to veganism in less than one meal……. I came up with this personal research with my two sons at a very early age and both of them realized the value of a plant base diet before they were in they reached puberty. There are as many drugs on the market as cans of soup and boxes of kid’s cereals and doctor’s prescribe them like candy, literally. Instead of taking one drug for cholesterol every day for the rest of your life, maybe a few for high blood pressure or diabetes, a plant base vegan diet appears to work across the board without the risk of drug side-effects. One study found that prescription medications kill an estimated 106,000 Americans every year.

That’s not from errors or overdose, but from adverse drug reactions, arguably making doctors the sixth leading cause of death. People all day long use the excuse, “a vegan diet is too expensive and time consuming.” How many times have you heard that excuse? Well, my response before they can finish their sentence is, “prescription drugs, doctor’s visits, triple heart bypass surgery, chemotherapy, bed ridden and death is also “too expensive and time consuming.” Those that eat meat and dairy have about twice the odds of being on antacids, aspirin, blood pressure medications, insulin, laxatives, painkillers, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers. So plant-based diets are great for those that don’t like taking drugs, paying for drugs, or risking adverse side effects. Imagine if, like President Clinton, our nation embraced a plant-based diet. Imagine if we just significantly cut back on animal products. There is one country that tried. After World War II, Finland joined us in packing on the meat, eggs, and dairy. By the 1970s, the mortality rate from heart disease of Finnish men was the highest in the world, and so they initiated a country-wide program to decrease their saturated fat intake. Farmers were encouraged to switch from dairies to berries. Towns were pitted against each other in friendly cholesterol-lowering competitions. Their efforts resulted in an 80 percent drop in cardiac mortality across the entire country. Conflicts of interest on the U.S. dietary guidelines committee may have prevented similar action from our own government, but with our health-care crisis deepening, our obesity epidemic widening, and the health of our nation’s children in decline, we may need to take it upon our selves, families, and communities to embrace vegan ideals of healthy, affordable, sustainable foods by moving towards a more plant-centered diet. Veganism saves lives, reduces healthcare cost significantly and affords us the opportunity to live in a clean and pollution free environment. So, when people tell you to “mind your own business” and “allow people to choose their own course of diet,” tell them that the air you breath, the destruction of our land and water, the billions of animals that die under horrible conditions, the cost of healthcare that is driving our economy to ruins and millions of people in third world countries that die of starvation because 80% of the grains grown is diverted to fatten animals raised for food “IS your business” and meat and dairy eaters “IS” the culprit……..