Move over “Meatless Monday,” you’re about to have company. How about “Veggie Taco Tuesday” or “Super Salad Saturday”? Kidding aside, we do need to re-evaluate our love affair with meat. Disclaimer: I am not a vegan or vegetarian. I don’t have some crazy hidden agenda to convince you to become one yourself. But I am concerned about your health and especially, the health of our younger generation.
When I was a kid, meat portions were much smaller. A chicken leg, for example, would be my protein at dinner. Somehow, we have gone from a small amount of meat to having that be the biggest portion on our dinner plate. This is often after eating a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich for breakfast and having a turkey or tuna salad sandwich at lunch (because we are trying to be healthy). Turns out, eating too much meat is definitely a first world problem and we are all paying the price.
Plenty of recent documentaries tout the benefits of eating a plant-based diet. If you haven’t watched any of these, I suggest you do. My favorite is probably Forks Over Knives, but others include Cowspiracy, Hungry For Change, Vegucated, Food Matters and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. A more recent one streaming on Netflix, What the Health?, really caused quite a stir. Many of us are well aware that heart disease is a by-product of heavy meat consumption, and most have now heard that it contributes to cancer, but to say it directly causes diabetes—WHAT? In this movie, these documentarians, researchers and physicians are even so bold as to state that not only all meat (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc.) but also all animal products are more likely to cause diabetes than sugar! Now that is an outrageous claim.
I decided to dig a bit deeper. My jaw hit the floor. Turns out that Harvard, Cleveland Clinic, and Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore, just to name a few, have all done studies that say the same thing. There is a direct correlation between saturated fat from animal products and diabetes. This means that we also have to watch our dairy consumption as well. The #1 source of saturated fat in the US is dairy at about 28% with cheese and pizza being the top offenders, followed by meat at 23% (according to a Harvard study). Studies have also shown that we are not safe to switch to chicken. Turns out, we consume greater amounts of chicken with the false belief that we're being kinder to our bodies, and it’s causing real problems. All the evidence points to reducing our animal product intake and increasing our vegetables and carbohydrates. Several studies show where someone with Type 2 diabetes can actually reverse it in just two to three weeks when combining a plant-based diet and exercise. That is really exciting!
“Diabetes is not and never was caused by eating a high carbohydrate diet. Diabetes is caused by a build up of fat in the blood from the typical meat based/animal based diet. When you look into muscle cells, they are building up tiny particles of fat that are causing insulin resistance. The sugar that is naturally from the food you are eating can’t get into the cells where it belongs. It builds up in the blood, and that is diabetes.”
So how do we go about radically changing our diet? Baby steps. Just ask my husband who was a total meat and potatoes kind of guy. We started out with Meatless Monday. Once we were in the groove, I added another night of the week. Now we are probably eating meatless dinners four to five nights a week and the other days usually consist of local seafood. Eat good fats, such as avocado, nuts and seeds. Choose healthy grains and rice to accompany your meals. I know what you’re thinking, “But how will I ever get enough protein?” and the answer is in the vegetables! Most Americans eat too much protein which ends up being stored as fat and also puts additional stress on the kidneys which have to remove more nitrogen waste from the blood.
As I stated early on, I do eat meat and I adore cheese (I'm part French, for crying out loud); I just eat them sparingly. I have learned to really appreciate and savor it. When I serve meat, I buy organic. I do my best to buy local, pasture raised products that have been lovingly cared for and contain far more nutrients and less chemicals than what you buy at the supermarket. It’s time to take our health into our own hands. Step out of your comfort zone, get creative and eat those veggies!
Sources:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/top-food-sources-of-saturated-fat-in-the-us/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170905134506.htm
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-reduce-your-risk-of-diabetes-cut-back-on-meat/
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/a-diabetes-link-to-meat
What The Health, Directed, written and produced by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn