Friday, November 11, 2011

Tips for Going Plant Based - Ask Questions.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only person that ever asks questions.

When I see a word I don't recognize, I look it up. If there is a new ingredient in one of my recipes that I'm not familiar with, I google it. If there is an article that makes me think.. I start researching the topic. I don't assume what I'm told is real or true or correct. I find out myself.

If more of us asked questions, we'd become enlightened to new realities and truths. We'd step out of the boxes we grew up in. What if everything we thought was true, didn't make sense anymore? What if you had to re-think, re-learn, re-evaluate all the things you just take at face value? Isn't that what learning is? Discovering new truths?

I touch very briefly on a few topics here.. please research on your own to get in depth info and details on these topics. There are many reasons to change to a plant based diet. There are ethical and moral reasons as well as health reasons. At the very least, consider it for your health.

One movie I highly recommend is Forks Over Knives.  The movie will change your life. I've seen it happen with people I personally know. It is a movie about nutrition and how food can heal us. It is not a movie that discusses animal cruely or treatment so don't use that as an excuse to not watch it. If you have Netflix, it is streaming and available on DVD. You owe it to yourself and all the people you love to watch this movie.

Let's talk about why we drink the body secretions of other mammals.

So, we already know from grade school that mammals have babies and they produce milk for those babies. We can relate because as humans, we are mammals and the females of our species produce milk for their babies. Breastfeeding a baby is the greatest gift you can give to that child but eventually the baby grows up and no longer needs that milk so the mother stops producing it.

Now, logically you'd come to the conclusion that if the mother is no longer producing the milk then perhaps the baby doesn't need it anymore. The baby moves on to solid foods.  If the baby needed milk thru it's lifetime then wouldn't mothers continue to produce milk and continue to feed their babies well into adulthood? 

Doesn't it make sense that at 30 years old, you'd still be drinking your mothers breast milk?

No? Well then why are you choosing to consume the milk of another species? Sounds pretty illogical and rather disgusting, doesn't it?

Your first instinct might be to defend your milk consumption with the old wives tale of 'we need milk for calcium and protein' .. guess what? Not true. Where do you think the cows get their calcium?

Plants. Yes.. plants are full of calcium and protein. Practically all foods have protein.

You may argue that we need milk for strong bones. Not true. The civilizations with the highest numbers of osteoporosis have the highest milk consumption numbers and those with the lowest numbers of osteoporosis are the civilizations that don't consume the secretions of other mammals.

A little bit shocking, huh?

The milk of a cow is the perfect food.... for a baby cow. It's meant to quickly increase the weight of baby cows. It makes baby cows fat and that is what it does to humans. Obesity rates are highest among dairy eaters. Dairy also gives us the wonderful gifts of blocked arteries, heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. The secretions of other mammals are filled with hormones (both natural and injected), pus, blood, and who knows what other gross things. That really isn't anything I'd want to consume on purpose.

Let's talk about eggs.

Eggs are just as disgusting once you think about what they are. It's basically chicken menstruation. They are unfertilized eggs. That is all I have to say about that topic. It's really gross if you spend half a brain cell thinking about it. I would think that you wouldn't need much more to justify not eating them. They are bad for your health and your heart.. so there is another reason if you really need one.

Let's look at the eating of flesh.

Eating meat has been a society choice for many years. Humans choose to eat meat. Humans don't 'need' to eat meat. There is no dietary reason to consume the flesh of another living being. You can get every single nutrient you need via plant based foods except B12. Animals do not produce B12.

B12 is a bacteria.

The reason animals have it in their system is because they ingest bacteria while eating plant based foods and then people ingest the animal. In early times, you could get B12 in the soil and people consumed it when they ate plants but these days things are so clean and washed and sterilized that it's nearly impossible to get B12 thru soil sources. These days there are lots of foods fortified with B12 as well as other vitamins and minerals and it's nearly impossible to be deficient in it if you are following a balanced, plant based diet. You can also take a multi-vitamin. Pretty simple.

You only need 2.4 mcg a day of B12... a 3/4 cup of fortified cereal will give you 6 mcg and then if you use a fortified nut milk on it. .well, you've added even more!

If you study the human intestinal process you'll discover that we are not carnivores. Nothing about our jaw, teeth, stomach or intestinal track will tell you were are carnivores. We do not have sharp teeth and claws to rip, tear and chew flesh, we do not have the speed or agility to chase and attack prey, we do not have night vision for hunting, we do not have the necessary stomach enzymes needed to break down raw and rotting flesh (carnivores don't cook their flesh, by the way.. you don't see lions on the plains with a Weber) and the length of our intestines indicate that we are herbivores. It's very straight forward scientific facts. Research it!

Ask Questions. Learn. Grow.

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