Animal Writings

These next few posts are for meat-eaters and (to a lesser extent) cheese-eating vegetarians who don't cook much—because they don't like to or don't have time, or for other reasons.

The main theme is replacing meat in your diet but—to the fullest extent possible—not giving up your comfort foods, not changing your routine, not having to transition to a completely new cuisine. It's a big topic, so it will require multiple posts. In fact, I may write individual posts piecemeal. If I do, the end of the post will say "More to follow..." until the post is complete. Posts will end with "To be continued..." until the series is through.

Now, down the road, I heartily recommend expanding your diet to include a wide range of new tastes, including some of the world's magnificent ethnic flavors. And toward the end of this series, I'll give some tips on how to ease into that. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Why drop meat from your diet?

First, there are the health considerations. The data is in—in spades: A meat- and cheese-heavy diet is unhealthy; a vegetarian diet that focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and a moderate amount of plant-based fats is healthy. When I say "unhealthy" I mean it can debilitate and kill you—slowly, through chronic diseases that start as early as pre-teens and develop and worsen as you age.

Granted, there are exceptions. There are some people who can eat Big Macs every day, and never eat vegetables, and their cholesterol is perfect and they're hearty and vigorous at 70. Just like there are heavy smokers who never get lung cancer or emphysema. But those are the exceptions. The problem is, you don't know in advance if you're going to be an exception. But don't bet on it.

In general, a meat-heavy diet has too much of the bad stuff and not enough of the good stuff. Probably the best-known villain in meat and dairy is saturated fat. Hundreds if not thousands of peer-reviewed clinical and epidemiological studies in mainstream scientific journals show that animal fat intake correlates with heart disease, diabetes, several cancers, and other deadly diseases. But fat isn't the only bad guy in animal products. You also have to worry about cholesterol, chemicals released during cooking, hormones and toxins that accumulate in animal tissue, and bacteria such as salmonella, campylobacter, and e coli.

The good stuff that meat and dairy pushes out include: fiber, vitamin C, folic acid, and about a million micro-nutrients that seem to fight off cancer, heart attacks, and other chronic, debilitating, deadly conditions.

Please note: You may have heard a lot about cutting back on fat in your diet. Be aware that in terms of your health, there is a difference between animal fat and plant fat. Perhaps this is best illustrated by example: In a 2003 study of nearly a hundred thousand women, Harvard researchers found that intake of animal fat, especially from red meat and high-fat dairy products, during premenopausal years had a significantly greater risk of developing breast cancer. There was no relationship between the consumption of vegetable fats and breast cancer found. (Here's the original study: Cho E, Spiegelman D, Hunter DJ, et al. Premenopausal fat intake and risk of breast cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003;95:1079-85.)

There's more where that came from.

(By the way, relatively healthy plant sources of fat include olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, flax seeds, sesame seeds, walnuts, almonds, avocados, and coconuts. There are many more; these are just a few of the best known and most widely available ones.)

In sharp contrast to the ton of data affirming the harmful effects of meat and dairy, controlled studies (again, published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals) show that diets free of animal products may reverse heart disease, prostate cancer, and diabetes. That's powerful. Where on the spectrum do you want to be?

One more thing. There are vegan ultramarathon, triathlon, weightlifting, and Olympic champions. Throw out misconceptions of vegetarians as weak. As a rule, they're healthy and virile.

Yes, you can mess up a vegetarian diet by eating nothing but potato chips, saltines, and frosted flakes. But with a decent balance of whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and "good fats," you will probably be much healthier than the rest of the population, and stay fit well into old age, unless you are very unlucky. Get some exercise, employ some stress-reduction techniques of your choice, be kind to others, rotate your tires, take in an occasional monster truck rally, and you'll likely have a satisfying and meaningful life.

OK, that's health.

To be continued...

Labels: comfort foods, diet, disease, fruit, grains, health, legumes, meat, vegetables