What do you think will happen if you eat nothing but all sorts of meats and dairy products? You will die in about a year. What happens if you eat only vegan or vegetarian foods, vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds? You will certainly become much healthier than most people.
This fact should be the starting point for understanding what is and is not a good diet. So if someone ever tells you that meat is vital, you can be sure that this person does not know what he is talking about. You know cases where a smoker who smokes like a chimney suddenly becomes a big health specialist when it comes to vegetarianism. Health is the primary concern of non-vegetarian parents when their children decide to stop eating meat. Parents believe that their children will become weak or fall ill with a whole host of diseases without a daily dose of dead animal protein. In fact, they should be happy, because all the evidence suggests that vegetarians are always much healthier than meat eaters. According to the latest data, including a World Health Organization report, people who eat meat eat twice as much sweet and three times more greasy food than the body needs. If we consider the age group from 11 to 16 years, then at this age children eat three times more unhealthy food. A good example of fatty and sugary foods is cola, hamburger, chips и ice cream. If these foods are the main food, then it is bad in terms of what children eat, but also what they do not get from eating such food. let’s consider hamburger and what harmful substances it contains. At the top of the list is saturated animal fat – all hamburgers contain a very high percentage of this fat. The fat is mixed into the minced meat even if the meat appears lean. Chips are also often fried in animal fat and soaked in it during the cooking process. This, of course, does not mean that all fats are unhealthy foods – it all depends on what kind of fat you eat. There are two main types of fat – unsaturated fats, found mainly in vegetables, and saturated fats, found in animal products. Unsaturated fats More beneficial to the body than saturated ones, and a certain amount of them is necessary in any diet. Saturated fats not necessary, and perhaps one of the most important discoveries related to human health, is the fact that saturated animal fats affect the development of heart disease. Why is it so important? Because heart disease is the most deadly disease in the Western world. Meat and fish also contain a substance called cholesterol, and this substance, together with fats, is the cause of heart disease. Unsaturated fats such as olive, sunflower and corn oil, on the contrary, help to reduce clogging of blood vessels with animal fats. Hamburgers, like almost all meat products, contain many harmful substances, but they lack many essential substances for the body, such as fiber and five essential vitamins. Fibers are hard particles of fruits and vegetables that the body cannot digest. They do not contain nutrients and pass through the esophagus unchanged, but they are very important for the body. Fibers allow food debris to be removed from the insides. Fiber does the job of a brush that cleans the intestines. If you eat a little fibrous foods, then the food will move longer through the insides of the digestive system, while toxic substances can have a greater effect on the body. Lack of fiber combined with copious use animal fats leads to such a deadly disease as colon cancer. Recent medical research has also identified three vitamins that help protect the body against nearly 60 diseases, including deadly diseases such as heart disease, paralysis and cancer. It’s a vitamin А (only from plant foods), vitamins С и Е, which are also called antioxidants. These vitamins scavenge molecules called free radicals. The body constantly produces free radicals as a result of breathing, exercising, and even digesting food. They are part of the oxidation process, a similar process that causes metal to corrode. These molecules do not cause the body to corrode, but they act like uncontrolled hooligans, scurrying around the body, breaking into cells and destroying them. Antioxidants scavenge free radicals and stop their harmful effects on the body, which can lead to disease. In 1996, about 200 studies confirmed the benefits of antioxidants. For example, the National Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School found that taking vitamins A, C и Е with fresh fruits and vegetables, we can reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. These vitamins even help maintain brain function in old age. However, none of these three antioxidants are found in meat. Meat contains little or no vitamin Д, which controls calcium levels in the blood, or potassium, which promotes blood clotting. The only source of these vital substances for health are fruits, vegetables and sunlight, as well as butter. Over the years, a lot of scientific research has been done on how a variety of diets affect a person’s well-being. These studies have shown without a doubt that a vegetarian or vegan diet is the best for human health. Some of these studies have compared the diets of tens of thousands of people in places as far away as China and America, Japan and Europe. One of the most extensive and most recent studies was carried out in the UK by the University of Oxford, and the first results were published in 1995. The study studied 11000 people over the age of 13 and came to the stunning conclusion that vegetarians account for 40% fewer cancers and 30% have fewer heart diseases and are less likely to die suddenly after reaching old age. That same year in the United States, a group of physicians called the Therapists’ Committee came up with even more amazing results. They compared about a hundred different studies conducted in different parts of the globe, and based on the data they came to the conclusion that vegetarians on 57% lower risk of heart disease and 50 % water content cancer diseases. They also found that vegetarians were much less likely to have high blood pressure, but even those who had high blood pressure still tended to go down. To reassure parents, these doctors also found that the brains of young vegetarians develop quite normally. Children of vegetarians, at the age of ten, have a tendency to accelerated mental development, in contrast to meat-eaters of the same age. The arguments given by the Committee of Therapists were so convincing that the US government agreed that “vegetarians are in excellent health, they receive all the necessary nutrients and vegetarianism is the appropriate diet for the citizens of the United States.” The most common meat-eaters argument against this kind of discovery is that vegetarians are healthier because they drink and smoke less, which is why the study produced such good results. Not true, since such serious studies always compare identical groups of people. In other words, only non-drinking vegetarians and meat eaters take part in the studies. But none of the above facts can stop the meat industry from advertising meat as the healthiest food in the world. Despite the fact that this is not true, all advertising makes parents worried. Trust me, meat producers don’t sell meat to make people healthier, they do it to make more money. Okay, so what diseases do vegetarians get that meat eaters don’t get? There are no such! Amazing, isn’t it? “I became a vegetarian out of concern for animals, but I also received other unexpected benefits. I began to feel better – I became more flexible, which is very important for an athlete. Now I do not need to sleep for many hours and waking up, now I feel rested and cheerful. My skin has improved and I am much more energetic now. I love being a vegetarian.” Martina Navratilova, World Tennis Champion.