MEAT BASED VS PLANT BASED EATING

How many times have heard of someone getting sick from an overdose of peaches, or a chronic disease from all that spinach they are having? Ok now how many times have you heard of red meat being linked to heart disease, dairy leading to hormonal issues, farm raised fish and CAFO meat causing increased levels of toxicity due to all the antibiotics they put in those tanks and feed those animals? Now don’t get me wrong, overconsumption of any food type whether healthy or not will lead you down the wrong road. Enter the mighty panda, minimal movement and bamboo snacking the whole day… I think you get the point.

But nature is extremely smart, WHOLE FOODS are made in a beautiful bundle of fibre, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and much more, so when you process these whole foods and strip away their layers you are left with nothing but a shell of something that represented nutrition. Why do you think when you eat white bread, a sugary food or pasta you will feel hungry soon after? This empty calorie has left you just as it intended…empty. The fibre in whole foods keeps you full and aids in your digestive system, fructose in fruits isn’t even a slight concern as the fibre prevents these so called “spikes”. Whole foods are balanced wonderfully and so should your way of eating.

With so many trends, diets, information, I’m really NOT surprised how anyone doesn’t get overwhelmed or knows what’s better or not. Trust me I’ve been there and I when I say I have tried nearly every diet out there, count on me for that. But there is one way of eating that has caught everyone’s attention (even though this has been studied and followed for decades), WHOLE FOODS PLANT BASED. Why now is it getting all the attention? Because as humans we would wait for something terrible to happen and slap us in the face in order to make a change. Diseases has become just as common as the sniffles, our environment is being harmed like never before and depression and obesity has become the norm. Do you know that 80% of chronic diseases are preventable through modifiable lifestyle changes, and diet is the single largest contributing factor? What am I getting at? Move a bit more and be conscious of what goes in your mouth because preventing disease is better than treating them.

When we eat we are feeding not only ourselves but trillions of bacteria that reside in our gut which is why a plant based diet fits this perfectly, there is such a variety on one plate with all these colourful vegetables and fruits. Our diet, physiological and health status, determine which bacterial populations inhabit and thrive in our gut. Are we going to feed the disease ridden bacteria or try to increase the healing and preventative bacteria? This will sum up much of the outcome of our health.

Let’s break down the basic definition of protein, how the body processes animal protein and plant based protein for better understanding:

What is protein?

At the most basic level, this macronutrient (the other 2 being carbohydrates and fats), is an integral part of every cell in the human body, it is the base of our formation. Protein plays a crucial role in growth and development by building and repairing the body’s various cells and tissues (including your muscles, bones, organs, and skin). Apart from this vital role, it is necessary for various body functions from blood clotting and hormone production to immune system response. So yeah… you could say this is pretty important stuff. Let’s go a bit further and break protein down into its basic form called amino acids. There are 13 non-essential amino acids (our bodies can produce these in a healthy environment), and 10 essential amino acids (our bodies cannot produce these so we need to obtain it from our diet). A complete protein provides us with all 10 essential amino acids. Most animal protein is a complete protein, while you will have to mix the plant based protein to form a complete form (i.e. beans and rice form a complete protein, while quinoa provides you with a complete plant based protein). It was believed that it was important to consume these complementary proteins in pairs at a single meal, like a bowl of rice and beans for example. But as science has progressed, this is not necessary after all, and what actually counts is your whole days’ worth of food over the course of the day.

Now remember, Proteins in foods do not become your body’s protein, but rather supply Amino Acids (AA) from which the body breaks down, reconstructs, and then is dispatched to several parts of the body where it is needed. While you can get all your essential amino acids and various vitamins such as B, A and K from meat based, the consumption of meat comes with many health issues too that kind of cloud of the good stuff. Over the decades increased meat consumption has led to an increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer, hormonal issues and just an overall sick population. Now to be fair meat is not the only player in this picture, combined with lifestyle choices like smoking, drinking, lack of exercise and fast food diets, the plot has been lost with “health”. One major factors that has highly put me off is when I visited these farms. From their living conditions being over stuffed in a small area with no space to move, to the low grade cheap grains they are pumped with. In these environments, they often live in their faeces and end up eating a fair amount of it too. For this reasons they are often fed antibiotics to avoid sickness and ultimately sickness related deaths. So you are all intelligent humans, what is going in your meat, is going into your body when you consume it.

The beef from organic grass-fed cow will provide nearly five times more omega-3 (necessary essential fatty acid) fats than the beef from a grain-fed cow which would be higher in omega-6 fats which is linked to inflammation and high cholesterol. Now we need a balanced ration of omegas but it’s easier to over consume on omega 6’s than 3’s. There is also a compound called arachidonic acid which is found in animal protein, predominantly red meat, which is a very acidic factor to the human body which has been linked to coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, elevated cholesterol levels etc.

 So that “healthy” chicken breast ends up having a higher fat content because they don’t have the space to move around to get that lean muscle, they get fed too much as we need them to grow at rate which is not normal, we demand it now at a cheap price, full of toxins from the antibiotics it’s been fed to avoid getting sick and dying from living in its own faecal matter. So as you can see, both ends of the stick are getting burnt pretty fast, animal welfare as well as the quality of your meat. On top of this there is no fibre associated with animal protein which many people lack already. Fibre keeps our gut happy, there is a reason why they call the gut the second brain. When you don’t have your daily bowel movements you tend to feel annoyed, frustrated and just over all moody. It’s recommended to have 12g of fibre per main meal, so if you are having 3 meals then your fibre should at least be 36g per day minimum. If you do intermittent fasting for example then your main meal will consist of one sitting of 36g. Fibre has been shown to decrease the chances of a person getting many diseases such as colon and breast cancer, ulcerative colitis, Crohns disease, constipation (duh). So by having plant based protein you get the protein and fibre, win win!

Another reason why plant based protein seems to take the cake is because when we consume animal protein our bodies tend to produce an increased level of 1GF-1 (a growth factor necessary for human development). This hormone activates cell division in both healthy and cancer cells, so we don’t want to take the risk to have elevated levels in our body due to this being linked to an increase in cancer cases.

Last but not least as to why we believe plant based protein is way more beneficial than animal protein is a substance called TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide). This causes inflammation, increases the formation of cholesterol plaque in our blood vessels, and damages the lining of our vessels, all leading to cardiovascular health issues.

Trust me when I say this, you can get all your protein requirements from a plant-based way of eating. Did you know that the average women needs 46g of protein, males need 56g, pregnant or lactating  moms 70g, and athletes, well this will vary on their needs for performance, but even they don’t need as much as they think. We have been told for so long that we need way more protein that our body wants or needs. Just one cup of lentils has 18g of protein, the equivalent to 3oz of beef. But with lentils come the benefits of magnesium, folate and fibre, without the arachidonic acid that red meat contains.