There is an insurmountable hill of evidence emerging about the damage that animal products wreak on our health. But where do you go from there? How do you make the transition from eating animals and their products to living a healthier life?

Most people are used to the veggies on their plates being the garnish, not the main course. People who are newly adopting a vegetarian lifestyle often fall into the trap of eating too many carbs. They base their diets on spaghetti and veggie pizza. While it is good to have carbs in your diet it is also crucial to keep them in balance. There must be vegetables and sources of calcium and protein. You should think about what you are planning on making and buying and make sure that you are striking a balance in our grocery cart. However, this doesn’t mean counting the amount of calcium or protein you are eating everyday. Just relax, experiment with your recipes, eat a variety of foods and you’ll likely cover all your bases.

The greatest news about going to a vegan diet (no meat (includes all fish and chickens and beef and everything else that has a heart), no eggs, no milk, no dairy, no gelatin etc.) will be that you will never have to worry about calories again! Not only that, but the foods you eat will help to rev your metabolism, increasing the amount of energy you burn. So you can eat like a pig (as long as you eat wholesome foods) and maintain a healthy weight! What diet plan can promise that and actually deliver? And if you think that makes for skinny and weak males, think again. Vegan bodybuilder Bill Pearl is a four time Mr. Universe winner!

But the big question is what do you eat? Well, some good vegan cookbooks are a great place to start. There are lots of websites that offer good ideas for meals. I like www.vegweb.com and www.chooseveg.com/. But there are many to choose from. You can just Google Vegan recipes if you want.

My favorite vegan cookbook is called The Complete Vegan Kitchen (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Vegan-Kitchen-Introduction-Recipes/dp/1401603475/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219690370&sr=8-1). It’s great for when you want some “normal” recipes and everything is made from scratch, which means no preservatives and artificial garbage. There is even a recipe in there for homemade BBQ sauce.

I also like that low GI cookbook I mentioned in an earlier post. Many of those recipes are geared to people who enjoy ethnic food so if you are less adventurous with new flavours you may not get as much out of it as I have. It’s only about half vegan (the rest is vegetarian) but you can make substitutions as you see fit.

Many of your favorite dishes can easily made vegan. You can make a lasagna and top it with bread crumbs instead. You can make a variety of recipes like Sheperd’s Pie by using Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) or soy ground hamburger instead. I even found a great recipe for breakfast sausage in that first cookbook that is scrumptious!

What about eating out? Well, you may want to avoid your favorite steak house but there are many, many options. Even in Redneck Alberta we have vegan restaurants and many vegetarian friendly options.

Check out a local Vegetarian association and they can provide you with a list of vegan restaurants. More and more restaurants are carrying vegan friendly options these days. Just about any restaurant will accommodate your special diet if you ask them to. For example, you can ask that they replace the chicken on your pasta with mushrooms or you can ask for marinara sauce instead of meat sauce.

And if you don’t like to bother people to make special orders for you can go to ethnic restaurants. There is no shortage of options on authentic Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, East Indian menus.

Fast food is uber easy if you are in need of something on the go. The following restaurants have veggie burgers, just ask that they not add cheese: A&W, Burger King, KFC and Harveys. Taco Bell has some delicious bean burritos. Order the seven layer without sour cream and cheese and voila! And any sub place will have a veggie sub.

Even us sweet tooths can be satisfied with vegan friendly baking. We have been brain-washed into thinking you need eggs to bind recipes but that’s not true. I use ground flax seeds or bananas as binders instead. The best homemade cake and homemade pancakes I have EVER had are vegan ones I found on vegweb.com.

There are no more excuses now. Stop making yourself fat and sick and start living to your full potential.

 

Here is a little glossary for those unfamiliar with animal product substitutes:

Tofu: Is made from soy beans. It comes in a variety of firmnesses, flavours and is used for many different reasons. You can buy it as soy milk and soygurt. You can use it as a meat substitute in stir-fries etc., you can use it to make icings and spread and you can scramble it into “eggs.” The possibilities are limitless and since tofu absorbs the flavour of whatever it’s combined with it is a very versatile, low-fat, high protein food.

Tempeh: This is made from soy as well, it’s a different texture and you can buy them in burger forms and combined with grains. I like cutting them into strips and making veggie chicken strips. You fry them in a pan or a wok with homemade BBQ sauce or some hot sauce. Fun! I even have a recipe for oven onion rings and french fries that make a good “junk food” kind of meal.

Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP): This is also soy based. It’s dehydrated chunks of soy protein. These are easy to use as you just need to add some boiling hot water to it and then it fluff up, ready to be used in dishes like veggies tacos etc. You can add seasoning to them as they are very bland and a little soy sauce if you want them to have the characteristic brown colour of meat. You can also buy veggie ground at the grocery store. It’s a similar idea.

Seitan: Is a non-soy meat replacer. It is made from wheat gluten. It is very fun to use in meat dishes, like Chorizo sausages for breakfast. Yumm!

Brewer’s/Nutritional Yeast: A yeast (I don’t believe it will ferment or give rise to anything) that is yellow in colour and kind of tastes/smells like cheese. You can use it to make vegan cheese sauces etc. It’s a good part of your diet because it provides you with some Vitamin B12. You need very little of this Vitamin and your body can store it for up to three years so it’s a good idea to eat some every once in a while.

We all hear that we should reference the sacred Canada Food Guide when we are confused about food portions etc. But, there are many flaws with the Canada Food Guide. It has improved over the years to include legumes and so on and that is a positive thing for everyone’s health but the emphasis on the Milk and Meat groups is still deeply ingrained as is the perception of the healthfulness of these products thanks to very effective brain-washing in our youth.

For example, I was reading my Fit Kids book from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada this morning. The book is only four years old and even there it states that children do not need vitamins or supplements unless they aren’t drinking milk. Those not drinking milk (vegans/lactose intolerant people) are encouraged to take a calcium supplement for the formation of strong bones. What a load of bull!

Experts are saying that those who don’t drink milk have stronger bones than those who do (see the video and read the book mentioned in my last entry for more information). This is because the high fat/protein composition of the milk (plus any added protein and fat from meat consumption) leeches milk from the bones and dumps it in the urine. In fact, those who were at risk of osteoporosis and were recommended a higher milk consumption actually disposed of more calcium in their urine and ended up with weaker bones than those who drank less milk. The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world are countries with high milk consumption. And conversely, the countries that don’t drink milk, like Japan and Thailand, have virtually no incidences of osteoporosis (unless someone starts drinking milk)! This means that a vegan child, for example, wouldn’t need to be on calcium supplements. If they are eating foods rich in calcium, like almods or green veggies ie.kale, they will absorb and retain their calcium. Besides many soy milks and rice milks etc. are calcium fortified these days.

It is shameful that our government and health authorities are still touting the “benefits” of milk when the research is pointing the opposite way. Not only is milk not beneficial, it’s actually detrimental.

Same with meat. Even the food guide puts a high emphasis on meat consumption. The research that is dribbling from the pipe on an almost daily basis (some of it started over fifty years ago) keeps pointing to the inadequacy of our digestive system for breaking down meat and dairy foods. It is literally killing us and people still think it’s healthy!

In the video I posted in the last entry, the presenting Doctor compares the digestive system of carnivores and herbivores and draws the conclusion that our digestive systems are NOT well equiped to handle meat. We are indeed herbivores. You can thrive on a vegan diet but you will die from a meat-based diet.

And the indication that one will waste away or become willowy on a vegan diet is not based in fact either. Consider these burly and strong vegan athletes:

Brendan Brazier: multi-time Iron Man Triathlon winner

Carl Lewis: “Olympian of the Century” -Olympic medalist in track

Chris Evert: Tennis champion

Bill Pearl: Professional bodybuilder and four time “Mr. Universe”

Ed Templeton: Professional skateboarder

Keith Holmes: Boxing champion

Desmond Howard: Heisman trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP

Raja Bell, Salim Stoudamire and Robert Parish: NBA

Edwin Moses: Olympic gold medals (2) for hurdles

Ricky Williams: Ultimate fighting champ

Scott Jurek: Ultra-marathon runner

But back to the Food Guide. It’s not all garbage. If you look at the portion sizes recommended by the Food Guide you can easily see the flaw in our western diets. If you add the maximum servings of grains and fruit and vegetables it adds up to 22 servings of wholesome, vegan food. The meat and milk portions add up to seven servings. There is a definite indication there as to the importance of veggies and fruits and carbs.

The fruits and veggies are the foods that help you fight disease and cancer. They are your antioxidants and your vitamins and minerals.

But consider that meat is pointless. Meat doesn’t make us stronger, meat doesn’t make us healthier and it doesn’t do anything for our health except provide us with fat and protein and alter our hormones and trigger disease and cancer. So why eat it?

The real fuel for our bodies is carbohydrates (the grain group). And it’s completely possible to obtain the amount of protein necessary for a healthy body from a plant based diet. So why not cut out the fat and start fueling our bodies with what it’s supposed to use. The Doctor in the video has a great analogy. If you don’t put the right gas in your car you can’t expect great performance but if you start putting the right gas in your tank you’ll start to see better outcomes from your car.

So fuel up with some healthy plant foods and you’ll rediscover your youth through increased energy and vitality. You’ll live longer and with less aches and pains! You’ll also have a healthier body weight and enjoy a better quality of life.

I have always been amazed by the people’s inability to connect the dots. I have just finished reading The China Study and I have found so much interesting information in there. I had heard of much of these results before but never in that much depth or accompanied with such an analysis.

The last quarter of the book focuses on the politics of health/nutrition. The author states that there is billions of dollars spent on research, most is spent to doing research enabling the creation of drugs, and only a sliver of that is spent on nutrition and prevention. Even the nutrition and prevention budgets of many organisations are actually thinly veiled as drug research budgets.

But what does that mean? Well, it means that these organisations, which are almost always heavily funded by the meat industry, dairy industry, sugar industry and other “bad” food industries, are not wanting to find out that there is a link between diet and food. They want to tell you to keep buying hamburgers but to buy supplements or drugs. If you don’t believe this you need to read the book. The author cites many examples where scientists, influenced by food industries, have made claims such as low cholesterol being bad for you, and how you NEED high cholesterol. There was a top health professional that encouraged people to eat hamburgers saying that they are good for you. Lately the dairy industry has been undergoing trouble for claiming that milk can help you to lose weight. This is not true and they are taking flak for it. Industries will take any bit of research out of context and bang it like a cheap drum. This is bad science and it’s confusing to the consumer.

Even yesterday my husband told me that on the news he was told that being obese can be healthy! Did I miss something? I thought that being obese increased your risk of hundreds of health problems and reduced your lifespan by years.

The point is that these industries fund research that ends up improperly done or improperly analysed to obtain the claims that are beneficial to them. They even establish committees to spy on research being done that may damage their profit margins so that they may strive to discredit them.

I know it sounds awful, but, they are businesses and as such they are deeply worried about their profit margins. That’s why when reports come out saying that milk doesn’t make your bones stronger but ACTUALLY leaches calcium from your bones, these industries have some major damage control to do!

But let us take a moment and focus on diet here. Did you know that heart disease, which affects and kills so many people in Canada and the U.S. is rare in other countries? In fact, the countries that have the most cancers, heart disease, osteoporosis, Type I and II Diabetes etc. are all countries where meat and milk consumption is high!

Can we blame it on genetics? I mean we ALL have genes. But we don’t all get breast cancer. So what causes one person to get cancer and the other to be healthy?

Did you know that if someone moves from a low risk area (ie. China) to a high risk area (ie. U.S.) that they adopt the high risk for those diseases? Why would someone who is so unlikely to get heart disease in one area all of a sudden become at a high risk of developing it? Could it be because as immigrants come to the land of affluence they adopt our diet?

So if we can clearly see that diet has an impact, why is the government so reluctant to alter our servings of dairy and meat in our food guides? After all, we, as a culture, have been over-eating meat for decades and our rates of disease are skyrocketing. Do they not see a connection?

Even more startling is the differences in our own people. For example, vegans and vegetarians are at a reduced risk of pretty much all diseases and cancers. Plus they are expected to live longer too.

So why do people still think it’s healthy to eat meat and dairy?

There have even been studies showing that cognitive function is improved with a vegan diet. This means a much lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s too! There have been experiments done in schools with many ADD-type children where they have noticed a significant improvement in mood and cognitive function by reducing the meat and dairy out of their lunches. So if your child gets diagnosed with ADD/ADHD you could try a healthy, whole-foods vegan diet for a while and see how it shapes up. It certainly would be much better than putting them on drugs.

But back to the main issue here. The data shows over and over and over again that areas/groups that eat less meat and dairy have much less disease and cancer. So maybe it’s time people started re-evaluating their perspective on diet. Don’t expect to see anything coming from the government acknowledging this anytime soon. They are in bed with those who profit from your sickness. Your meat and dairy and Coca Cola industries as well as your pharmaceutical companies.

Do you see how much big corporations have to lose by having you become healthy? There is much more profit for them in your sickness. But you don’t have to let them win. You can cut back the meat and dairy in your diet (ideally to nothing) and enjoy the benefits of a longer more vital life. This is much better than spending your last years of your prematurely shortened life in pain from your most recent stroke.

And if you are too macho to give us cow’s flesh then consider this: there are many top athletes that are vegan. They are triathlon winners, and boxers, and football players, and heavy weight champions. They are strong, healthy and reach their peak later than omnivores. Think of what you could do with a healthy body weight and all this extra energy!

If you want to watch a video that sumarizes most of this book’s dietary information you can check out this video: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4330900066502406356&hl=en-CA

Why do we eat?

Well, besides survival we eat as a pleasure. We meticulously pick food that we like and base what we eat on that aspect much more than we base our choices on nutrition.

The evidence of those choices are pretty evident. Obesity, heart disease, cancer, strokes, Multiple Sclerosis etc.

So what can we do to help us lose weight and be healthier? Well for starters we can look at the reasons why we crave unhealthy foods.

Does a broken heart lead you to the cake and ice cream? Does a late night lead to a binge of chips and pop? Does stress lead you to the nearest burger joint?

Look at what you are craving and how you are feeling. You will begin to see patterns emerging. When you start craving those things you’ll know, for example, that you don’t really need a giant plate of french fries but maybe should rather have a relaxing bath and some deep breathing. Or when you crave those cookies you may just need more sleep. 

Many people, especially people with low self-esteem, go through a cycle of food/mood problems. You know, the I-am-fat,-where-did-I-put-those-cookies,-my-gosh-why-did-I-eat-half-a-box-of-cookies-now-I-am-even-fatter routine.

It’s hard to get out of these cycles. But if an underlying issue is causing you to overeat you will NEVER lose weight until you resolve that issue and develop a better relationship with food.

And the problem isn’t just overeating, even though obesity costs the health care system/government millions more than necessary, the real problem is improper balance of foods. Because of this we are developing record numbers of diseases and cancers.

We have all been told that half of our dinner plates should be vegetables. So why do so many of us consider vegetables to be garnish? Oh, and potatoes, don’t really count. They are really pathetic when it comes to antioxidants and overall nutrition. Plus they are starchy so they’ll encourage you to gain weight and won’t offer much back in return.

The healthiest of all diets is a diet that is high in good sources of complex carbohydrates (whole grain, plant foods), lower in plant protein (as in no more than 15% of your overall diet), and no meat and dairy. There are other ways to lose weight but consider the results of The China Study by T. Colin Campbell PhD.

In his 40 plus years of research he has made some startling discoveries. Chinese people have a diet higher in dietary fiber than Americans, eat more calories than Americans, and eat much less protein than Americans and they are slimmer, much less prone to cancer and diseases, and live longer.

His many experiments have shown that people on a diet that consists of more than 5% protein are very prone to developing cancer.

I won’t give the book away because it is too good for you not to read. READ IT!!! It will change your perspective on health and food.