Being plant-based is more than a diet. It’s about having a deep understanding of what we consume. If one is keen on making a change that provides benefits to one’s health, curb the torture of sentient beings and truly gives a damn about climate change.
Allowing yourself to unlearn what you’ve been taught all your life about animal products and refusing our ego to be wrapped in an ideology so much that we can accept undeniable logical facts that are present to us.
A plant-based way of living has been successfully proved to be linked to better gut health, smoother digestion, higher productivity, more energy, and clearer skin. Amongst benefits that show externally, a plant-based diet is known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases highly.
Why You Need To Care?
It’s a logical way to think about how you can give best to your body that will positively contribute to your health. Thousands of research studies have been conducted to prove how a plant-based lifestyle could be beneficial in longevity, preventing and reversing cardiovascular disease.
Several diets are created in the name of “healthy”. Some of these diets have done more harm than good. Let’s understand and begin to think logically and practically rather than irrationally and accepting of what’s shown to us in the news. If you choose to diet according to what the news advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, and financially bankrupt.
In this day and age, we have a vast network and capacity to do our research, and we should utilise it to our benefit.
We are designed in such a way that allows us to evolve and develop our mental understanding according to our current situation. We do not live like our ancestors.
A plant-based way of living is purely the consumption of plants. No animals. Our gut where millions of microbes live and provide nutrition and health to our bodies love fibre. On a plant-based diet, our microbes are thriving.
Unless you’re living under the rock, you must know how almost everything has a plant-based alternative these days. Supermarket shelves are covered with “plant-based” or “vegan” tags. All this is not for nothing.
Hundreds, if not millions of people are switching to a plant-based lifestyle because they are becoming aware of what animal products do to your body. The high amount of saturated fat, the low amount of fibre and the excessive amount of other animals’ hormones do more harm than good in our bodies.
Thousands of studies have been conducted to correlate processed meat to an increased risk of cancer. Not just cancer but other life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis and heart diseases.
A slice of bacon has a whopping 8.8 grams of cholesterol, and let’s say you eat about four slices, that’s 35.2 grams in one sitting. They say if you don’t pour bacon grease down the drain for fear of clogging it, why do you eat it?
Cholesterol — which by the way, is only found in animal products including high-fat dairy products — if goes out of hand, can lead to the development of plaque in our arteries that leads to stroke and heart attacks.
What It Does For The Others?
Before industrialisation took over, animals were grazed differently. Farmers took care of these animals as their own. They’d feed them well, allow them to graze in grasslands and didn’t separate the young ones from their families.
Now, it’s more than dreadful to see how commercialised the animal industry has become. The desperate ads suggesting why milk is better for the bones, or that how “grass-fed” means animals are not tortured only shows how deeply engraved the animal industry has become to meet economic needs.
There is no humane way to slaughter any animals, nor does any form of religion logically state that animals need to be killed or sacrificed for whatsoever reason. There is no argument against it.
Environmentally, again, it was all as simple as ABC, before industrialisation. Now, more than ever, factory farming consumes much more resources.
More marketing = more demand = more supply = more livestock = more food for livestock and maintenance = more emissions of methane.
Methane is 25–100 times more destructive than carbon dioxide on a 20-year time frame. Methane has a global warming potential 86 times that of CO2 on a 20-year time frame. Cows, alone produce (read: fart)150 billion gallons of methane per day.
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Care About Your Wellbeing
Our diet is already majorly plant-based. Even the seasoning you might use on your meat comes from plants.
Just think about how many ads you’ve seen advertising why we need milk for stronger bones? I highly recommend you to take out 7 minutes of your time to watch this video:
About 68% of the world is already lactose intolerant — meaning they cannot digest the lactose sugar, which is present in dairy products.
Consuming foods in their natural, whole form is a great way to extract the most benefits out of them. A plant-based diet is a beautiful way to keep our microbes happy and healthy.
A fibre-rich wholesome diet keeps our gut health, and the most fibre-rich foods are fruits and vegetable, herbs and spices and, nuts and seeds. These foods are not only high in fibre but are also high in healthy fats, high in protein and extremely low in saturated fat.
A whole-food plant-based diet not only focuses on the elimination of animal products but also the removal of processed and refined junk.
Plant-based whole foods are naturally high in antioxidants, which have anti-inflammatory properties that help in fighting off infection and diseases.
The food industry is as it makes us think we need products we don’t need. The sweeter or more processed a product is — the more it sells.
For years now, we’ve seen coke and lays advertise relentlessly but have you ever paused to wonder why this happens?
Coke and Lays are both high in sugar and low in fibre, and yet they have a high demand. Because the sugar in these products leaves us craving more and more, it’s a downward loop. That’s why one cookie is never enough.
Refined sugar and processed food play with our minds. It’s not like the food industry is evil or wants us to be unhealthy; it only means they are making buttloads of money, and have a high-profit margin. It’s simple economics.
Unlearn And Learn
To clarify, plant-based doesn’t always mean healthy. But, whole-food plant-based does. Several companies have come up with mock meat such as beyond meat and impossible foods, but think about how processedsomething has to be to resemble real meat.
If you check off all the processed junk out of your diet, focus on real whole foods in their natural form. Dedicate a small part of your day in learning how to cook healthy, wholesome and nutritious meals, you and your body will be thankful for it. There are millions of recipes that teach you how to cook plant-based and meat-free.
More so, it’s a great time to be alive and begin your switch to a plant-based diet, with thousands of alternatives. All you have to do is be more conscious about what’s on your plate, what you are purchasing and how it will impact you and your surroundings.
Reading the label, understanding what you are putting into your body, warding off of foods high in sugar, saturated fat and your intolerances. We even have plenty of dieticians and nutritionist who thrive on a plant-based diet themselves, to help us out when we need, what more do we need?
Lastly, being more mindful about what you choose. Question where it’s coming from, how it got to your plate, is it a result of cruelty and torture of a sentient being, does it consume the finite resources we have? Understand, and educate yourself.
Let’s make the plant-based lifestyle the new normal.