In the past few months, I have been doing research on the one thing every person loves… food! I have been learning the importance of a healthy diet but more specifically, the Whole Food Plant Diet.
Growing up, we were taught that we need to eat meat because it provides us protein and we need to eat and drink dairy products because they provide us calcium, which is good for bone growth and strengthening. In a documentary I recently watched called Forks Over Knives, two American doctors, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. and Dr. T. Colin Campbell, show their research about the Western and Eastern diets and uncover the unpleasant truth about our meat today. At the beginning of the film, it is stated:
“Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to ‘battle’ these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases” (Forks Over Knives).
So what seems to be the cause? Meat and Dairy products. Yep, I know. It’s very painful to hear that.
Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at Cornell University, decided to help the malnourished children in the Philippines by providing them with animal meat and products. While over there, he made a life-changing discovery: the country’s wealthier children, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods, were much more likely to get liver cancer.
After these discoveries, it sparked more interest in Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn to continue the study in more areas and get down to the bottom of why more than half of America’s population either have heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and/or obesity. Forks Over Knives follow their studies all over the U.S., Canada, and China, along with providing 3D graphics. Their research led them to a startling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, can almost always be prevented—and in many cases reversed—by adopting a whole-food, plant-based diet.
I learned that, what American farmers are feeding their cattle, increases our chances of having all these diseases and illnesses. Instead of helping us stay healthy, they are poisoning our bodies. We need to be more aware of what we put in our bodies. I for one, will now be trying to stay away from meat and dairy products.
Even if you can’t or don’t want to stop eating meat and dairy products, I encourage you to be at least more aware of what you are buying. Make sure that the meat you buy is 100% grass fed, same with dairy.