“Is there egg in your pasta?” “Is this a cream-based soup?” “Can I get that without the goat cheese?” Two years ago, I never thought I would be the one asking these questions. Growing up, you couldn’t have found another kid in Texas who drank as much milk as I did, and as the daughter of a native Belgian, our house was never without a hefty stash of dairy. Friends of mine would come over and make a deliberate point to marvel at the
eternally stocked cheese drawer in our fridge. As far as I was concerned, the people in “Got Milk”ads were lightweights compared to me.
Fast-forward about five years, and things have certainly changed. Instead of two-percent milk and brie, my foods of choice are far less mainstream, and much harder to pronounce. Quinoa is a heavy-hitter in my weekly meals, I have almond milk in my sprouted flax cereal, and I eat bean and vegan cheese quesadillas like it’s my job. So why go through all this trouble? Why give up food that, all things considered, isn’t really that unhealthy?
It all comes down to a movie, of all things. A little more than a year ago, I kept hearing buzz about a film titled Forks Over Knives that was about to hit theaters and about to change not only the way you eat, but your life, too. I was intrigued. I’m not a diehard health nut by any means, but I suppose you could call me a dedicated foodie: in high school, I started every school day with a wheatgrass smoothie that my friends charmingly called “tar,”and I was no stranger to wheat germ or purple potatoes on my dinner plate. If found a willing listener, I could give a diatribe on how high fructose corn syrup is actually going to kill you. So naturally, a movie that championed a whole food, plant-based diet was nothing out of the ordinary for me. I sat down with my parents, ready for a confidence-boosting series of facts about how conventional produce can give you cancer, how beef that isn’t grass-fed is basically just a pile of pink antibiotics. Boy was I wrong.
I won’t go into every detail here, as that kind of spoils the impact of the film itself, but the general message of Forks Over Knives is based around a body of research known as The China Study. To make a long story short, the researchers looked at dietary habits of traditional Eastern cultures, such as farming families in rural China, where the main food staples were primarily plants, like rice. When these cultures were compared with the Western diet, which relies much more heavily on animal protein from both meat and dairy products, the researchers found an enormous disparity between rates of disease. Cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol were almost nowhere to be found in the Eastern cultures. Essentially, the study found that animal protein can be linked back to all major western diseases that affect our society.
As cataclysmic as this information may be for you, it’s much easier to watch the movie and recite the information to other people than actually do something about it. Going vegan is hard. Giving up meat didn’t take too much effort, as I was never too crazy about it to begin with, but that still leaves cheese and nearly every dessert known to man. Though veganism is getting more popular, dessert in a regular Boston restaurant certainly isn’t made with coconut oil and silken tofu, and the satisfaction of eating a dairy-based sweet is much more immediate than the thought that I’m avoiding every major Western disease by not eating it. Plus, there’s the daily battle of making sure I eat enough protein, which, though possible, takes some serious attention.
Whatever difficulties there may be though, it’s a great feeling to know that I’m taking exceptionally good care of my body. Sure, every once in a while I spring for some coffee heath ice cream at White Mountain, but I don’t beat myself up for it, and I go back to eating platefuls of plants the next day. And as hard as it was in the beginning, I can honestly say that I really enjoy it now. I’ve been able to experiment with vegan baking, which actually yields some pretty tasty results, and I’ve come to love certain vegetables, which I could not have said a couple years ago. Ultimately, I want to live a long, healthy life, and I know that by eating the best possible things for my body (well… most of the time) I am on the right track.
Photo Sources:
pinterest.com
forksoverknives.com
Insidesocal.com