WHAT ABOUT EATING MEAT?

WHAT ABOUT EATING MEAT?

First, I am not a vegetarian or vegan, though I respect those who are.  Understanding the science of being carnivores, however, is important to all of our health.

A multitude of studies examining cultures of all kinds, demonstrates that those whose diets are low in animal products (meat and dairy) and high in plant foods including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, live much longer than those whose diets are the opposite: that is, high in animal products, including meat and dairy, and low in plant foods.   Those cultures who eat mostly whole grains, nuts, vegetables and fruit, along with little animal products, also are mostly free to completely free from heart disease, stroke, arthritis, dementia, diabetes, most cancers, and many other degenerative diseases.

Studies also show that the lower a person’s consumption of animal products, the lower the risk of getting heart disease, arthritis, and the above-mentioned chronic diseases---that is, to a point.  The body of research seems to demonstrate that our benefit diminishes the more meat and dairy consumption drops, until it is below 1 or 2 servings-per-week.  At which point there seems to be no further benefit. 

In other words, for optimum health, longevity, and for minimal risk of most dreaded degenerative diseases, we should cut back eating of meat and dairy to only a couple of modest servings-per-week.  There seems to be no health benefit from cutting them out completely.  However, eating bacon and eggs for breakfast, hamburgers and fries for lunch, and a steak for dinner-meat and dairy at every meal-is a physical train wreck.  Entire countries and cultures who eat mostly vegetable-based diets routinely live to be over 100 years old without ever getting arthritis, dementia, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and the like.

My personal experience bears this out.  By cutting way back on meat and dairy and loading up on green vegetables and fruit, not only did I lose a bunch of weight, but my chronic joint and back pain disappeared, my blood pressure dropped, and my mind became noticeably clearer and more vigorous, and my allergies cleared up.  After a couple of years of concentrating on a vegetable centered diet, now, if I indulge on meat like I once used to routinely, I feel awful.  And prolonged high meat and milk consumption begins to bring back all my old chronic problems.