glamourboy wrote:Aside from the ethical/compassionate reasons (which are important to me) and the huge ecological benefits the argument for the health benefits is overwhelmingly positive.
see, that's what got me interested in this thread: longer life!
Greetings glamourboy,
Some of the health benefits of a plant based diet are truly astonishing.
If you didn't already follow the links on my previous post, I'd recommend it.
At least this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNeWCvLZ ... re=related if you don't have a lot of time
"Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, chief of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, discusses his 18-year study whereby he
reversed severe heart disease in every patient in his program
who had all been sent home to die by their cardiologists. Dr. Esselstyn shows you how by changing your diet you can prevent
and reverse heart disease. A low-fat plant-based (vegetarian) diet is the key.«
Note, this isn't some pasty faced eco-freak we are talking about. Cleveland Clinic has been voted as one of the best hospitals for heart surgery in the U.S. and Caldwell Esselstyn, is chief of surgery.
Hard science, peer reviewed data.
The more I've researched this topic the more I've come to understand that our modern meat and dairy based western diet is essentially toxic to the human body.
Though that poisoning is slowly cumulative and used to occur over decades, changes to the modern diet over the last 4 or 5 decades have massively accelerated the process to epidemic proportions (shockingly now many are now being diagnosed with heart disease and type 2 diabetes in their teens )
The end result is that following our modern meat and dairy based western diet pretty much guarantees coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer in what used to be later years but is increasingly much earlier nowadays, depending on how much meat and dairy is consumed by that individual.
Yes, this does go against conventional thinking, much of which appears to be based upon a cross between 19th century nutritional discoveries (protein dicovered as a nutrient by Gerardus Mulder in 1838) and entrenched corporate food industry propoganda (nicely illustrated by the Lard advert earlier in this thread.)
Also see Dr T. Colin Campbell's "The China Study" (Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University)
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
"
the most comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of
biomedical research. It was a massive undertaking jointly arranged through Cornell
University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The New York
Times called it the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” This project surveyed a vast range of
diseases and diet and lifestyle factors in rural China and, more recently, in Taiwan."
"The authors conclude that “the findings from the China Study indicate that the lower the percentage of animal-based foods that are consumed, the greater the health benefits—even when that percentage declines from 10% to 0% of calories. So it’s not unreasonable to assume that
the optimum percentage of animal-based products is zero, at least for anyone with a predisposition for a degenerative disease.”
Cheers,
bagginz
That alone makes it worth it to me. Couple that with factory farming being a disgusting abnormal mess to me, and the fact that even if you did eat range grown most of the time, there are very few people who can and would ONLY eat range grown. Besides even then it's not natural to me.