Earlier this year, my coworker Jess lent me a book called Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr and it changed my life. No dramatization. It grabbed my eyelids and forced me to see how unhealthy the standard American lifestyle truly is. There are only 10 chapters but, man, the abundance of information is astounding! I took a dietary nutrition class in college and it wasn't nearly as comphrensive as this book. Around this time, Jess also turned me on to health documentaries: Hungry For Change, Sugar Coated, What The Health, and Cowspiracy. When I first started, I adamantly told her I would not be removing meat from my diet any time soon. She assured me it was okay and that all she was trying to do was give me the knowledge—what I do with it is on me.
After I finished reading Crazy Sexy Diet, I decided to be vegetarian. After I watched What The Health, I decided to go vegan. I'm still transitioning, but I've reduced my animal product intake significantly. I'm going to list some of the most moving facts that urged me to change my ways.
- Humans should not be drinking cow milk. Baby humans need their mother's milk for nutrients in order to grow the first year of life. After that, they stop drinking it. Similarly, calves drink their mother's milk for nutrients in order to grow... into a 200+ pound cow. The amount of fat and hormones outweigh any benefits (there are none). We don't need to get calcium from milk or cheese or yogurt; we can get calcium from almonds, broccoli, avocado, kale, spinach, and more. Some people are lactost-intolerant, but if you stop consuming dairy products for a day or three, the minute you get back into it, your stomach might hurt. Because humans don't need it. Also, since cows shouldn't be milked 365 days out of the year, their utters get inflamed with a disease called mastitis and subsequently, pus ends up in cow milk. There is actually a government limit on how much pus can be in each gallon of milk.
- We have been taught that humans are carnivores. That's not true. Lions are carnivores. Bears are carnivores. Humans are not. Picture a caveman creeping up on a buffalo. He needed a spear to penetrate the hyde. He needed a knife to separate organs from flesh. Only after he cooked it did he consume it. What is natural about that?? A cheetah hunts an antelope and takes a big-ass chunk out of its abdomen right on the spot. Its teeth are sharp and able to penetrate the tough fur and skin. Its speed aids it to catch up to the prey. The teeth and jaws of humans are more appopriate for fruits and vegetables. It resembles that of cows and horses: flat and round for grinding plants. Our anatomy is more suited for this diet. Humans are frugivores/herbivores.
- Since I like to work out, protein was a big concern when switching to a plant-based diet. Little did I know (because the government always tried to rail into our brains that meat was the best source of protein) that it is so abundant in plants! Protein-rich foods include, but are not limited to: quinoa, almonds, lentils, broccoli, tofu, brussel sprouts, and asparagus. Rhinos and elephants are some of the largest mammals on Earth and guess what? They only eat plants. A plant-based diet decreases internal inflammation and aids in muscle recovery.
When I first told my brother how bad milk is for you, he
retorted with the best statement. He asked me, "Then why did the
government say we needed a daily serving of dairy?" Ahhh I'm so glad he
brought this up. I'm not sure why they would endorse foods that aren't healthy for us (profit, comes to mind), but What The Health reveals
that dairy companies paid for the research that came out telling us we
need dairy for calcium. It's a lot like the 1960's when the tobacco
companies funded studies that came out saying cigarettes are good for
you. Once you unlock the true information on health, there's no way you can go back.
My dietary nutrition professor taught us that the best dish is
colorful. For example, in my Photo of the Day, I have red bell peppers,
red onions, green zucchini, and yellow squash. I lightly coated the pan
with olive oil and sprinkled garlic seasoning. The cool thing about real
food is that it actually leaves you satiated. I ate McDonalds last week
for the first time in a long time. I had a McDouble with Mac sauce, a
Hot-N-Spicy with extra mayonnaise, and a small fry. When I finished, I
caught myself thinking, "...I should have got one more
Hot-N-Spicy..." But no. I should have ate something that had more
sustenance and nutrients. Your health is literally the one thing keeping
you here on Earth. Why not do it right and treat yourself like you
care? By eating the right foods, you will find yourself happier, your
skin clearer, your moods stabilized, prevent chronic diseases, and
maintain a healthy weight. Heal from the inside out.
"The
definition of a diet is: the foods that an organism habitually eats to
sustain itself. So what we're talking about is a real 'diet' in the
sense of what a species eats. When we get into our real diet, we don't
have to think about these things anymore. But if we're going to eat from
that suite of foods that exists in the supermarket, we're going to
constantly have problems. We're going to constantly have to monitor
ourselves, because these foods make you fat. [...] So it's kind of like
if we lived in a zoo. If you put a human being in a zoo the way you put a
chimpanzee in a zoo, well the question would be: what do we feed that
human in the zoo? Well, we don't feed chimpanzees in zoos Captain Crunch
cereal, Twinkies, and doughnuts. We feed them a diet that looks like
the diet they eat in their ecosystem. We sort of live in a zoo-like
environment now. We live in an artificial environment, and
unfortunately, we're not feeding ourselves the foods we're biologically
adapted to."
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