I have been on this plant based diet now for about 9 months. And my biggest problem is that it hurts my brain and my heart, when I meet friends and family who are suffering from heart disease or cancer, or MS, or acne, or obesity, or Alzheimer's, or any number of diseases, and they do not know about this diet. I want to jump up and down and yell at them - you need to know this - the food you eat is killing you!
But that is not a proper etiquette in our world. So I use subterfuges. I eat no meat, no dairy, and sometimes people ask me questions about that - so I use that opening to try to give them a little insight. And then I sneak more information into an email so they can follow up if they want. And my wife gets upset with me - she thinks I have become the plant based diet gospel proselytizer for the world. Would that I could. Folks - this stuff is worse for you than tobacco - MUCH worse.
My Friends and Relatives are Dying
My younger brother just died this past year, at the age of 75 of his first heart attack. And my youngest brother had his first heart attack a year ago at age 62. I told them both about the diet - and they both opted not to follow it. I just met good friends who talked about their plaque residues, their cancer treatment, and mini strokes - and I am 100% persuaded that a plant based diet would benefit them enormously, if not actually cure their ills. But . . .
Smoking Parallel
I started smoking when I turned 21. I was in the seminary, and it was the normal thing. I started with a pipe because my hero, the theology prof that was by idol, smoked a pipe. But that quickly became annoying, so I switched to cigarettes, along with everyone else. Luckies - the brand my dad smoked - or Camels. None of those silly filtered things for me. They didn't taste as good.
In the summer of 1964, I happened to read an article in Scientific American about autopsies on prisoners that had smoked. The article included pictures of their lungs - and they were crusted and black! Black! I stopped smoking. I spit up little black things for a year after that. They tell me that after 15 years, your body actually recovers pretty well from smoking. I smoked for 8 years, and I quit 55 years ago, so I should be ok.
The rest of the world took a while to catch up. The first Surgeon General's Report about the causation of smoking and lung cancer was actually published in 1964. I honestly do not recall if I realized that at the time. In 1964, about 43% of adults in the US smoked. In 1969 Congress required a warning labels on cigarettes. As of 2017, about 14% of adults still smoke. But today NO ONE defends smoking as a healthy and positive thing. We have learned that there is nothing healthy about cigarette smoke. But it was not until 1975 that MN adopted the first clean indoor air act. It took 8 more years and a great deal of legal action before the smoking industry was persuaded to stop doing phony research and publicity about the health benefits of smoking.
For the very best comparison to smoking, see this talk by Dr. Michael Greger. Full of facts and the research - and a video option too, if you have some problem reading.
https://nutritionfacts.org/2020/02/11/consider-the-evidence-when-you-make-life-or-death-decisions
Personally, it is hard for me to understand how anyone can continue to work for an industry that is literally creating poison for humans, let alone buy their product.
Meat and Dairy are BIG
When I look at the plant based diet research, there is simply no question that meat and dairy are killing people. The process takes a lot longer than smoking and cancer, but the evidence is just as clear. If you look, you can find some naysayers - people literally paid by the diary and meat industry to make claims that milk and meat are healthy for humans. The dairy industry is estimated to be worth about $442 billion as of 2019. There are not a lot of employees in the industry, about 153,000, but there are a lot of cows - about 9.4 million as of 2018.
The meat industry, and we are talking ALL meat products, beef, poultry, pigs, etc., is quite a bit larger. In 2013, the meat and poultry industry processed 8.6 billion chickens, 33.2 million cattle, 239.4 million turkeys, 2.3 million sheep and lambs and 112 million hogs, according to NAMI. That is one year's production. In 2018, we set a new record for meat consumption!
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/americans-meat-consumption-set-to-hit-a-record-in-2018/
The meat industry is worth about $1 trillion in the US economy. A force to be reckoned with.
The average consumer will eat 222.2 pounds of red meat and poultry this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, surpassing a record set in 2004. 80% of the agricultural land in the US is dedicated to growing food for animals - not humans.
The US government is spending $38 B of our taxes each year to subsidize the meat industry. That always amazes me. We have the most productive farmers in the world, and we spend billions every year helping them out. Why? We could feed the world if we let them alone to market their crops.
Attack Dairy First
When I look at the research, it strikes me that it is just possible that we could get about 80% of the benefits of a plant based diet, just by cutting out milk and dairy - cheese. Ideally we should go for both, but at a bare minimum, start with the milk and cheese. And don't just cut it back - stop it!
The next step would be to start eating the plant based meat substitutes - they really are NOT healthy, with all of the processed ingredients and oils - but they are hugely better than the meat itself, and much better for the world's climate.
Dr. Neal Barnard - founder of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
https://www.pcrm.org/
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving and improving human and animal lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. He wrote a book about this, and has a nice video on the topic. I'll stop here and you can watch it.
Neal Barnard, MD, author of The Cheese Trap - see the youtube video:
https://youtu.be/h3c_D0s391Q
What the Dairy Industry Doesn't Want You to Know - Neal Barnard MD - FULL TALK
Cheese is addictive - fattening. It has more calories per gram than sugar, it slows metabolism, creates addictive hormones, etc. Its components feed cancer, it causes your acne, arthritis, osteoporosis, fragile bones, etc.
Excellent talk - scary. My mouth continues to water when I think of cheese, of pizza, etc. And this talk helps understand how that works. I think the poison of casein and cancer is a bigger motive, but this works. It may be that it is just the milk and cheese that is causing most of these problems - cancer and arthritis for sure.
So . . . don't tell me that a plant based diet is too hard, and we should counsel people to just be moderate about their intake of meats, fats, and dairy. Hell no. Tell them that it is poison and that the sooner they stop the healthier they will be, and the longer they will live.
