Tomorrow, October 1, is World Vegetarian Day and the start of Vegetarian Awareness Month. So in honor of the day and the month here are a list of dietary great reasons to eat more Plant Based meals.
- Animal based foods are high in saturated fats which are linked to coronary heart disease
- Plant Based food reverses coronary heart disease
- Animal based foods are high in saturated fats which are linked to obesity
- Obesity is linked to Diabetes
- Plant Based food prevent cancer
- Plant Based foods reverse cancer
- Plant Based foods prevent Alzheimer’s
- Plant Based food is full of fiber; you need 35 g a day and meat has no fiber
- Animal-based foods contain arachidonic acid that, in excess, causes inflammation throughout the body; think arthritis, allergies
- Because 70 percent of all antibiotics produced annually in the United States are fed to livestock
Once you get past dietary reason there are a host of reasons that have to do with the ethics, animal rights, intentional living, the world ecosystems and global warming.To read more about all of those reasons check out the North American Vegetarian Society.
Of course there are always people who say that they think that going vegan or even vegetarian is an extreme and radical thing to do. I, however, have to agree with Dr. Dean Ornish:
“I don’t understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic while it is medically conservative to cut people open or put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs.”
For all you people who think that a vegetarian diet is somehow drastic, tasteless, expensive or hard: Start with a Meatless Monday. Come On, what do you have to lose?