Recently, I have been reading and discovering more about special diets such as vegan and vegetarianism. It’s something I have always found fascinating but deemed it an extreme way of life. Let me tell you what I’ve found.
- Alkalisation
Our bodies need a slightly alkaline environment to thrive. A change in the pH will be absolutely detrimental to your health. It would kill you. Our bodies don’t allow this to happen and are constantly working to maintain this slightly alkaline condition.
Meat, dairy, eggs, processed foods, refined sugars, alcohol all increase the acidity in your body. Fruit, vegetables and water all help maintain this environment. Some plants such as legumes, nuts and seeds are acidic but acidity from plant sources are known as weak acids that are very easy to process by the body and are usually accompanied by minerals used to neutralise this acidity. Meat products contain uric, sulfuric and phosphoric acid that is hard to neutralise, we often don’t possess the nutrients needed to neutralise this.
When acidity increases even slightly above optimal this gives bacteria, pathogens, diseases, viruses and ill health a place to THRIVE. Disease simply doesn’t occur in alkaline conditions, they need an acidic environment to develop. This is one of the reasons why disease and ill health is so prevalent today. We all consume foods (in high quantities) that increase the acidity in our internal environment.
When this increase (slight) in acidity occurs due to poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, water the body TAKES nutrients from your tissues and organs to bring this ph back to normal. These tissues and organs are now suffering and are in a deficit of nutrients. Our whole body suffers.
2. What about protein?? What about my muscle?
Protein isn’t limited to animal sources. Animal protein contains all the 9 essential amino acids which is convenient for the body and for us. When following a vegan or vegetarian (more so in vegan diets) you need to get protein from many plant sources such as whole-grains, beans, nuts, seeds. All 9 essential amino acids are present in plant foods, it simply takes a bit more thought.
When you consume vegetable protein it is assisted with higher amounts of vitamins and minerals. Whereas meat is a great source of protein but its assisted with a host of issues.
I believe the most beneficial diet for humans is one following a plant based diet consuming meat once every one to two months. This would be fantastic if the quality of meat and fish was satisfactory today.
Today, meat and fish are born and survive for slaughter, they are fed corn and other substances that is problematic for their health. When we consume them, the meat is void of nutrients and is containing toxic substances. If the animal you’re consuming was ill, it’s not going to be good for you. The way to avoid this is simply to not eat meat or consume organic foods. This is out of reach of many and very expensive. Meat is taking up lots of space in your diet for minimal benefits.
Studies have shown that people that eat a acidifying diet (rich in meat products, refined sugars etc) will lose lean muscle mass over time. Acidity means muscle loss! We’ve been taught to believe we need meat to gain and maintain muscle – the opposite is true. When we drain magnesium from muscles to aid the acidity balance in the body we suffer a slower recovery time from exercise and injury and difficultly building muscle when we’re lacking nutrients.
This process happens all over the body.
3. Lactose intolerance
Did you know, as humans we aren’t meant to drink milk past the age of 2 (breastmilk)? Humans weren’t able to drink milk for a long time, until we starting drinking milk as it was available and there were a lack of other sources of food. We adapted a gene overtime (a mutation) to allow us to consume milk. 65% of the human population has a reduced ability to digest milk after infancy. That’s a lot of people. It’s sounds as if to me humans shouldn’t be consuming it now and not ever and certainly not in such large quantities. Milk and milk products are also widely processed. We already know the impacts of processing on our health. Not good.
4. Livestock contributes at every stage to global warming, emitting methane and nitrous oxide, two potent greenhouse gasses. The livestock industry is HUGE and is causing severe issues for the health of our planet. Put simply, if our planet isn’t healthy, we cannot be. Our health and survival depends upon the health of our earth.
The oxygen we breathe, the water we drink. We cannot survive without it. Ill health for the earth = ill health for us.
Whether you agree with a vegan/vegetarian diet or not, there is clearly an abundance of evidence to suggest it is beneficial to health when done correctly. I have definitely found it very interesting researching and trying it out for myself.
Let me know what you think about vegan/ vegetarian diets in the comments!
Thank you for reading!
Mairi x
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