Travis Davis

11/1/2017
ENG2010

Plant Based

For those of you who arent too sure what a plant based eating is let me enlighten you a
little bit. Plant based diets in my opinion is a better, less stereotypical, less animal rights activist
label to put on someone that follows a vegan dieting lifestyle. Plant based diets consist of
getting all if ones nutrition from natural plant derived foods, while consuming absolutely no
animal sourced products.
Throughout the years and as many of our parents were raised having servings of meat in
almost every meal was seen as basically standard norm. We were all taught that meat was
essential for getting a persons daily protein and iron needs and couldnt even fathom that
something that starts as a seed in the ground could grow into something that could give us
equal amounts or more of the same essential life giving nutrients like protein. Meat
consumption has been on the steady rise for the past 40-50 years and as the our parents
generation is now getting older doctors and nutritionists are now able to study more of the
affects that over consumption of meat might have on our nation and even the world. In recent
years now, more and more doctors having been linking the number one disease in the United
States heart disease to the mass consumption of more precisely red meats. In more modern
times meat have become more processed i.e. injected with salt solutions to make things like
chicken more flavorful. Also, more and more animals are being injected with more synthetic
man-made things like growth hormones, which could ultimately cause changes in our bodies
that could lead to things like cancers, the second most deadly disease in the United States.
Furthermore, people who might have a hard time with such a restrictive diet have
options like that of the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet has some of the most
researched facts on reversing things like heart disease. Dr. Willet writes The best evidence on
how diet affects people with heart disease comes from the Lyon Diet Heart Study, which found
that a Mediterranean-style diet cut heart attacks and deaths by 70% compared with a
traditional American Heart Association diet. The Mediterranean-style diet emphasized fish,
poultry, vegetables, beans, olive oil, and nuts and included only minimal amounts of meat,
butter, and cream.
It is funny to have conversation with all the meatatarians and hear their reactions to
my choice in following a plant based diet. When it comes to men in these situations in which
they imagine themselves adopting some sort of a similar diet, its almost as if it would be an
attack on their masculinity oh what humility, I couldnt even imagine eating that way in front
of other male cohorts. They also ask the closed-minded question where do you get your
protein? Plant protein is in considerable abundance in almost all plants that would be in a
plant based diet. The one green planet writes. Humans need .8 grams of protein per kilogram
of body weight. This is not difficult to do, as the average American consumes anywhere
between 70 to 120 grams per person. To put this into perspective, 70 grams of protein would
be the appropriate amount for a 200-pound person, while 120 grams would be appropriate for
someone weighing 330 pounds. The average American man and woman weigh 196 pounds and
156 pounds, respectively. Basically, everyone is getting more than enough.
Many of the diet guidelines like the American Heart Association and the American
Cancer Society whom many American people have relied on for many years have began to be
investigated for giving misleading diet guides. Many of the backers who fund these associations
are people who own food companies who are directly associated with causing the very diseases
they claim to fight against. Furthermore, if they arent getting money from the food companies
they are getting millions from pharmaceutical companies who are getting wealthy of all the
Americans who suffer from disease and are forced to buy these expensive drugs. I find it odd
that if someone is showing signs of heart disease or high cholesterol that the only solution
offered is some drug rather than some better nutritional and diet guidelines and more closely
monitoring cholesterol levels, if levels do not begin to lower then pharmaceutical measures
should be taken, but with the continuance of the healthy diet.
Its hard to say but physicians are stagnant in old ways of nutrition and health
recommending age-old styles of living and diet and not educating themselves on modern
science and diet. [Steven Lawenda, MD writes] First and foremost, clinicians/physicians need
more education on plant-based nutrition. Given that most of us lacked this education as part of
our training, I suggest that clinicians educate themselves specifically on the benefits of plant-
based nutrition. Secondly, I suggest they personally try to make then lifestyle change to a plant-
based diet for their own health and as part of their education. Whether clinicians choose to
maintain this lifestyle is of course up to them, but having lived the lifestyle, I believe, makes it
more likely that a clinician will feel comfortable counseling patients, and far more likely that
this counseling will be impactful or successful.
Beyond all of the physical and quality of life changes one can see in a change to a more
plant based lifestyle are the effects on our environment. The adverse effects our meat demand
has put on the environment is pretty alarming. From the greenhouse gases emitted by the
enormous population of livestock to the water consumed by those animals as well as the
amount taken in the process of putting a steak on your plate. Changing our societal reliance on
meat-based farming to a whole-plant agrarian system has many ecologic benefits. It results in
more efficient land use; less greenhouse gas production; less air, soil, and water pollution; less
need for clear cutting; less damage to wildlife habitats; and less agricultural water use.
Reducing meat consumption will eventually reduce meat production. This would enable many
developed countries to move away from intensive cereal production (used for animal feed) in
favour of crop rotations that benefit the soil and end their dependence on energy-intensive and
polluting synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. -John D Grant.
I know at a young healthy age it is easy to disregard ones future as I will worry about
that later because it is 20+ years down the road. However, it would be wise to take these
modern discoveries in science and nutrition seriously and not continue in our elders footsteps
of dealing with heart disease and cancers that are not being proactively dealt with one a
personal basis. Even more so, food has come leaps and bounds as people have discovered ways
of copying and mimicking tastes and textures of many animal products without the unhealthy
bits. I will leave you with a thoughtful message I read one time by some anonymous person.
Yes, you may live as long as a someone who chose to live by a plant-based or Mediterranean
diet, but more likely than not the omnivore will have suffered the later 20 years of their lives
battling some sort of disease brought on by poor choice in diet. Whereas, the herbivore will
more often than not, died healthy.

Citation
1. Publishing, Harvard Health. Halt Heart Disease with a Plant-Based, Oil-Free Diet.
Harvard Health, www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/halt-heart-disease-with-a-plant-
based-oil-free-diet-.

2. Explain Like Im 5: Why Is Plant Protein Better Than Animal Protein? One Green
Planet, 1 Oct. 2016, www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/explain-like-im-five-why-is-
plant-protein-better-than-animal-protein/.

3. dx.doi.org.libprox1.slcc.edu/10.1089/act.2015.29023.jha+.

4. The College of Family Physicians of Canada, www.cfp.ca/.