I have learned some interesting statistics in the past few days that have made a huge impression on me. Your chances of death by cancer are 1 in 7! That is huge!
I am very happy with my life and I am really looking forward to the next 60 or so years of it. I really don’t want to die. The good news is your chances of death from cancer can be reduced more than 40% by a vegetarian diet. That’s a huge reduction. If I am serious about my life, I have to take these statistics seriously. Anyhow, as of reading those statistics I vow to cut my meat consumption down to 90% of what it was a week ago (maybe even 100%).
Also, your chances of dying from heart disease are 1 in 5. A vegetarian diet reduces those chances 28%.
If you are serious about your life, I encourage you to cut out meat from your diet. There are a whole host of other advantages to becoming vegetarian. They are:
· Massively reducing your carbon footprint
· Killing animals is not nice – you wouldn’t kill a dog/cat so why would you kill a pig? Even Mac Danzig from UFC (a man who earns his pay cheque by kneeing people in the face) thinks killing animals is cruel.
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1 comment:
Thanks for those stats, Ben! When I decided to go veggie back in Australia, it was purely because I didn't want to hurt animals. Since then, I've changed my habits slightly, and am pretty happy with what I'm doing now.
While I was completely vegetarian, I noticed a couple of changes. First, I didn't have as much energy, which was terrible. After that, I noticed that my skin wasn't very strong, and took a long time to heal. Scrapes and abbrasions that were inconsequential when I ate meat were suddenly drawing blood and taking forever to heal.
Everyone undergoes different changes when they switch to a veggie diet. That's what happened to me. When I clued in to what was going on, I did a lot more research and changed my habits. I decided to eat meat about once a week. Every now and then, I find that I could really go for a good spaghetti bolognaise, some fish, a burger, or whatever. When your body (not your mind) craves something, your body's trying to talk to you. It's important to listen to that, because it means your body needs something to continue functioning optimally.
I think the key is to do things in moderation. Eating "regular" meat is not doing yourself any favours. But eating high quality, "clean" (IE: organic, hormone-free, non-genetically modified) meat occasionally is good for you. Meat, especially red meat and fish, contains all sorts of vitamins, minerals, and other stuff that your body needs to function well.
Most vitamins, minerals, etc that meat provide can be obtained through supplements, but doing that is not only expensive and a pain in the ass, but doesn't always work. For example, vitamin B12 is key to energy levels. It's not found in any vegetable or fruit. Humans' primary source of B12 is red meat. So if you have a pure veggie diet, you'll become deficient in B12 after a couple of months. Some people try to get B12 from eggs, but there's something in eggs that prevents your body from absorbing B12. So two options remain: eat some red meat occasionally, or take B12 supplements in conjunction with food that doesn't inhibit absorption. For me, the first option is ideal.
Anyways, everyone reacts differently to vegetarian diets. It's totally dependent on your physiology, genes, age, circumstances, mindset, etc. Try being purely vegetarian for a couple of months, and write down any changes that you notice, both positive and negative. I'd be interested to hear about them.
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