Diets Considered On Healthy
There are many diets that are considered healthy, two of these diets are the paleo and vegan diet. Both, people who follow a vegan and paleo diet, report increase in energy and strength. The “paleo” diet is short for “Paleolithic” since it is based off the diet of humans who lived in the paleolithic time period. People who follow the paleo diet follow it because the human “bodies and minds haven’t had time to adapt” from their diets in the Paleolithic era to the modern diets (Heid).
This is evident because “the human genetic constitution has changed relatively little since the appearance of the” modern human, yet there is a rise in diseases like obesity or diabetes (Johnson).
The paleo diet requires the dieter to consume high amounts of grass-fed meat, wild fish, eggs, nuts, vegetables, and some fruits. Paleo does not include grains, legumes, processed sugar, salt, or dairy, since paleolithic humans did not have access to these products while they were alive.
Vegan diets do not include any animal-based products including meat, dairy, honey, etc. While both diets can be considered healthy, veganism is healthier because its main component is vegetables and natural foods. It also avoids eating too much meat, unlike paleo, which can cause health problems.
Veganism has been proven to lower the chances of getting chronic diseases like diabetes and heart problems. Sifferlin, a writer that reported how meat is connected to cancer, wrote that red meat has been classified as “‘probably’ carcinogenic to humans due to… strong evidence that it supports a ‘carcinogenic effect’” (Sifferlin).
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She also reported that the International Agency for Research on Cancer found “that every 50g portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%” (Sifferlin). It was also shown that a plant based diet had a “22% lower risk of developing all colorectal cancer” (Stanisic). There are “substances isolated from unprocessed or processed red meat which are considered to influence the occurrence of cancer” such as nitrates, which have been found to create cancer-causing compounds (Boskovic).
This is known to get worse when the meat is smoked because when in high heat the cancer-causing compounds can easily increase. Barnard, a medical researcher, found that meat is linked to not only diabetes, but also obesity. He wrote that the level of exercise in America is not the main cause of the obesity epidemic stating that, “the changes in exercise over the last hundred years have been far too small to account for… [current problems, such as obesity] the problem is on the input side” (Barnard). Barnard also explains the link between meat and Alzheimer’s disease, saying that saturated fat is found mainly in meat and animal products. This excess oil when you cook meat tends to be poured into a jar, where it solidifies, “which is a sign that it is loaded with saturated fat” (Barnard). Barnard found that “by eating more saturated fat, your Alzheimer’s risk triples” (11). Saturated fat has been found to increase cholesterol levels which can affect the arteries which hurts both the heart and the brain. This leads to heart problems as well as diseases like Alzheimer’s.
The use of a vegan diet has been proven to lower the “mortality from ischemic heart disease (- 25%) … [and] a significant reduced risk (- 15%) of incidence from total cancer” (Dinu). However, changing to a vegan diet can not only help heart health, but also mental health. It was found in a study conducted by four scientists including Bonnie Beezhold, that “reduction of animal food intake may have mood benefits… [and do] not appear to negatively impact mood.” Even though all the facts and statistics above prove that veganism is a super healthy option, some people still disagree, saying the opposite is true. They claim that veganism is unhealthy since it cuts out an entire food group that has been in the human diet for centuries, meat. A diet opposite to the vegan diet is the paleolithic diet. The paleo diet keeps this food group and actually recommends that the dieter consumes more of it. Paleo followers also believe that their diet is healthy despite continuing to eat meat. The paleo diet was found to help patients with type 2 diabetes and sometimes reverse it (Masharani).
However, a study on veganism and its effect on diabetes has also come to a similar result. This can draw people to the conclusion that meat is not the problem. A similarity between paleo and veganism is that both avoid dairy and like vegans. This would make sense because dairy is high in sugars and saturated fats. This can cause people to believe that meat is healthy and that it should not be cut out of the diet. Paleo diet supporters know that taking out low quality foods create a healthy diet, but if a staple group of food such as meat is eliminated, they think people will be “at [a] heightened risk for certain dietary deficiencies such as fiber, magnesium, and vitamin D” (Kadey). This is not news to plant-based dieters and they are actually concerned with getting the micronutrients required to stay healthy. Vegans have a hard time getting “vitamin D, calcium, long-chain n-3 fatty acids, and zinc” because of the lack of animal products (Mądry).
The main concern is vitamin B-12, a bacterium that is found in animal products. Paleo supporters also point out that since vegans cut out meat and other huge food groups, they are less likely to be healthy. People against veganism will also agree that a lot of the vegan diet is healthy, but foods like “Coca-Cola, white bread, French fries, Oreos, and spicy chili Doritos are vegan” (Chodosh). With so little food groups left after following a vegan diet, vegans might turn to processed foods, causing their diets to be less healthy than what they started with. This proves that a vegan diet isn’t always healthy and can be unhealthy if the dieter chooses the wrong vegan foods.
While people believe the vegan diet is unhealthy because it cuts out meat and animal products entirely, the “cholesterol levels of long-term vegans tend to be very low” and their risk of cancer is less than that of an omnivorous dieter (McCarty). While meat does provide important nutrients such as protein, Vitamins E and B, iron, magnesium, and more. Most of these nutrients can be easily replaced by plant-based foods. The nutrients that cannot be replaced by plant-based foods can be supplemented. The biggest concern for vegans is vitamin B-12; however, it can be substituted by B-12 fortified foods. Many foods include soy, cereal, nutritional yeast, etc. Another concern of vegan diet is that it is believed that with such as restricted diet, people may struggle with staying healthy. While this can be true, the vegan diet without these temptations is very healthy. If people avoid the processed vegan foods, they can be healthy, any diet can be healthy if the poor-quality foods are cut out.
There are also other strong reasons for people to go vegan rather than for just personal health. Firstly, for the environment. A lot of land is used for livestock including around 33 million kilometers for pasture. There is also a lot of land used to grow crops that provides food exclusively for the livestock. “In Brazil alone, the equivalent of 5.6 million acres of land is used to grow soya beans for animals in Europe” (Watson). If this land was returned to its natural state it could help balance out global warming. Large regions of forest cut down for agriculture are a main reason that levels of CO2 are going up. This is since a lot of the land is being used for animal raising and less for crops that could create O2 in exchange for CO2. The animals bred and kept as livestock also produce a huge amount of methane. Methane has 25% more power to contribute to global warming as CO2. This combined with the number of trees cut down “accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions which is more than all of the world’s trains, planes, and automobiles put together” (Irving).
It has also been calculated that if everyone in the world stopped eating meat, world hunger would practically disappear. This is because a lot of the land that could be dedicated to farming crops are used to raise livestock or grow food for the livestock. It takes about 13 pounds of crops to produce a single pound of meat. Researchers have reported that by growing crops for humans to directly consume, the available food calories can increase by 70% and that these extra crops can feed and sustain another 4 billion people. Meat also uses a lot of water to clean and process. It takes 2,400 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. It takes 25 gallons of water to grow 1 pound of wheat. About 70% of our freshwater is used in agriculture. This is a lot of freshwater being wasted on cleaning and processing meat when it could be providing freshwater to the needy.
The last and most popular reason people go vegan is animal ethics. “The modern animal rights movement seeks… [to transform a] society to a nonspeciesist worldview that… [views other] beings with… respect, just as humans claim to respect each other as subjects, not objects” (Freeman). A main concern of animal rights activists is factory farming. Factory farming is a method of raising animals in a factory like setting. Animals are kept in poor small living conditions and are slaughtered in cruel ways. Chickens and turkeys are kept in small wire cages, each cow is in metal fencing that is not big enough for the cow to turn around in, pigs are kept in similar metal cages. The animals might be force fed or given too little water. They sit in their own filth since cleanliness is sometimes neglected. They are given multiple antibiotics since diseases can spread fast in these conditions. This method of farming is more common than people think.
Factory Farms produce 99.9% of chickens, 95% of pigs, 78% of cattle, and 99% of turkeys. However, it’s not just factory farms, the dairy industry is also in question when it comes to animal cruelty. Cows are like humans, they produce milk for their young and only when they have babies, meaning female cows must be either pregnant or milking – in order to supply enough milk for people. This can be achieved naturally or artificially, which is more commonly. Female cows are put in a holding device, the stanchion, which activists refer to as the ‘rape rack,’ to be artificially impregnated yearly (French). This process keeps the milk in our fridge, but it doesn’t stop there. Once the mother cows give birth, after a little over 9 months, their babies are stripped away. Male calves are fattened and turned into veal, while females are fated to follow in mom’s footsteps. This puts emotional stress on the mothers, who can be heard calling out to their lost calves for weeks after the separation. She will get another 2.5 months to mourn the loss of her child before the process starts over again. She will go through this “4-5 times before she is considered ‘spent’”.
However, land animals aren’t the only reason people choose veganism, aquatic life like fish and bycatch. The most abused animals that are farmed are actually fish. Research proves that fish, like any animal have a fear of death and can feel pain, yet humans continue to cause suffering. Most fish that are bought at markets are commercially caught. Hundreds of fish get brought out of the water to be harvested and die of suffocation – daily. While suffocation may seem bad enough, Fish from the deep sea face a worse fate. They are caught and brought to the surface, this depressurizes them, which can cause their inner organs to burst or organs like their stomachs to pop out through their mouths – while they are still alive. Overfishing throws off the ecosystems that have lasted since long before humans. A vegan-less solution to this is to buy sustainable seafood, however, fraud is common.
This means that the people who are trying to support sustainable seafood are not actually buying what they believe in and ecosystems are still getting destroyed because of it. Bycatch, when an unintended animal is caught, is another issue. While the fishers may let the animal go back into the water, the animal ends up dying most of the time due to injury and trauma. These animals are often severely hurt by the hooks or nets and are thrown back to die from their injuries. An example of this is dolphins suffocating from shrimp nets. Or even a turtle being bumped by a fishing boat. Sea turtles have hard shells that protect them from many predators, but a boat hit is lethal. Fishing boats that use nets can catch animals like turtles while they are dragging the net behind the moving boat. If a turtle is caught it is bycatch, but if the turtle is hit by the boat while the boat is fishing, it can count as bycatch. Even though the turtle is not hooked or netted, a boat hit to the shell can cause lung collapse, organ failure, and eventually death.
While these may seem like plenty of reasons people should go vegan, people still have the choice. It was scientifically discovered in a test done by two Canadian scientists that “vegetarians and especially vegans reported experiencing negativity stemming from their diets” and that during the study, “omnivores evaluated vegetarians and vegans equivalently or more negatively than several common prejudice target groups (e.g., Blacks)” (MacInnis). This stigma may be one of the reasons people do not choose to try veganism.
Veganism has many valid reasons for why someone should switch their diet over. Whether it’s for the environment, other people, the animals, or themselves, there is always a reason to switch to veganism. The vegan diet is also very healthy since it cuts out a lot of harmful and questionable foods. While others may not agree that cutting out food groups is healthy and instead want to continue eating anything in moderation, they should learn about other diets and realize that any diet including veganism can be healthy if the bad foods are taken out or limited (Axe). People need to be aware of the stigma around becoming a vegan and not use it as an excuse not to educate themselves on the subject. If someone is looking to change their diet they should learn about veganism and other diets and find which is best for them. They should make an educated decision based off what they learn instead of just assuming veganism isn’t right for them. Overall, through my research I have found that veganism is healthier than the Paleo diet, since it is healthy for both the person utilizing the diet and for everyone and everything around that person.
Diets Considered On Healthy. (2021, Dec 19). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/diets-considered-on-healthy/
