A Plant Based Diet

http://www.forksoverknives.com/

In hopes of getting more information on the effects of processed food I watched the documentary "Forks over Knives." Although the movie did not end up being focused on organic vs. processed food, I found the information it contained highly important. "Forks Over Knives" gives us information on the importance of a plant based diet vs. our cultures normal eating habits.

             We are introduced to the film with information on how unhealthy we are as a nation. The average American is 23 pounds overweight which has lead to over 460,000 deaths of American woman by stroke or heart disease. Our nation is over drugged to alleviate the symptoms of our poor eating habits. Fortunately, the good news is that a growing number of researchers say if we reduce or eliminate refined, processed and animal-based foods we can prevent and reverse several of our worst diseases. The film informes us how these highly processed foods, especially fast food, act like a drug. Fast foods do this by containing what is referred to as "highly dense food." these foods are extremely dense in calories so that we are able to fit far more calories in our stomach without becoming full. Not only that but fast food does a great job at containing high amounts of fat, oil, salt, and sugar, which act as a drug to our pleasure sensors.

                 This video goes into misconceptions on healthy diet that have been taught to us at school, TV, and other places. A few of these misconceptions include dairy being good for you(your bones), and meat being necessary for high protein intake. First off, studies have shown that the areas of the world with the highest dietary intake have higher concentrations of osteoporosis. This is because high levels of dairy create a more acidic system. Because of this higher level of acidity, the body uses its most readily available acid buffer, calcium. We also find out that plants offer the correct amount of protein to sustain a human. In-depth studies in Asia made serious connections between high levels of animal based protein and cancer. It is astonishing how closely connected meat intake and incidences of cancer truly are. There was a study done on rats that were given animal protein, and fluctuated the amount every three weeks. Tumor growth rates increased and decreased with the amount of dairy protein being fed to the rats. It seems that cancerous cells grow much better in an environment containing meat based protein.

This image shows how dairy protein consumption correlates to cancer clusters. It proves that not only were cancer cells more prevelant with more dairy protein but less prevelant when lowered.

                 The information in the video "forks over knives" was eye opening to the importance of taking responsibility over diet. A diet rich in whole foods has extremely positive effective across the board including, lover cholesterol, weight loss, higher energy, better mental state, reduce the risk of disease such as cancer and diabetes, strengthen your immune system, and so on. Let’s take responsibility for our own health and start to eat to live rather than living to eat.

-Tom Gillespie