Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to educate on the importance of a healthy diet, but moreover, a plant-based diet and its benefits over an animal based diet. The basic understanding of how humans have evolved is that our digestive systems did not evolve to satisfy meat consumption. Our bodies are less at a risk of multiple heart diseases, cancers, and obesity when staying on a plant-based diet. As a person living a sedentary life would be better off not eating meat, those who perform in sports would greatly benefit from living a vegan lifestyle. As the consumption of meat promotes inflammation in one’s body that can harm performance and health, taking out meat would allow for healthy recovery. In addition, the meat and dairy industry has polluted our environment and created an industry of farming animals in completely inhumane ways. The plant-based lifestyle has been proven to not only be more natural for humans over the animal-based diet, but helps fight against obesity, cancer, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases, problems that are hurting developed nations. This change in an athlete’s life can also aid the person by supporting one’s performance and recovery periods as they experience lowered inflammation and boosted performance.
Introduction
History of Our Diet
Over the millions of years our species has evolved over time, there are many signs that indicate that our origin lies in a herbivorous diet, rather than one that is omnivorous. Besides the beneficial health effects that moving away from an animal based diet has for someone, there is evidence that suggests that humans were never evolved to actually consume meat, dairy or anything else thereof. There are terms that are frequently used in this field of study that should be defined before moving on: vegan, plant-based, and vegetarian. Both terms, vegan and plant-based, will be used interchangeably as they both mean a lifestyle or diet that is lived without the use of animal products, which could include meat, leather, dairy and more. The term vegetarian has some extra distinctions that should be identified, as someone can be a lacto-vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian or a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. Respectively, the terms are defined as someone who is plant-based with the exception of dairy, egg, or dairy and egg products (Melina, 2016). While these won’t be referenced as much, as the disadvantages of eating those excluded products will be mentioned later, these are still important distinctions to make. The vegan lifestyle has been proven to not only be more natural for humans over the animal-based diet, but helps fight against obesity, diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases, problems that are hurting developed nations terribly. This change in an athlete’s life can also aid the person by supporting one’s recovery periods as they experience lowered inflammation and boosted performance when working out.
Eating meat was not a trait that we were ever meant to receive. While it’s immoral to state whether or not humans deserve to have certain traits, it is not immoral to say that humans have not evolved to eat meat. While we still consume meat today, physical features of the human suggest we are much more prone to eat vegetables, this can be found in various studies of anatomy and fossil evidence. Large mounds in the back of our mouth, made for the grinding down of hard plant fibers and large front teeth made for consumption of fruits. While some consider our canine teeth to be comparable with the canine teeth of a carnivore, our close evolutionary siblings, the gorillas, can refute that point (The Game Changers, 2018). They explain canine teeth were traditionally used by gorillas to show off their teeth in a fight against one another as a feat of strength over their opponent, not as a way to consume large quantities of meat. The teeth have always been a sign for how an animal would eat in our fossil records and we can continue that way of identification with the human set of teeth. (first )
There is another aspect of our anatomy, specifically made for the purpose of eating large quantities of plants; it’s the intestines. When looking at the size of the intestinal tract, in comparison to a normal human and that tract of a carnivore, the difference is not hard to find. The tract of a human has an intestinal track that in comparison to the track of a lion is way longer. A long intestinal tract is a trait that biologists say mostly herbivores will have size plant fibers that take longer to digest than meat, and we are adapted to the length it takes for it to digest. This can be expanded upon by noticing that meat will start to rot when put into this tract as with carnivores (The Game Changers, 2017) meat does not stay in their body as long since they have evolved to shorten their intestinal tract, while we have the longer intestinal tracks (Null, 2009). Furthermore, the paleontologist Amanda Henry found that starch granules from plants on fossil teeth, and stone tools, suggests “that humans humans have been eating grains and and tubers a lot longer than previously thought, and certainly long enough to tolerate and digest them effectively” (Sabatino, 2015). If the way our teeth and intestines have evolved show that humans were never supposed to consume animal products, then why are humans so phone to opt in for the average American Animal Based diet?
Literature Review
Plant-Based Diet Authenticity
Our bodies need proteins, it’s the essential amino acids that allows the body to continue to process everyday. Contrary to the belief that there are “complete” or “incomplete” amino acids, studies since the 1940s have found that they don’t exist, all proteins are complete, yet not all of them are good for humans to consume. The idea first originated with the assumption that meat had provided us with the “complete” proteins while plants would never be able to fully satisfy the body. The JAND and many other scientific groups and dietitians have found that plants can provide us with more than adequate amounts of proteins in a diet by only eating soy and legumes (JAND 2016). Yet, not even disproving the study was able to stop the meat companies at the time to capitalize on this study. That can be supported by when there was a pushback in the 1960s about the nutritional benefit of meat, COMPANY NAME was making the claim otherwise. COMPANY in retrospect was not a rival that should’ve ever been respected as they were also the researching group that said that “cigarettes are good for you, doctor recommended”. As we now know, smoking and eating meat are both classified carcinogens by the World Health Organization, showing how detrimental red and processed meat can be to our health (WHO 2015). This information should not have come as new to anyone in the West since, “Scientific literature in the US has revealed what other cultures, such as the Hindu and the Japanese, have known for thousands of years: We do not need meat or dairy products to sustain human life and health” (Null, 2009). The transition to a plant-based diet may seem foreign to our diet in America, yet the diet itself has been around for the last few thousand years. And this movement has been gaining momentum as in 2009, “More than 7 Million Americans” have taken on a vegetarian diet (Null, 2009).
As the years have passed, Americans have adopted a few new diets, the paleo diet being one of them. Created from the idea that our bodies are genetically tied to the stone age, and that we should be eating the diet of our ancestors of 2.6 million years ago. The paleo diet promotes getting more than half of your daily calorie intake from meat, along with eliminating processed foods, dairy products, beans, and cereal grains. As Sabatino said in his article “Unpacking the Paleo diet: does it really promote health and weight loss?”, lifestyle is full of misconceptions of the information at hand. Those who promote the diet say that we have always relied on energy from the blood and meat of the animal around us, where in our studies of hunter gathers that exist today, studies show that the tribes actually relied on plants to give the nutrients they need as their weapons traditionally were and are ineffective at killing animals (Sabatino 2015). Following this, Sabatino about the Hadza Tribe of Tasmania, a hunter-gatherer tribe were 70% of their diet consisted of plants, while also stating that many other tribes follow that same theme. The adoption of a plant based diet is only following what we had originally been evolved to do, since the diet is the most natural for humans physiologically (Null 2009).
The Impact that Plant-Based Diets have on an Ordinary Person
Right now, about 42.4% of the US population is obese. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in America. Studies across the board state that while some of the factors for obtaining one of these diseases is genetic, the single-handedly, most important factor is diet(source). What you eat can produce various reactions in your body that can lead to cancer-causing inflammation or it can lead to Cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes as well (Sabatino 2015). There is a general consensus in the dietitians (Null 2009) analysis of a vegetarian diet that confirms that the vegetarian diet is not only as nutritious as one that has meat, but that it can also provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These can include various types of cancer, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. All of which make a huge impact on one’s life span and everyday health.
Cholesterol levels are a concern for many Americans, as most of them are higher in cholesterol than recommended. Instead of having the recommended four to one ratio of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) to high-density lipoproteins, Americans on average, have a five to one ratio that is extremely worse than the vegan’s three to one ratio. The effects of having a large disparity is that there is a greater risk of heart disease. As expected, problems that showed with the last contention, moving to a vegetarian diet can lead to tremendous results as a lowered risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. This is expected when you drop your cholesterol. (Physician’s Committee, 2021)
Throughout time, we have assumed that one must eat meat to build muscle and make it as an athlete. That idea has been disproved, as per what I previously wrote about. The plant based diet reduces one’s chances of some for diseases that are some of the top killers in the country, along with promoting a healthy lifestyle. Now the discussions moves to the effectiveness of a plant-based diet under circumstances of very active people. As we reach our peak in athletic performance our body uses more resources than if we are living a sedentary lifestyle. For the plant based diet to be determined as a good alternative, it’s needed to be shown that the vegan diet cannot only meet the minimum requirements for the person, but provide more benefits than an animal based diet. There are many athletes who can attest to the power of a plant-based diet on their ability to workout as well as they do, ultra marathon runners, world-record holding strongmen, and olympic athletes have all used a vegan diet to be the foundation to their diet (The Game Changers, 2018).
There are many factors that contribute to America obesity problem, while one is the high amount of meat consumed, the amount of food that is recommended is subsided when talking about this issue. The average American, will diet as it is a staple of American cuisine,
There are many processes in our body that are important to the quality of workouts, and the recovery afterwards. The ability for blood to flow through our body leads to a healthier body that can push itself farther. The low levels of build up that vegans can experience in their blood stream can help them keep up higher levels of endurance and strength when working out. Not only in the blood does someone need their body to be optimally working, the muscles themselves are subject to the food that one eats. It has been proven that when test subjects were subject to a plant based diet against an animal based diet, that the latter had cause immensely more inflammation in the body, creating problems when wanting to better recovery after workout. (source) The inflammation of the individual was due to the increase in the levels of cortisol, the stress hormone e. Cortisol is the hormone that one’s body secretes when their stress level rises, and meat consumption has been linked to those adverse effects. When you eat meat, there are proteins such as that your body cannot digest, when can lead to The importance of regulating what goes into our body has a huge effect on how one can perform in their sport or workout.
In addition to providing health advantages for the athlete in their day life, certain foods have been shown to help athletes reach their full potential. Beets, full of natural nitrates, all of which cannot be supplemented separate from the beets or can be damaging to the liver, provide athletes to an advantages that meat doesn’t have. Studies show that on average, after drinking beet juice, runners had a 22% increase in their times, and weightlifters could lift up to 19% more weight after taking that into their diet. This evidence is found again in the journal by NAME, who said that ” ” (). Beets, while by itself will help those who are looking for improvement in physical activity. The increase in performance should influence those athletes looking to improve without the use of chemicals that have not been FDA approved.
from Capstone English 12CP
Kaiden Pemberton
Newbury Park High School
English 12CP
Mr. Janes
May 11, 2021
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