In most scary stories for children, a monster normally kills the good guys—humans. Funnily, treating the monster nicely and giving it the care that it lacked ends up transforming it into one of the good guys in most stories. Sadly, these stories are very similar to the story of the relationship between men and food. Among man’s needs, food ranks first. In fact, Eating is the one activity that almost every human being does on a daily basis, however, unlike many other very common activities, a huge part of people’s expenses is allocated to food in general. Surprisingly, despite all the money, time, and resources that it takes to get food ready for consumption, many of us still do not understand the power of food. Eating is not merely an activity done to keep stomachs running; it is instead the consumption of substances that have the ability to kill, heal, or strengthen a human’s body. In this paper I will, therefore, argue that adopting balanced plant-based dietary discipline would not only significantly reduce the number of people who suffer or die from top life-threatening diseases but also treat some diseases, such as coronary heart disease, because losing lives to something that we can control, such as a diet, is ignorance at its best.
If asked what the number one cause of death or Disability-Adjustable Life-Years (DALYs) is, many people in foreign countries would think of crime while most Americans would say heart disease; however, dietary factors are the main cause of most deaths in the US. A DALY is a way to express the amount of time lost to illnesses, disabilities, or death in one’s lifetime, and according to Christopher J. L. Murray’s research article, titled The State of US Health, 1990-2010: Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors, from the year 1990 to 2010, 26% of total deaths and 14% of DALYs are triggered by lack of attention to our diets. In every 100 deaths within those 20 years, 26 deaths had something to do with people eating unhealthy for a certain period of time. Food literally claimed more lives than tobacco smoking, drug and alcohol use, and blood pressure. In other words, we feed our bodies harmful substances for years until death comes knocking on the door. Some people use lack of enough time to pick their diets carefully as an excuse; however, there is nothing more important than staying healthy otherwise no one can be able to work in the first place. Part of the reason why people do not have a sense of emergency when it comes to risk of diseases triggered by a diet is that the symptoms develop over a certain period of time. These diseases that result from bad eating habits include “musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes, mental and behavioral disorder, neurological disorders, digestive diseases, cirrhosis, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular and circulatory disease, and cancer” (Murray). They all develop in phases and are either very expensive to cure or not even curable when recognized in a late phase, yet we have control over their cause. Unlike their treatment, eating healthy is not considered to be expensive for most people in the US. Even though the society has different economic classes, most people have enough money that hands them control over what they eat, but they simply pick the wrong food. In the end, all the efforts of swallowing pills and undergoing surgeries to cure the discussed diseases represent how extreme the consequences that come with lack of dietary discipline.
On one side of the topic, some people argue that today’s powerful factories, which carefully regulates what we consume, make sure that we eat safer foods; however, they do not understand that eating safe food does not imply eating a balanced diet. This old concept that is becoming a cliché over time is actually key to reducing the risk factors caused by food. In his paper, Murray claims that “the most important dietary risks in the United States are diets low in fruits, low in nuts and seeds, high in sodium, high in processed meats, low in vegetables, and high in trans fats” (Murray). One might think that most of these foods can be spotted easily; however, their consumption is extremely high that it is the norm in many different regions of the US. Unfortunately, foods that check most if not all these boxes are consumed by many since childhood, and their dominance tends to skyrocket on college campuses. Take snacks and baked goods as an example. They are manufactured in factories, and taste good most of the time, which somehow explains why many people have go-to snacks and consider it normal. Shockingly, in most cases, a go-to snack translates to a go-to food that is high in trans-fat, which will slowly but efficiently lead one to the DALYs path. In reality, some people make an effort to becoming healthier consumers, and they drop eating food high in most categories like pizzas to chose vegetarian options, such as veggie burgers. Decisions like these are not the best option either because veggie burgers are also high in sodium, and thus should not stand alone as a meal. The human body needs a mixture of a variety of foods to neutralize and complement one another. The ugly truth is that some foods, which are harmful to our health, found a home in our daily lives and are slowly becoming part of the American culture. Consequently, allowing trust in manufacturing factories outweigh focus on a balanced diet which increases people’s vulnerability.
Despite the guilt that one might feel about their diet, the environment plays a huge role in pushing individuals towards a certain path. As proven in Mun Yee Kwan and Kathryn H. Gordon’s study, found in their peer reviewed article titled The effects of social support and stress perception on bulimic behaviors and unhealthy food consumption, living in a stressful environment and experiencing low social support lead to bulimic behaviors and an increase in consumption of unhealthy foods. Bulimic behaviors are associated with binge eating, which stands for eating large food quantities in a short time span, and they have serious consequences that can even include death. Unfortunately, most unhealthy food choices discussed in the previous paragraph are abundant in high stress level places such as colleges and areas near work places. As the participants in their study, titled study 1, were all college students, it is alarming that the results affirmed that most adults start the process that leads to DALYs at a young age. Feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the number of tasks at hand leaves room for less engagement in social activities, and thus students end up with the mindset of having little time to eat. As inhabitants of the fast food era, numerous choices of foods that can be eaten while working, such as snacks, hot dogs, and sandwiches, are always available on the menus. Once one starts consuming these products, a culture of unhealthy eating is slowly nurtured, and they end up being main meals: breakfast, lunch, or dinner. When one graduates and starts working, there is a high chance of ending up in another stressful environment, which in turn solidify the old unhealthy choices. In time, snacks and burgers become the easiest option, and people start consuming a significant amount of them, only to realize 20 years down the road that their bodies are falling apart.
Many people believe that no matter how well one treats her body, at a certain age, we grow weaker and become vulnerable to any powerful disease. Disagreeing with this point would be unrealistic because the human body stops producing new cells at a certain point, and thus the body starts the journey towards death. This point might seem to say that no matter the type of diet, humans should not care because we will die one way or another, but in reality, it argues that humans need more support from another source once their bodies can no longer support themselves. In other words, everyone needs something that strengthens their bodies to at least be able to avoid life-threatening diseases for 30 or more years. The human body, therefore, needs a type of diet that would enable it to avoid malfunctioning at all cost.
What if instead of waiting for the symptoms of one of the mentioned diseases, people adopted a diet that not only prevents them but also has the ability to reverse them? According to Dr. Michael Greger, in his TEDx Talk titled Food as Medicine, the ideal solution to significantly reduce dietary related illnesses is adopting a plant-based diet. In his own words, he claims that his grandmother, who could no longer walk because she was diagnosed with end-stage heart disease at the age of 65, adopted a plant-based diet that enabled her to live 31 years after passing multiple surgeries and being sent home to die. Eating foods rich in vegetables and fruits literally saved a person dying from a heart disease. One might question the science behind this miracle; however, Greger presents evidence for his points in the speech. He discusses a research that evaluated why coronary heart disease was almost inexistent in Uganda while it was killing so many people in a far developed country like the US (Greger 3:30). As predicted, the results had everything to do with the differences in the diets of the citizens of both nations. On one hand, Ugandans ate food that was mostly vegetables and other plant-based products, and on the other hand, Americans were doing the opposite. They consumed meat-based foods and sometimes surrounded them with a few vegetables. As a conclusion, He proves the common Americans’ diets the ultimate number killer of people. Many might argue that Ugandans in general have a shorter life expectancy, claiming that they might not be living long enough to face heart failure, and thus they conclude that it would be unfair to compare them to Americans. Greger refutes this point by comparing the life span of Ugandans with that of Missourians (4:15). He says they are very similar, but Ugandans are healthier when alive. On the other side of the coin, it should always be noticed that Ugandans do not have the same quality of education, lifestyle, or health care as people in the west. This only leads Greger, a vegan himself, to conclude that a plant-based diet is the best decision towards a healthier nation.
In today’s world, the terms vegan and vegetarian trigger many back and forth arguments about what meals are better for the environment; however, everyone has to carefully understand that a balanced plant-based diet is different from that of a vegan or vegetarian. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a vegan is “a strict vegetarian who consumes no food (such as meat, eggs, or dairy products) that comes from animals.” Many people find the idea of being a vegan almost unattainable because it has many limitations. Unlike a vegan meal, a plant-based diet does not imply the total omission of animal products from the plate. This diet can involve foods like meat and cheese as long as it centered on foods that are directly derived from plant. In other words, animal products should be considered as addition to the main meal, which implies that they are relatively less in quantity compared to the plant-based products. This definition clearly places this diet in the middle ground, somewhere between a vegetarian diet and an omnivorous diet, making it a reasonable solution for most arguments.
With all the arguments surrounding these groundbreaking ideas, researches, and funds, like many, Greger does not understand why people do not turn to a plant-based diet even after Dr. Dean Ornish proved that the diet is able to reverse heart diseases. To fully comprehend the reasons behind the unpopularity of this meal, one must examine the factors that boosted the popularity of the meat-based food industry. First, it is easy to obtain at any market. In other words, the industry produces enough meat, such as chicken, beef, and pork, for the demand available. Many large successful factories have turned to meat production because it is a booming sector that produces millions in terms of revenue. As a result, the government has to support the industry in order to build a strong and stable economy. With all this support, a meat-based diet can easily be the number one meal for most of the population’s homes, restaurants, and fast food stations. On the other side of the coin, the plant-based food industry has constantly struggled in these sectors in which the meat-based food industry has exceled, making it very rare to find a significant number of families or individuals that adopted the meal. In terms of safety, moreover, many people argue that factory foods are safer because the factories do their best to attain that goal. Despite all the technology that the world sees today, most of the plant-based products do not pass through factories before reaching the consumers, raising skepticism in their minds. In addition, Americans who love meat have found ways to make meat easy to prepare, such as preparing hot dogs, and they also constantly apply their innovation to make different meals using one product, such as the different types of chicken available in college dining halls. Clearly, sophisticated research and eye-opening TEDx Talks are not enough to promote the healthiest meal, therefore, more attention and funds should be directed towards helping the diet check all the boxes mentioned above to turn the society to a healthier path.
Despite the significant number of lives that a change in diet is able to save, it can only do so if people make the decision to adopt. To this day, many people still suffer, get hospitalized, or even die because they did not pay enough attention to their consumptions. This paper looked at different sources to find a diet that would be suitable for the majority, but this suggested solution can only help people if both the government and factories add the plant-based diet’s components on their list of priorities. Either way, the most valuable asset to both societies and individuals is life, and thus working towards creating a healthier community is the reason behind shifting from a meat-dominant plate to a plant-based foods dominant one. Imagine a world with little or no deaths to coronary heart diseases, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases. That is the power of a plant-based diet.