The continued commentary pervading America currently is continuing to delve into the lifestyle choices Americans have been making for years, which has led to the rise in obesity, Type-2 Diabetes and an assortment of heart problems and other diseases that could readily be prevented if we changed the way we eat as a society. Groundbreaking books have looked seriously into this phenomenon in recent history, but few have given the number one solution: going vegan. Yes, vegan, that nasty word the mainstream media has convinced so many in this country is synonymous with radical or crazy. While reading Mark Bittman's New York Times column published on April 12, there was a glimmer of hope that he would finally break through the misinformation and tell Americans what they need to hear. Instead, he skirted around the whole “meat-eating” thing and talked on the importance of making healthier choices to bring down disease rates and obesity. His focus was on how to save money through healthier lifestyle choices. “For the first time in history, lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and others kill more people than communicable ones. Treating these diseases — and futile attempts to ‘cure' them — costs a fortune, more than one-seventh of our GDP,” he wrote. Yes, that is absolutely correct. These diseases can be curtailed, reducing the money we spent on health care, but only if Americans are ready to take that step toward a new vision for what is to be eaten. Bittman continues: “But they're preventable, and you prevent them the same way you cause them: lifestyle. A sane diet, along with exercise, meditation and intangibles like love prevent and even reverse disease. A sane diet alone would save us hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe more.” But what is a sane diet? In Bittman and other commentators, a “sane” diet means reducing saturated fats and other high-cholesterol foods from one's diet. It means, as Michael Pollen tells us in “Omnivore's Dilemma,” to eat in moderation, reduce meat intake and focus on plant-based foods as the majority of our diet. That's all good and well, but the reality is, if we want to have a healthier country, and reduce the money spent on health care for the unhealthy, a diet void of meat and animal products is the only solution. Looking strictly at the cost of production, if we took away the US government's subsidies on meat production, the cost of a hamburger would be around $35 and a steak $89. Think of all the money going into the industry simply to produce the hamburger and steak. That adds up into the trillions of dollars annually across the globe. We could do a lot with that money – and at the same time reduce the need to flow financial capital into health care for diseases that are entirely preventable, or curable as is the case with Type-2 Diabetes – a vegan diet has been proven to eliminate Type-2 diabetes. Vegans live longer, have less disease, lower cholesterol, and as the world's largest animal rights organization the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has said, have better sex. All the above seem to be worthy in themselves of going vegetarian. The China Study – conducted over 20 years by Oxford University, Cornell University and The Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine – has shown that meat consumption has put Americans on, literally, a deadly path. The study details the connection between nutrition, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. “People who ate the most animal based foods got the most chronic diseases … people who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic diseases. These results could not be ignored,” said Dr. T. Colin Campbell, an author of the study and a respected nutritionist. Why then are we continuing to tell people to “eat better” when we should be telling them to avoid meat altogether? Sure, the dairy and meat production lobbies are vast and difficult to battle, but our lawmakers and commentators such as Bittman have a responsibility to tell the truth, the whole truth. We do not need more articles extorting the idea of a healthier diet of moderation. Vegans and the vegan diet is not crazy or radical. In fact, if taken in its entirety, a plant-only diet is the only solution to solving our financial problems, environmental degradation and creating a healthier society. Tell the world the truth. Go vegan. BM
