Diet & Disease
A few reasons your Diet is contributing to your Death
Let’s be clear, I live the life I live because of my extreme love and compassion for animals.
But before I was able to fully wake-up and make that actual connection my initial reason for cutting animal flesh out of my diet was for my own health.
Hey, if we don’t take care of ourselves first then whom can we?
I never ever liked the taste or feeling of the meat grinding in my teeth, my teeth still hurt to this day when I recall the hours spent trying to down a piece of pork chop. So when I was about 11 my friend told me this gross story about how little worms will come out of a piece of pork if you pour coca cola on it, I never tested this theory, instead I used it as a reason to forever decline the offering of pig in my diet again.
Not long after that mad cow disease became an epidemic, of sorts.
Growing up I was a bit of a hypochondriac, by bit I mean every little ache, pain, bump or bruise threw me into an extreme anxiety attack thinking I was for sure dying of the latest disease.
By the age of 12 I was self-diagnosed with Breast Cancer, Aids, a Brain Tumor, a brain aneurysm & lou gehrigs disease – to name a few and I was sure as hell NOT going to add bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) to the list, for real. And thus my diet was now void of pig & cow.
It only felt natural that the next step would be to cut out poultry and so at 12 years old I became only what I knew at the time to be a “vegetarian”. (Although I still consumed fish on occasion).
Fast forward 14 years and what I knew to be true for me as a pre-teen only strengthened as the science and therefore proof surrounding the fact that a meat based diet is a risk factor for many deadly diseases came to light.
When people ask why I don’t eat meat my first response is always that I do not want to contribute to the inherent harm, cruelty and violence that goes hand in hand with meat consumption and my second response is “I don’t want cancer”. To which many respond with “but everything causes cancer”, and then I just end the conversation because we obviously cannot have an effective one with a response like that.
Listen, maybe walking I could get killed by being hit by a car walking across the street, maybe an airplane could fall out of the sky and land on me, maybe the EFT’s from using cell phones can give me brain cancer, these are all possibilities that may or may not happen. But of one thing I am certain, consuming a diet high in animal based foods (especially processed) can and will Kill You and you absolutely have a choice each and every day as to whether or not you participate.
Here are my top reasons Why :
- Hormones added to red meat boost breast cancer risk, according to a large study of more than 90,000 women published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Women who ate more than 1.5 servings (approximately 6 ounces) of red meat per day had nearly double the risk of developing hormone-sensitive breast cancer than women who ate 3 or fewer servings per week. Researchers believe the hormones or hormone-like compounds in red meat increase cancer risk by attaching to specific hormone receptors on the tumors.
Harvard University found that a diet high in red meat raised the risk of breast cancer for women by 22 percent, and found those who regularly ate 5.6oz (160g) of red meat a day had one third higher risk of bowel cancer. - Diets rich in animal products contribute to the increased risk incidence of obesity as well as type 2 diabetes
- Eating red and processed meats also greatly increases the risk of colorectal cancer in people with a genetic predisposition.
- Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses – including heart disease, many cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease. Dietary choices play a big role in inflammation in the body. Bacterial endotoxins found in the bloodstream following a meal of animal products causes an inflammatory response and occurs within hours after eating.
I can list many more reasons, but these speak volumes to me. The best way to ensure that your body is in a state of optimal health is by consuming a diet high in fresh organic fruits and vegetables, grains & fibre, complex carbohydrates, lean clean protein & healthy fats.
If you are questioning as to whether or not your diet is supportive of your health or destroying it you would be best to work with a registered nutritionist to find a healthy balance for yourself.
It doesn’t always mean restricting everything you are consuming, it is just about making healthier choices to support a healthy system.
As always, much love from my health loving heart to yours
♥Janine
Janine Fournier, RHN, RYT
info@janineaf.com
Reference:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/red-meat-consumption-and-breast-cancer-risk/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22412075
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
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