Most of us picture cave people wearing animal skins, sitting around a fire holding a chunk of animal flesh. That is true only in cartoons. In real life, our early ancestors ate a lot of plant based foods.
Archers had to get enough arrows in an animal so that eventually it bled to death as the hunters followed it. After the animal was dead and cut into convenient pieces, there was still the problem of getting it home while the smell of blood attracted large predators. And then there is the problem of storage, meat rots quickly, even when cooked.Plants were abundance and easy to harvest and store.Occasional meat was important because meat contained a some impotant nutrients that were not available because plant foods were harvested in a small area. Different biomes contained different nutrients in the soil. Plant foods harvested in only one biome have less diverse nutrients. Animals roamed over many biomes while grazing and migrating, collecting a large variety of nutrients in their flesh.Today, we consume plant foods from not only around our country, but around the world. There is no lack of variety in the nutrients available to us in our supermarket. We no long have to rely on roaming animals to collect important nutrients for us. It is entirely possible, even desirable, to get all of our nutrients from plant based foods without consuming animal fat, the single most dangerous food produce in our food chain. Sugar is the next most dangerous. These food items kill more people than cigarettes, alcohol and drugs combined.If we, as a species, eliminated animal fat and refined sugar from our diet, most of our medical personal would be without jobs. It would eliminate almost all type two diabetes, heart and circulatory problems and high blood pressure. It would also eliminate the next most common cause of deaths, medical mistakes, because fewer people would be seeking medical services. My son loves meat of all kinds as did his late father. My son had his first heart attack at thirty four and his second ten years later. My husband had five clogged arteries in his fifties and open heart surgery. Then two strokes and a final heart attack at age sixty seven on Thanksgiving day. My son's boys' stepfather, a large man who loved his meat and fried two turkeys at Thanksgiving, recently had a fatal heart attack and he was not yet fifty.My daughter and her husband have been vegetarians for many decades. They are on no drugs and as healthy as they were as teenagers. She was a vegetarian when pregnant with twins. She carried them a couple of days shy of 40 weeks and they were six and a half pounds each. She weighed 110 pounds the day after they were born. A nurse told my daughter that her twins were the first twins they have ever put in the regular nursery.A study in the UK found vegetarian pregnant women had fewer complications and their children had an IQ that is four points higher than children of meat eating mothers. Four points is not enough to make a difference but is enough to suggest vegetarian is the way to go when pregnant.I have been a vegetarian for several decades. I am 5 foot two and weigh 115 pounds. I was a meat eater most of my life and I once weighted 146 pounds.It is hard to change one's diet. If you want to do it, do two things, eliminate one bad food item and add one good food item. Chicken is a good first elimination because of arsenic and pathogens. Wait until you are comfortable with the change and then eliminate another bad food item and add another good food item. Eventually, you will have a healthy diet. And with a truly healthy diet you can eat all you want.As your diet improves, your heart rate will slow, your blood pressure will drop, your blood sugar will stabilize and you will lose weight, if you are carrying extra. You will also have a lower risk of dementia. And you will feel so much better.As you change your diet, over time your taste buds will adjust and your new diet will become as delicious as your old, deadly diet. Adjustable taste buds is why people in different areas have different standards of delicious for food, some of which is just down right strange. Sour Kraut? Raw fish? Raging hot peppers? Blood pudding? I could go on.What you eat often becomes delicious as your taste buds adjust. Fruits and vegetables and grains are already delicious and will become more delicious. It is the missing foods that will be the real problem. But in time you will no long find them delicious.I once loved chicken wings – fried or baked or barbecued. And pot roast was juicy and delicious. Now all meat just taste gammy and nasty. When I eat a little meat to please someone I smile and chew. But I do not eat very much. And I can't wait to brush my teeth and get that nasty taste out of my mouth.In my memory, meat is nice. In my mouth – not so much.
The choice is yours, your can choose the foods you have learned to love or the people in your life you want to spend as much time with as possible. My youngest grandsons are now thirteen and they do not remember their grandfather. They were three the Thanksgiving he had his last heart attack.
Even if you only eliminate or cut down on portion size of some of the dangerous foods, it will improve your health. Please give it a try if not for yourself then for your loved ones.