PLANT-EXCLUSIVE HEALTH
We can see quite plainly that our present civilisation is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves, and we believe the spiritual destiny of man is such that in time he will view with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals’ bodies. (Donald Watson)
Plant-Exclusive Food: Eating Ethically & Healthily
Based on a dietary lifestyle of ‘plant-exclusive’ foods which may engender positive health benefits – and these benefits are enjoyed by humans, animals and the environment!
Above all, Veganism is our moral imperative that fosters an ethical and healthy way of life.
As previously explained, Veganism is not a ‘diet’ but a lifestyle and social justice movement.
Quite clearly though, our food choices most certainly play a very important and vital role within the vegan lifestyle as we all need to eat every day.
But our food choices really do determine our long-term good health and longevity.
Plant-exclusive food choices can be highly nutritious and delicious, and are the only foods which may engender triple-positive health benefits for HUMANS, the PLANET, and the ANIMALS.
Plant-Exclusive Diet
It is no coincidence that the same diet that helps prevent or cure diabetes also causes effortless weight loss, lowers cholesterol and triglycerides, cleans out the arteries, and returns the body to excellent function. But no matter how much research appears saying the same thing over and over again, the tide is unlikely to change because of the economic incentives for the medical establishment of continued illness and profitable treatments.
(Dr John McDougall)
There has been a recent move away from using the terms ‘vegan’ or ‘veganism’ towards the term ‘plant-based diet’.
Whilst many vegans become so for health and dietary reasons, our view is that a belief in veganism, based on an ethos, has to encompass more than just diet alone and that veganism is a moral imperative.
The term ‘vegan’, as defined by those great pioneers of 1944 such as Donald Watson et al, is a term to be embraced and to be proud of – and most certainly not to be scared of!
We at The Peaceful Planet will never shy away from calling ourselves VEGAN – it is the only term which must continue to define our peaceful lifestyle and socially just movement.
Even as a way of describing the dietary aspects of veganism, the term ‘plant-based’ is too ambiguous and can quite easily become open to wide ranging and misleading interpretations because of the many new fad ‘diets’ springing up nowadays which employ misleading terms such as ‘pescatarian‘, ‘flexitarian‘, ‘reducetarian‘, ‘veggan‘ and ‘seagan‘ etc.
Let’s be clear, NOT ONE of these fad-diets are VEGAN.
For example, it is possible to term a fast-food outlet meat burger as ‘plant-based‘ such as the ‘classic’ McDonald’s Big Mac burger in a sesame seed wheat-flour bread bun with lettuce, onions, and pickles – which are clearly derived from plants.
This omnivorous meal is open to total misinterpretation and yet could easily have the term ‘plant-based‘ applied to it – but it is clearly NOT a vegan meal!
Some people think the “plant based whole foods diet” is extreme. Half a million people a year will have their chests opened up, and a vein taken from their leg and sewn into the coronary artery. Some people would call that extreme. (Dr Caldwell Esselstyn)
To avoid any confusion, misinterpretation and misuse of the term ‘plant-based’, which most people assume to mean ‘vegan’, we have coined the term ‘plant-exclusive’.
This attributes it to a vegan lifestyle only and can never be linked with animal foods or any animal-based meals or any fad-diets.
Plant-exclusive describes, as the term suggests, a diet that draws exclusively on edible plants and on the edible grains, seeds, vegetables and fruits produced from them.
We include under this term edible ‘fungi’ despite the fact that they are a separate kingdom to plants
Plant-Exclusive Health Benefits
The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of “real food for real people” you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.
(Dr Neal Barnard)
People fall sick and die from a range of illnesses and diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimers. Factors causing these illnesses include:
- genetic
- smoking
- alcohol
- drugs – recreational & medicinal
- pollution
- pesticides
- chemicals in household cleaning products
- chemicals in toiletries
- food
Current medical research implicates animal foods as a root cause of most of the major illnesses and diseases of human mortality.
In fact, according to Dr Michael Greger, a plant-exclusive diet helps to prevent 15 of the top 16 causes of human death (Accidents are the odd one out):
- Disease of the heart
- Malignant neoplasms (cancer)
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases (such as emphysema)
- Cerebrovascular disease (strokes)
- Accidents (unintentional injuries)
- Prescription drug side-effects
- Alzheimers disease
- Diabetes
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome (kidney failure)
- Influenza, pneumonia
- Intentional self-harm (suicide)
- Septicemia (blood infection)
- Chronic liver disease, cirrhosis
- Essential hpertension (high blood pressure)
- Parkinson’s disease
- Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids
Most ethical vegans intuitively already knew that all animal foods are poisonous to humans and we’re quite sure that banning animal food would make complete sense if eating sausages, eggs and bacon actually caused a heart attack overnight.
But alas, the deleterious effects of eating animal foods are insidious and can take years or decades to manifest, which dupes the animal eating public into believing that sickness is purely due to ‘getting old‘ or is ‘just one of those things‘.
Undoubtedly, sickness does progress and worsen as people get older, but we argue that it’s because they continue to eat the wrong foods into old age and it’s the animal foods that ultimately kills them.
Beware the karmic wrath of the animals you kill for your food – they’ll most certainly kill YOU in the end!
Nature’s Foods Of Wonder!
Planet Earth has provided us with the most delicious and nourishing foods for human health – PLANTS!
THEREFORE, ADOPTING A PLANT-EXCLUSIVE DIET IS THE BEST DECISION YOU CAN MAKE FOR YOUR LONG-TERM GOOD HEALTH!
Disease and illness ARE reversible, with the right food choices, as proven by the likes of Dr John McDougall, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr T Colin Campbell.
Plant-Exclusive Health Benefits For Humans
The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison. (Ann Wigmore)
The abundance of nutritional benefits of eating plant foods and edible fungi include:
- Rich sources of antioxidant nutrients (vitamins C and E, beta-carotene and other carotenoids). Protect our cells from damage by cancer-causing agents, halting the processes leading to cancer.
- Contain thousands of phytochemicals (natural substances in plants, indoles, isoflavones and polyphenols). Appear to protect against cancer in a variety of ways.
- Help protect against heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and hypertension.
- Soluble fiber from grains and legumes helps to lower blood cholesterol.
- Contribute to reducing obesity, a risk factor for cancer, heart disease, and other diseases.
- Help to control and cut the spread of zoonotic diseases.
- One of the best decisions you can make to promote and improve the health of humans.
As previously mentioned, the adverse effects of the consumption of animal foods manifests in a plethora of human illnesses and diseases.
A plant-exclusive vegan lifestyle will aid the lives of millions of people annually, as well as reduce the financial burden on health services across the globe.
Plant-Exclusive Health Benefits For Animals
- An animal foods-based diet is discriminatory and speciesist against animals. As sentient non-humans, all animals have the right to live cruelty-free without humans using and abusing them for food, clothing and entertainment
- A plant-exclusive diet cuts out animal cruelty and ends the suffering and slaughter of upwards of 60 billion animals every year
- A plant-exclusive diet is the best decision you can make to protect and improve the health of animals
A vegan lifestyle will bring to an end the brutal slaughter, abuse, and exploitation of trillions of land and marine animals annually.
As a result, non-human animals will live a normal life free from the fear of abuse and exploitation.
Plant-Exclusive Health Benefits For The Environment
- A 2006 United Nations report called the meat industry one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems. At every scale from local to global.
- Plant-Exclusive diets require about one-sixth of an acre of land to satisfy food requirements for a person for a year. The average meat-eating diet requires about 20 times that.
- The amount of water required to produce 1 pound of Californian Beef = 2,464 gallons; the water required to produce 1 pound of Californian potatoes = 24 gallons. Less than 1% of water required to produce 1lb potatoes.
- The number of people whose food energy needs can be met by the food produced on 2.5 acres of land. If the land produces beef = 1 person. If the land produces potatoes = 22 persons.
- It takes up to 16 pounds of grain (many more of grass) to produce 1 pound of meat.
- An area of rainforest the size of seven football fields is destroyed every minute to make room for grazing cattle, slaughtered for meat.
- A plant-exclusive diet is one of the best decisions you can make to preserve and improve the health of the environment.
The livestock and animal foods industries wreak havoc on the environment and ecosystems.
Felling rainforests happens at an alarming rate just to create grazing areas for livestock or to grow crops such as soybeans – of which up to 85% is used to feed animals which could utilised as food for humans
The adoption of a plant-exclusive diet will improve the health of millions of people, billions of animals, and the environment.
VEGAN IS HEALTH POSITIVE FOR HUMANS, ANIMALS & PLANET EARTH!
