Why Go Vegan?

Why is a Vegan Diet Healthy?

If you aren’t aware, the health benefits of going vegan are well-known.  Here are the top 6 benefits to going vegan and eating fresh fruits, vegetables and grains in the place of meat and dairy:

• Lower cholesterol
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduce the need for cholesterol-lowering and/or blood-pressure-lowering medication
• Prevent cancer
• Lose weight
• Feel better

How Does Going Vegan Lower Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is only found in foods that come from animals.  This includes all types of meat, eggs, cheese and milk.  If you need to lower your cholesterol, eat less meat and dairy and more vegetables and grains.  It’s as simple as that.

Cholesterol is the wax-like substance found in your blood.  High cholesterol causes fatty deposits to build up inside the walls of your arteries.  When you have high cholesterol, you probably have arterial plaque build-up.  This means you have a greater risk of heart attack.  Even young people can have high cholesterol.  If you eat lots of fast food, ask your doctor for a cholesterol test to find out if you need to lay off the Burger King.

How Does Going Vegan Lower Blood Pressure?

 

There are several components to lowering your blood pressure:

• Limit salt
• Limit fat
• Limit cholesterol intake
• Limit caloric intake

Healthy vegan meals tend to be lower in salt, fat and cholesterol, so eating at least 2 out of 3 vegan meals per day will automatically put you on the road to healthier living.

To put it into very simple terms, cutting meat and dairy from your diet forces you to replace many unhealthy foods with healthy ones.  This not only reduces the amount of cholesterol, it also helps to lower your blood pressure.  

How Does Going Vegan Reduce the Risk of Cancer?

According to the Archives of Internal Medicine as well as numerous other studies, eating red meat dramatically increases the risk of pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, bowel cancer and other types of cancer.  Processed meats are especially bad for the body and should be either avoided or replaced with non-meat products such as soy crumbles, soy bacon, or soy burgers.  

It is not clear exactly how red meat contributes to cancer, but there are several hypotheses.  Meat does not contain fiber, antioxidants or phytochemicals known to protect the body from cancer.  When you eat more meat than other foods containing cancer-fighting agents, your chances of getting cancer increase.  Another hypothesis is that, because meat increases hormone production in the body, eating red meat increases the risk of certain types of cancer related to hormones such as breast cancer and prostate cancer.  Finally, foods high in protein, such as meat, are metabolized by the body as ammonia, a potential carcinogen. 

Regardless of how red meat increases the risk of cancer, the correlation between eating red meat and increased risk of cancer should not be ignored.