A new study from Harvard Medical School found
that at least one-third of early deaths could be prevented if
everyone switched to a plant-based diet.
Presenting the study at a recent conference, the
doctors concluded that the benefits of a plant-based diet had been severely
underestimated. In fact, the new figures suggest that at least 200,000 lives
could be saved each year if people ditched meat.
Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology
and nutrition at Harvard, said:
When we start to look at it we see that healthy diet is related to a lower risk of almost everything that we look at. Perhaps not too surprising because everything in the body is connected by the same underlying processes.
University of Toronto professor David Jenkins,
who is credited with developing the glycemic index, said humans should follow a
“simian diet, one similar to that of lowland gorillas, who eat stems, leaves,
and fruit. Dr. Jenkins explained that this type of diet was powerful in staving
off heart disease—as effective in lowering cholesterol as medication but without
the side effects.
Countless studies prove that plant-based foods
are significantly healthier than animal products. Scientists have shown that a plant-based diet reduces one’s risk of cancer, heart
disease, diabetes, and obesity. In fact, researchers at the Mayo
Clinic found that long-term vegetarians lived on average 3.6 years longer
than their meat-eating counterparts.
But eating vegan foods isn’t just great for
your health; it also protects the planet and spares farmed
animals a life of misery.
At factory farms, animals are subjected to
intense and horrific abuse: gruesome mutilations; cramped confinement and
overcrowding; and violent, bloody slaughter. If we treated just one dog or cat
the way the meat, dairy, and egg industries treat billions of animals, we’d be behind bars for animal abuse.
So what are you waiting for? Protect animals
and your health by switching to a vegan diet. Click here
to get started. And check out our Pinterest
page for thousands of recipe ideas.