Just look at all those amazing colours! And imagine the flavours and textures…YUM!
However I know that not everyone is as totally crazy about fruit and veg food as I am. But to benefit from eating plant based foods, you don’t have to ‘fully convert’ and become a strict Vegan or Vegetarian.
Just have a couple of meat free days per week and feel the difference!
Check out the reasons why vegetables are moving from the side of the plate to the centre of the plate.
1.Plant foods are EXTREMELY healthy
They are full of antioxidants, fibre, vitamins and minerals. And they have plenty of protein. Unlike outdated recommendations of combining certain foods at each meal to create a complete protein, the proper way is to simply have a variety of plant foods throughout your day. Eat vegetables, salads and combine them with lentils, chickpeas, beans, quinoa and nuts.
Vegan nutrition for expectant mums, children and athletes require some additional ‘know-how’ about dietary requirements. Contact professional coaches and dietitians for professional advice.
2. Plant based food lowers ‘bad’ cholesterol
Does your doctor want to prescribe statins that have many known side effects? Then talk to him or her about trying a nutritional approach first. Diets based on plant food are excellent for normalising your cholesterol levels. I’m living proof of that statement. If your diet can “give you” bad cholesterol levels, then your diet can also lower them.
3. Easy peasy weight loss
Eat clean, plant based wholefood with minimal grains and include healthy fats. Weight issue sorted! Really. Weight loss occurs naturally when you eat nutritious unprocessed foods high in fibre and low in animal fats. You can eat satisfying larger meals that will not leave you hungry. Ever wondered what contains more calories: a generous serve of tasty lentil chilli bolognaise served on zucchini ribbons…. or a moderate serve of meat bolognaise served on buttered wheat pasta? Well, you probably know the answer to that one.
4. Stop the Cravings
Processed, salty and fatty meat and dairy based foods ‘excite’ the pleasure centre in our brain. Eat a plant based diet and your cravings are calmed. You’ll be able to make sensible food choices based on true hunger instead of based on cravings.
5. Lower your chances of Diabetes II
Are you lined up for getting Diabetes type II ? Get out of that line by switching to plant based, lower fat vegan meals. Dr. Neal Bernard (his book on Reversing Diabetes II is a Must Read) is a huge advocate of a low-fat, vegan diet for healing and managing diabetes. The fibre content in a plant based diet slows down sugar levels and allows insulin to do its job more properly.
6. You’ll have More Energy if you eat vegan foods
Meals based on animal foods are more difficult to digest. And when your digestive system becomes tied down with having to sort out a diet with heavy meat or dairy content, it really drains you.
7. Live longer
In 2012 at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Conference Dr. Gary E. Fraser, MD, PhD, said that the latest research shows that vegetarian / vegan men lived about 9 years longer than the average male in California and vegetarian / vegan women lived about 6 years longer. This is all related to the health benefits that a plant based diet offers against lifestyle diseases. Although I think that this test group most likely have an overall healthier lifestyle anyway, like excluding smoking etc.
8. Constipation will be a thing of the past
Eating a plant based diet will provide you with the necessary amount of daily fibre to help prevent constipation, haemorrhoids and diverticulitis. Fibre assists with faster elimination of toxic waste whereas meat has no fibre at all.
9.You’ll save money
A delicious casserole or curry made with chickpeas is less expensive than making it with meat.
10. And last, but certainly not least: eating plant based meals saves the life of animals
It is estimated that each year 10 billion animals get slaughtered for human consumption. Many of these animals live in cramped cages or enclosures, barely able to move until the day comes that they are taken off to the slaughter house. How awful.
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “Animals are my friends…I don’t eat my friends.”
Or Albert Einstein: ‘Nothing will increase health and the chance for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
So start skipping a few meat based meals and start feeling the health giving power of plants!