Let’s talk digestion. No, really, this is fascinating – and important. If you still have any lingering suspicions that humans are supposed to eat meat as a primary source of protein, you might want to take a look at the digestive tract of true carnivores.
Meat is hard to digest, and it takes time for it to break down so that its nutrients can be used by the body. We’ve already talked about the differences between the teeth of carnivores (sharp amd pointy for tearing flesh) and the teeth of plant-eaters (blunt and flat, like ours), and that’s where digestion begins – in the mouth.
While you’re chewing your food, the enzyme’s in your saliva begin the digestive process, the first step in breaking it down to its most usable form. After you swallow, the food moves on to your stomach, where it’s dunked in a bath of hydrochloric acid that’s creaks it down further into a substance called chyme. It travels from there to the digestive tract where its slowly pushed through by contractions of the intestines called peristalysis. As it goes, tiny little hairlike fingers called villi absorb most of the nutrients from the chyme.
Finally, the almost completely digested food makes it to the colon, where water is absorbed from the chyme along with some more vitamins and nutrients before exiting through the rectum.
Meat – the protein that overstays its welcome
Here’s where it gets interesting. Looking at a true carnivore – like, say, that lion with his big sharp teeth -- we can see enormous differences in their digestive tract. Specifically, the lion’s small intestine, where most of the nutrients are only about three times the length of his body. This means that the meat he eats moves through his system quickly, while it’s still fresh.Humans, however, have much, much longer intestines, with food taking from 12 to 19 hours to pass through the digestive system. This is ideal for plant-based foods, allowing our intestinal tracts to absorb every little bit of nutrient available, but it also means that when we eat meat it’s decaying in a warm, moist environment for a very long time. As it slowly rots in our guts, the decaying meat releases free radicals into the body.
Free radicals are unstable oxygen molecules that are present to some degree in every body. When you hear advertisements trumpeting the importance of foods and supplements containing cancer-fighting “anti-oxidents,” it’s these free radicals that they’re battling.
Scientists only know a little bit about free radicals at this time, but what they do know is this: free radicals are connected with the aging process, and may play a part in heart disease and cancer. They are, essentially, the tiny mechanisms that break down our bodies so that, eventually, we die.
While they’ll always be a part of you – free radicals are built in to cells as part of their normal activities – you can do things to minimize their damage. Too much sunlight in the form of excessive tanning encourages the production of free radicals, which is why even though a little sunlight is important each day (remember our buddy, Vitamin D?). Using a good sunblock will not only help you avoid skin cancers, it’ll help keep you younger in general. But the biggest thing you can do to limit the free radicals in your body is to avoid eating meat. For the 12 hours or more that meat is rotting away in your system, those tiny, free radical time bombs are multiplying in your system.
Along with that, as meat protein breaks down it creates an enormous amount of nitrogen-based by-products like urea and ammonia, which can cause a build-up of uric acid. Too much uric acid in your body leads to stiff, sore joints – and, when it crystallizes, can cause gout and increased pain from arthritis. Carnivorous animals, interestingly, produce a substance called uricase, which breaks down uric acid. Humans don’t produce uricase, though – another clue that we’re not meant to be meat-eaters.
The raw and the cooked
When you eat meat, how much of it do you eat raw? Well, Mr. Lion eats his raw, while its still brimming with enzymes that aid in digestion. Humans, however, cook their meat. In fact, we cook our meat to temperatures over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. This has the benefit of killing most disease-causing bacteria, but it also kills the enzymes in the meat.
Whenever you eat dead food – food lacking in the natural enzymes that help you digest it – your pancreas has to work extra hard to provide more so the food will break down for digestion. This puts strain on the pancreas that it wasn’t originally designed to handle. Which isn’t to say that you should eat raw meat, like the lion. But it’s another consideration when we look at whether humans are designed to eat meat – when true carnivores eat raw, fresh meat, all the enzymes are present to help them garner the nutrients they need as it passes quickly through their short digestive tracts, and the nutrient-depleted waste is eliminated soon after.
When we eat cooked meat, though, our bodies have to work extra hard to digest it, using precious energy needed for other purposes, overtaxing the pancreas, and creating free radicals as the dead flesh decays in our intestinal tract. But when we eat a plant-based diet, we’re feeding ourselves food that’s abundant with living enzymes, which breaks down efficiently in our systems, and which provides extra energy by not demanding that our organs work overtime to use it.
The diabetic vegetarian
The first line of combat when dealing with diabetes has always been diet. But research has been hit-and miss over the years, with nutritionists and doctors radically changing their opinions on diabetics’ best dietary options. For a long time it was believed that carbohydrates were the culprit, with doctors advising diabetic patients to limit their carb intake to just 20 percent of their total calories. Yet many cultures that eat diets high in carbohydrates have much lower rates of diabetes than Western societies. So what’s the deal?
Current research indicates that it’s not carbs that are the problem, it the type of carbs we eat. Simple carbohydrates, like those present in sugar and processed flour, raise the blood sugar so quickly that the pancreas has to create the hormone insulin to process it; complex carbohydrates, the kind found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains, take longer to break down into glucose, so the body doesn’t have the extreme insulin-producing reaction as with the simple sugars.
The American Diabetes Association now recommends that diabetics eat a diet that features a generous amount of slow-burning complex carbohydrates – including lots of fiber – with a moderate amount of protein and a low percentage of fat. Well, guess what? The vegetarian diet fits that prescription better than any other! In a study at the Pritikin Longevity Institute, a diet with 10 percent fat and just three ounces of meat per week was shown to radically help patients with Type II diabetes , allowing many of the diabetics to stop using medication to treat the condition.
Slimming down on a meat-free diet
Believe it or not, there are fat vegetarians – just as there are thin people who eat a lot of red meat. It’s possible to have a terrible diet that just happens to preclude animal proteins, and then there are complex issues of body type and metabolism as well. But there’s still some truth to the stereotype – a vegetarian eating a healthy diet consisting of a wide array of whole foods is unlikely to be overweight, and so are those who eat meat now and then but subsist mainly on plant foods.
If your omnivorous lifestyle has left you with more pounds than you’re comfortable with, then your new vegetarian diet is a great way to lose the weight. We’ve already talked about how the foods you eat provide your body with the various nutrients it needs to build strong bones, organs, skin, etc. And plant foods are easier to digest than animal foods – so you’re saving energy that you can use to be more active. Most people who switch to vegetarian diets notice that there’s more pep in their step because of the more efficient manner in which they’re fueling their body. So use that extra energy to get up and get moving – it’s an important step in weight control!
You’ll also find that your appetite is under control on a vegetarian diet. When you feed your body foods rich in the nutrients it needs, in an easily digestible form, you won’t find yourself with those mysterious cravings for more and more food at inappropriate times. When we eat a lot of animal foods, our colons become congested with mucous, toxins and the detritus of decaying flesh, limiting the absorption of nutrients from our food.
Removing that blockage from the lower intestine is why many people swear by regular cleansing of their colon, either through professionally administered therapeutic enemas or by treating yourself to a do-it-yourself colon-cleansing. Two or three weeks after transitioning to your vegetarian diet, mix a morning drink of apple juice with a tablespoon of aloe vera and liquid chlorophyll. Along with it, take two to four psyllium capsules and two capsules of cascara sagrada – everything you need is readily available where nutritional supplements are sold. Be warned, though – this will have a invigorating effect on your bowels, so do it on a day that you’re at home and close to the bathroom!
It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality
Weight loss diets for omnivores usually involving restricting something – fat, or carbohydrates, or calories. These diets are great for losing weight quickly, but most people gain weight back after their initial weight loss for two reasons – their diet wasn’t something they could stay on for the rest of their lives, and extreme diets ultimately slow the metabolism.
Let’s face it – anyone can lose weight by cutting back on the amount of food they eat. It’s called starvation! If you’ve ever been on a severely restrictive diet and felt cranky, light-headed and low on energy, it’s because your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs. Burning stored fat is necessary for weight loss, of course, but there’s a lot of other things that you need from the food you eat just to get through the day. And eventually, restrictive diets actually have the result of making you fat.
Our bodies were ingeniously designed to survive in times of famine. When the eating’s good, we store extra energy for use later in the form of fat. When the pickings are slim, however, and we’re eating less than we need to survive, our bodies kick on the emergency backup system, burning the stored fat for energy. This worked brilliantly when man foraged for his food, eating whatever he could find – when he went for long periods with nothing to eat, he got thinner but he didn’t die because of the stored fat reserves.
Your body does the same thing, even though you aren’t foraging for food and going through long periods of famine. Every time you go on a restrictive diet, your body thinks that it’s starving. So your metabolism slows down, burning less energy, keeping you alive in the face of starvation.
When you try to go back to eating “normally,” your body leaps at the chance to store fat for the next time starvation comes – so you gain weight even faster than before. Your metabolism is slower, so you have less energy and you’re less inclined to exercise and your body holds onto what you give it for even longer.
So what’s the solution? Eating healthy foods, in moderation, to keep your metabolism chugging along like a well-oiled machine. And stay away from the junk food – just because those chocolate-covered granola bars and cheese puffs are meat-free, that doesn’t mean they’re good dietary choices.
Now that you’ve successfully given up eaten animal protein, take this opportunity to pick up other good habits, too. Drink water instead of sugar (or asparytame) loaded sodas. Satisfy your sweet tooth with fresh fruit instead of candy, eat whole-grain baked goods instead of white bread, and start using soy or rice milk instead of dairy. Your body will thank you!
Feeling good, looking good
There’s truth to the adage, “you are what you eat.” Once you start fueling your body with healthful foods, it’ll show on the outside!
Take, for example, your skin. It’s the body’s largest organ, taking up about 12 percent of your body weight, and it’s the first thing you present to the world. Your skin is alive – it breathes, it needs moisture and the right nutrients to keep it not just blemish-free, but glowing and attractive. And its arguably your most important organ of all – it keeps your muscles and organs and bones protected from the elements.
The old, dry top layer of your skin sloughs off and it replaced every day or two. The body’s system of self-repair when you damage your skin is remarkable – when you get a cut or scrape, blood flows into the wound to flush out any foreign particles, then your white blood cells go to work to fight infection. Then nutrients like zinc and calcium kick in to build new skin cells to repair the damage. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
You can repay all the good things your skin does for you by feeding it foods rich in the nutrients it craves. All plant foods contain a substance called bioflavinoids, which give plants’ cells the solid structure they need. In the human body, bioflavinoids serve the same general purpose, nourishing the cells of your own blood vessels. When these blood vessels, called capillaries, weaken and break they leak blood, causing “spider veins.” These reddish splotches can appear anywhere on your body, particularly your cheeks, nose and legs. By eating foods rich in bioflavinoids, you’ll help to keep your blood vessels strong. Besides spider veins, weak blood vessels also lead to a variety of circulatory problems, including the tendency to bruise easily.
When it comes to looking your best, healthy skin is of the vital. As an organ, one of skin’s most important functions is to eliminate waste products through your perspiration. As with urine, the moisture that passes out of your body when you sweat carries with it the end product of the nutrients you didn’t need for your bodily functions. Animal products contain very concentrated protein – when excess protein is filtered through the body, whatever your kidneys can’t handle makes its way out of your body through your sweat. Some of it clogs your pores, making your skin dry and flaky, and can lead to increased blemishes.
By eating a meatless diet, you won’t be making your kidneys work so hard, you’ll have less impurities passing through your skin, and you’re helping the blood flow freely through your blood vessels. That glow of good health is the mark of a vegetarian!
The sweet scent of good health
We’ve talked about how eating meat clogs up the bowels and fills the body with toxins that it has trouble eliminating. Constipation is one side affect of this, when waste matter gets trapped in the intestinal tract. When that happens, toxins circulate throughout your body, looking for a way to get out, and many of them end up in the lungs, to be eliminated through your breath. This is called halitosis – and no amount of breath mints can help.
Believe it or not, chronic bad breath can be eliminated by paying attention to the other end of things. Colon cleansing, which you’ll remember from the chapter on nutrition, often clears up halitosis. Not that this should be a problem if you’re a vegetarian – all those healthy whole grains, fruits and vegetables are loaded with fiber, and clogged bowels are unlikely to be a problem.
But if you’ve yet to completely give up meat, you’ll find your breath will be all the sweeter after its by-products are out of your body. And your whole body will smell better overall. When we eat meat, we’re also eating whatever those animals ate, and the various toxins stored in their fat. When you work out and burn your own stored fat, these toxins are sweated out through your skin. The less toxins tou have in your body, the less your sweat and breath will smell.
Water in, water out
Almost every aspect of our body’s functionality is regulated by hormones. When we eat meat, we ingest protoglandins, hormone-like substances present in animal products – including our own bodies. Excess protoglandins can cause an imbalance of your own hormone levels, causing water retention.
While nobody wants to be puffy – and when switching to vegetarian diet, most people quickly see an improvement in their appearance because of decreased water retention – this is especially unpleasant when a woman is having, or about to have, her menstrual cycle. Premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, is marked by inflammation, swelling and bloating due to an excess of protoglandins. If you’re a woman and you’ve begun a vegan lifestyle, you’re almost entirely assured that you’ll see your symptoms of PMS diminish. If you’re an ovo-lacto vegetarian, try cutting out cheese and dairy during the week before you begin your period, giving your hormones a breather so you can have a less uncomfortable cycle.What you’ll find, as you get further into your vegetarian journey, is that you’ll look better, feel better, and even smell better when you’ve stopped eating meat.
You’ll also have more energy, which will help you be more active – and the more exercise you get, the better you’ll look and feel. It’s hard to believe that we’re attractive when we feel lousy, our sluggish, fatigued bodies just dragging along from meat-based meal to meat-based meal. But as a vegetarian, you’ll have a spring in your step and a better outlook – how can you not feel good about yourself when you’re eating healthy, socially responsible meals, and treating yourself in the best way possible? So along with your shinier hair, clearer skin and boosted energy, you’ll radiate with the confidence that comes from taking excellent care of yourself – and that confidence is irresistible!
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