Our contemporaries refuse animal food, taking on faith the stories about the dangers of meat products for health. In this article, we will look at not entirely correct statements that vegetarians often make.
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The philosophical and ethical roots of vegetarianism lie in ancient times. Initially, this food system was promoted as the basis of a lifestyle that excludes violence and murder. The ideas of giving up food of animal origin were once shared by Socrates, Pythagoras, Seneca, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe, Rousseau, Byron, Voltaire, Shaw, Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and many other people who left a noticeable mark on history. It should be noted that they came to vegetarianism gradually, in the process of spiritual rethinking of their place in the world. That is why their experience deserves close attention and respect.
Our contemporaries, who refuse animal food, usually do this not because of ethical quests, but taking on faith the stories about the dangers of meat products for health. Consider not entirely correct statements, which are often made by vegetarians.
1. The human digestive tract is not designed to digest meat
The digestive organs of carnivores and herbivores have significant differences. The teeth of herbivores are adapted for grinding hard fiber, the stomach often has several chambers in which successive splitting processes take place, and the intestines are very long, which allows food to be retained in the body for a long time and extract the maximum amount of nutrients from it. In predators, chewing teeth are less developed than fangs, since rapid tearing of prey and instantaneous swallowing of pieces of meat are required. Protein food is digested faster than vegetable carbohydrates, so the length of the intestines of predators is small.
Human teeth are adapted for both biting and chewing. Its digestive tract is more like that of predators. These features indicate that we are equally able to eat both animal and plant foods.
2. Animal protein in the human stomach rots
What is the meaning of the word "rotting" in this case is not clear. In the conventional sense, putrefaction is the process of slow cell death. Nothing like this happens with meat food that enters the human stomach.
Gastric juice contains hydrochloric acid, which helps to break down food into tiny pieces, as well as enzymes that separate protein molecules into amino acids, which then enter the small intestine. In a healthy person, the whole process goes without delay, without causing any harm to health. The rotting of animal protein in the stomach is nothing more than a myth.
3. A vegan diet is the healthiest
The benefits of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and legumes can hardly be argued. However, only plant foods are not able to provide the human body with a complete set of essential amino acids. If you refuse meat, you still need to include dairy products and eggs in your diet, and ideally, seafood as well. In this case, it is possible to avoid the problems that are inevitable with a deficiency of a number of substances that are either completely absent in plant tissues or are contained in them in very low concentrations.
According to statistics, vegetarians are less likely to suffer from malignant neoplasms of the gastrointestinal tract, kidney and vascular diseases. For meat eaters, the risk of developing brain and cervical cancer, diseases of the nervous system, bones and joints is reduced.
In general, the following can be argued: a complete rejection of any animal food is harmful, like any extreme, but less radical forms of vegetarianism have the right to exist – with a competent approach to the diet.
4. Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters
There is no direct connection between the attitude to animal food and life expectancy. Among the factors contributing to longevity, living in regions with good ecology (especially with clean air and water) and a diet rich in antioxidants are considered the most important.
According to statistics, the largest relative number of centenarians lives in Japan, whose inhabitants actively eat fish and seafood. In second place are the Scandinavian countries, where fish is also present in the daily diet, namely the fish of the northern seas with a high fat content. The third in terms of life expectancy are the Italians and the French, who consume a substantial amount of meat. On the territory of our country, the largest number of centenarians lives in Ingushetia and Dagestan – traditionally sheep-breeding regions.
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5. A Plant-Based Diet Helps You Lose Weight
Convinced vegetarians indeed often successfully get rid of extra pounds, but this is due not so much to a change in diet as to the observance of the general principles of a healthy lifestyle.
Switching to a plant-based diet does not always mean the complete elimination of products that contribute to weight gain. On the contrary, in an effort to replace animal food with no less tasty and nutritious food, vegetarians are often overly fond of flour products, sweets, dried fruits, nuts and other foods that are unsafe for the figure.
6. Plant protein is similar to animal
There are no complete analogues of animal proteins in plants. Proteins that are closest in composition to animals are found in legumes. There are especially a lot of such substances in soy and its processed products (soy milk, tofu cheese, etc).
Unfortunately, plant proteins are much less digestible. In addition, excessive consumption of soy is fraught with a supersaturation of the body with phytoestrogens, which can cause serious hormonal disorders.
7. Vegetarian Diet Is Cheaper
A tasty and nutritionally balanced vegetarian menu should include a variety of vegetables, fruits, cereals and vegetable oils, dried fruits, mushrooms, nuts, and dietary supplements. Such a set in the climatic zone in which our country is located is very expensive, especially in winter.
When trying to implement a budget option for a plant-based diet, you will have to make do with potatoes, cereals, flour products, inexpensive seasonal vegetables and vegetable oil, which can be bad for your health.
8. All great apes are herbivores
This is not true. Chimpanzees, which are considered the closest modern primates to humans, are omnivores. Even gorillas, who naturally follow a purely plant-based diet, readily switch to a mixed diet of fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk, and meat when kept in captivity. Experts note that this menu not only does not harm the health of animals, but also helps to increase their life expectancy.
The main postulate of vegetarianism is the assertion that it is immoral to kill living beings in order to eat them. Its relevance each person must determine for himself. It is only worth mentioning that the way of eating has not yet made anyone kind and compassionate.
The moral qualities of a person are manifested, first of all, in his attitude towards other people, and vegetarians can not always serve as an example in this sense. Rather, something else is true: a thinking and sensitive person can come to an ideological rejection of animal food in the process of spiritual growth, as it may have happened with some great thinkers of the past.
Source: neboleem.net
