A Case for Plant-Based Eating: You Are What You Eat
Recently, we watched the documentary on Netflix called You Are What You Eat. It is based on a Stanford study on the cardiovascular effects of a vegan diet. This documentary was interesting to us because it contains an experiment (a randomized controlled trial) based on twins. Essentially this means that holding genetics constant – because these identical twins have the same genetic make-up – researchers were able to manipulate the variable of diet. Each pair of 22 twins was either put on an omnivorous diet or a vegan diet. 21 pairs lasted through the whole experiment, and the documentary followed the journey of four of these pairs for the eight-week experiment.
There were four categories of studies and measurement. Researchers looked at fat distribution; microbiome or gut health; the epigenome or the biological clock; and brain function.
The documentary was interesting, because there were multiple threads running through it. For example, the documentary followed the thread of the twins as they went through the first phase of the experiment when they had their food delivered to them. Then they had to cook their own food. Another thread was a restaurant called Eleven Madison Park in New York. This restaurant was very prestigious and it had won three Michelin stars already. Then the management decided to go completely vegan and create food that was elevated and gourmet and at the same premium price.
Another thread was looking at how animal agriculture, fish farming, and the dairy industry pollute the planet, while simultaneously destroying human health and contributing to climate change. The documentary also looked at the life of a chicken farmer who ran a factory farm where genetically manipulated chickens grew too fast and got sick and couldn’t walk: he eventually converted his entire operation to mushroom farming. Yet another thread looked at the presence of harmful bacteria in chicken meat: one in 25 packages of chicken products is contaminated with salmonella (bacteria). Gross.
When looking at the fishing industry, 75% of global catch is from industrialized fishing boats, caught by 45,000 boats. Eighty-two percent (82%) of the global fish population has been depleted according to the documentary, but the World Bank puts this figure at a whopping 90%. Because of this indiscriminate industrialized operation, that destroys many other species, oceanic wildlife is at risk. Fish farms, for instance salmon farms, are creating so much pollution and threatening wildlife and human life. Tons of manure that is released directly into the ocean where the farms are, leads to diseases. Farmed fish also contain fat soluble pesticides and contaminants that create risks to human health, including cancer and diabetes, according to the documentary.
We also learned more about the dairy industry. For example, dairy cheese has a higher water footprint than plant-based cheese. Actually, dairy cheese has a higher negative impact on land and greenhouse gas emissions too. Beef was labeled as the most inefficient industry, and a case was made for more plant-based alternatives.
When it was time to look at results, it was interesting. There wasn’t a lot of change in brain function because you need to have people in the experiment of an older age and for a longer duration to see more changes for example in Alzheimer’s disease and memory function. However, they looked at a marker called LDL cholesterol (the bad kind), and on average it dropped by 10% for the twins who were randomized to a vegan diet.
In the microbiome (gut health) category, the study looked at bifidobacterium which prevents infection, and in the vegan group this bacterium was significantly increased while in the omnivore group it stayed the same. For TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), which is a blood marker for inflammation in the gut, the result was a drop by up to 350% for those on the vegan diet. In general, fatty meat and dairy products should be reduced and replaced by plant-based foods to reduce inflammation.
When it came to the epigenome or biological clock and aging, the study looked at telomere length, which gets shorter as you age, this was true for the omnivores. After eight weeks the vegans were biologically younger than their omnivore twins. Another way of thinking about this is that the vegan diet can slow or reverse your cellular aging.
The study also followed up with the twins six months later, many of them had decided to reduce meat and dairy in their diet, and the documentary closed with Pat Brown, the founder of Impossible Foods basically saying that if you had to pick a single change in your behavior to help yourself, your health, the climate and the planet, it would be eliminating meat and dairy from your diet. And, if you feel that isn’t realistic for you, you could try reducing your intake by 30% because a recent study estimates that:
“…in countries where consumption of meat is above recommended levels, substituting 30% of beef, pork and chicken with a mix of whole foods and novel plant-based meat products could lead to net savings of 728 million tonnes of CO2e a year. This is equivalent to offsetting almost all emissions from global air travel in 2022. Moreover, the shift would free up 3.4 million sq. km of farmland, an area the size of India, land that can be returned to nature to boost biodiversity and absorb carbon emissions. In terms of animal welfare, the 30% shift to plant proteins would save the lives of 100 million cows, 420 million pigs and over 22 billion chickens per year. This is equivalent to sparing all the cows alive today in the United States.”
As plant-based individuals ourselves (Marilyn for almost 13 years, and Margaret for 9 years), we cannot agree more that the best thing you can do for your health, the health of animals, fish, and the health of the climate is to eliminate meat and dairy from your diet or at least reduce it by 30% or more. It is no longer enough to blame polluting industries or practices and to neglect the action that is available to us 3 to 5 times every day: eating.
Changing one or two meals a day can make a huge difference – why not start now?
