The Importance of a Vegan Diet

When a person bites into a juicy cheeseburger smothered with all of their favorite toppings, it is difficult to believe that this wonderful sandwich is unhealthy. Many do not realize how unhealthy this burger actually is. Even health conscious individuals may think it is bad because of the mayonnaise, cheese, and the meat because it is 途ed meat The truth is; all meat, even chicken, and other animal products are bad for human consumption. Many people believe that common diseases such as, diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis and obesity are all hereditary when that is not necessarily the truth. What if someone were to tell you that they have the cure to these diseases? Would you believe them? Well, I know of a cure: eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet. With the rise of consumption of fast food and processed foods, which are packed with sugar,

salt and fat, there is a direct correlation with a rise in diabetes cases. People who have a busy lifestyle do not think that they have time to spend on making a nutritious meal, so instead they opt for the convenience. An inexpensive quesadilla from a fast food restaurant may actually cost the customer a lot more than three dollars. Years of poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle plus stress add up to create a monster of a human. No doubt, the American diet is high in saturated fat, sugar and salt but low in nutrients and fiber. Diabetes: “Glucose comes from the food you eat and is also made in your liver and muscles. Your blood carries the glucose to all the cells in your body. Insulin is a chemical, also called a hormone, made by the pancreas. The pancreas releases insulin into the blood. Insulin helps the glucose from food get into your cells. If your body doesn't make enough insulin, or if the insulin doesn't work the way it should, glucose can't get into your cells. It stays in your blood instead. Your blood glucose level then gets too high, causing pre-diabetes or diabetes(www.cdc.gov). There are two types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 means that as a child, the immune system attacked the site of pancreas that creates insulin and it is no longer able to produce insulin. Type 1-diabetes patients are required to inject themselves with insulin in order to maintain proper blood glucose levels. Type 2 diabetes means that pancreas is able to produce insulin initially but eventually the cells of the body are not able to absorb the glucose (www.tcolincampbell.org). Dairy intake is under investigation as to a contributing factor in type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Saturated fat and pus in milk cause the pancreas to be worked so hard that it is

eventually unable to produce insulin (www.tcolincampbell.org).
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), type 2 diabetes affects 8.3 % of all Americans. 35% of Americans are pre-diabetic and by 2050, 1 in 3 adults could have diabetes (www.cdc.gov). There is substantial information available regarding type 2 diabetes prevention and even reversal. But Americans prefer the easy way out through drugs or costly treatment plans that are just life (and misery) prolonging and do little to reverse the problem. According to a dialysis technician, who prefers to remain unnamed, at Fresenius Medical Care Dialysis Services in Walla Walla, WA, a majority of his patients continue to consume fast food, little vegetables and high amounts of high-fructose corn syrup (which can be found in soft drinks, candy, etc.). According to the Japanese Elderly Intervention Trial, researchers discovered that subjects who consumed over 200 grams of vegetables a day, had a reverse in a triglyceride levels and their diabetic conditions decreased (Geriatrics & Gerontology International). Take a look at graph 2 and you can seen that after 16 days of a near vegetarian diet individual痴 insulin levels begin to return to normal