- You’re not eating enough vegetables to optimize your health, your energy or your glow.
We all know we need to eat more vegetables. But the amount you need to really optimize your health is higher than you might think, and I bet you aren’t eating as many of them as you think, either. Even the conservative USDA recommends 5-9 servings a day! Those of us who study nutrition for a living are in agreement that most people actually do better on even more than that. Some pros, like Dr. Joel Fuhrman of Eat to Live fame, recommend eating 1-2 pounds a day!
When’s the last time you ate a pound of vegetables…?
Not that that’s some kind of gold standard, but the truth is that eating a lot of veggies has a profound, multi-level effect on your health:
- The fiber and enzymes improve your digestion and bowel health.
- The chewing and bulk slow your eating down so you tend to eat less.
- The broad array of micronutrients and flavors improve satiety signals and can help calm cravings for less healthy foods over time.
- Eating at least 5 full servings daily dramatically reduces your risk for chronic disease, including cardiovascular disease, multiple forms of cancer, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and stroke.
Animal foods tend to be very satisfying and often make up the bulk of our daily diet. When you pull those out, your appetite for vegetables naturally increases and you’ll be able to eat a lot more plant foods than you are right now without trying very hard.
The life energy in food gives us life. Eating lots of fresh produce, especially green leafy veggies, lifts your energy and gives your skin a radiant glow.
2. The quality of the animal products you’re eating may be compromising your health.
High quality animal products aren’t generally harmful to your health if you eat them in reasonable amounts. By high quality I mean:
- Wild or raised in non-stressful, uncrowded environments with regular access to the outdoors.
- Fed their natural diet (i.e. grasses not grains, for cows).
- Not treated with antibiotics, growth hormones or other unhealthy substances (i.e. the salt routinely injected into raw chicken to increase its weight/cash value).
- Killed humanely vs. under terrible stress.
But that’s not what most of us are eating.
Most of us eat conventional, factory farmed meats, seafood and dairy products which can have an inflammatory effect on our systems. When we eat lots of feedlot meat and cheese we may be taking in at least 6 types of synthetic steroidal hormones, many of which are estrogen-mimickers, and antibiotics that can kill the microflora crucial to our gut health.
According to the American Cancer Society, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer organization of the World Health Organization, has classified processed meat (hot dogs, deli meats, bacon, etc.) as an actual carcinogen, and red meat (the studies were of conventional beef, pork, lamb and goat) as a probable carcinogen.
A carcinogen.
3. Eating plant-based for even 1 day would have a profound effect on the environment.
According to the vegan calculator (thevegancalculator.com/#calculator, based on stats from www.cowspiracy.com/facts), every day that a single person eats a vegan diet, they save:
- 1100 gallons of water
- 40 pounds of grain
- 30 square feet of forest
- 20 pounds of CO2
- The life of 1 animal.
Every. Day.
Even with statistics like that, I know it may not be easy to make the switch to eating plant-based on your own. If you’ve never done it before, it’s hard to know what to eat instead of your familiar meats, milks and cheeses. Or you might be worried that you’ll miss the taste, or have trouble saying no at social and family events. Or maybe you just don’t know how to prepare vegetables in a way that tastes good!
That’s exactly why I created the Veboot (veggie reboot). It gives you 3 weeks of done-for-you menus with easy, tasty recipes and even shopping lists. The meals have been curated specifically to reduce overall inflammation and give you plenty of protein with a balance of nutrients – especially fiber – without over-doing the carb load, like on many vegan programs.
Ethical issues aside, eating plant-based isn’t a perfect recipe for health, and it’s not for everyone. The truth is that you don’t have to become a pristine vegan to improve your health or energy with more plant food. But after 15 years of health coaching primarily womxn in middle age, I can say with confidence that many of the common lifestyle health issues we face really improve by eating a good balance of protein, produce, fiber and fat. This is almost effortless with a balanced, plant-based menu like the ones in the Veboot. (And ps, if you’re anywhere on the menopause spectrum and struggling with the symptoms and body changes, plant-based eating might become your new best friend.)
If you’re on the fence, consider just giving it a try to see you how feel after a couple of weeks. The program is a terrific way to get introduced to this way of eating. The cost is really affordable (only $29 for everything, including the daily support emails!), the portions are generous, and past participants have raved about the recipes.
Want to give it a try?
Get all the program details and sign up HERE.
You won’t regret it.
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