Alkaline Diet

The Truth About Meat – Why You Should Eat Less Meat

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by George Tee in Alkaline Diet Tips, Blog

You’ve been eating meat for a long time in your life, so I’m sure you’re not about to give up eating meat dishes all at once. I’m not about to tell you to. What I’m going to do instead is to explain why you should eat less of it for all the harms it can cause to your body.

The Hormones in Your Meat

If you think technology has had no effect whatsoever to the way meat is prepared, think again. The truth is, it has everything to do with the way meat is delivered to your doorstep. The common trend in agribusiness is the use of hormones to livestock for two basic purposes: to increase production of milk, and enhance muscle growth. In other words, farm animals are engineered in such a way that they will increase profit in the best way possible! You’d even be surprised that all this is legal. There are about six approved hormones by the USDA and FDA.

So why exactly are these hormones bad for the livestock? Agribusiness giants, after all, have defended themselves by claiming that these hormones, when used in moderation, do not pose any serious health threats to consumers.

This is absolutely beside the point. For one, the hormones injected to animals contain chemicals that will be integrated to their system. Once it has served its purpose, the toxic residues will remain undigested in its body; their digestive systems just aren’t meant for breaking down these chemical hormones. These residues will keep on piling up until they are toxic enough to actually harm the people who will eat them—people like you!

That’s not the least of it. The injected hormones will force the animals to produce massive liters of milk that it normally wouldn’t be able to in regular circumstances. To prevent malnutrition, every cattleman in his right mind will use antibiotics. These antibiotics, once used excessively, will affect the cattle’s health in the long run, as well as the people who will eventually eat them. Some of the diseases linked meat injected with hormones and antibiotics are cancer of the breast and uterus.

The Slaughter of the Cattle

If you’re sure that the meat you’re eating is totally organic and is not a result of hormones, I wouldn’t recommend feeling so safe and secure. The very moment animals are slaughtered, contamination of the meat sets in.

Like humans, animals have adrenaline glands. This goes for cows, fish, pigs, and chickens that have all found their way into your stomachs at one point or another in the past. When they are about to be killed, these animals, like any other living being, will feel terribly frightened and release adrenaline.

The adrenal glands of the animals will have remained inactive and weakened throughout its entire life–until it gets slaughtered. The sudden jolt of the adrenal glands for the first time will release adrenaline accompanied by high cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure. When put together, the combination of the three will only harm people who will consume its meat. The end result? Diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Addison’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease.

This is just one of the long-term effects of eating meat. A high-protein diet consisting of mainly meat will also cause bone loss and osteoporosis. Studies prove that the likelihood of getting bone loss problems is directly proportional to the consumption of protein, not just the loss of calcium. The relationship of eating meat and having cancers of the colon, pancreas, and breast is also very hard to ignore.

The Immediate Effects of Eating Meat

If these long term negative effects are too far in the future to even worry about, then how it can affect your health in the short term. In fact, the health complications you have now may even be caused by your unstoppable consumption of meat.

A study among the dietary patterns of Chinese Singaporeans over a 5-year period concluded that a diet rich in met and carbohydrates as a matter of fact increases cough with phlegm. This merely affirms studies that have made in the past on the matter. It may even affirm your case: if your cough is characterized by phlegm, then meat is one of the definite culprits.

By eating meat, you also stress your body into a state of acid-alkaline imbalance. Most types of red meat are acidifying substances that eating vegetables on the side will barely offset the imbalance in your body. In other words, your body will leach off vitamins and minerals in your body in an effort just to restore your pH balance.

In the unlucky event that you eat meat infected with tuberculosis, you will end up having the disease as well. This goes for many other diseases that the cattle may have had right before it died.

A Complete Diet with Less Meat

Perhaps the final thread of reason why you insist on eating meat is the complete diet you can get from it. Apparently, even that is not enough of a reason. You can still have an absolutely complete diet with all the vitamins, minerals and protein that you need without eating meat often.

Here are some ways to complete your diet:

1. Protein

While meat is inarguably the richest source of protein, you can still get your protein needs from nuts, seeds, wholegrain and soya products. These will give you the amino acids necessary for optimum health.

2. Fatty Acids

The essential fatty acids, linoleic acid and a-linoleic acid, can be obtained from soyabean or rapeseed oil. Instead of using vegetable oil or corn oil, cook your food with these instead.

3. Vitamin B

Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) and Vitamin B12, while essentially found in meat, are found in mushrooms, almonds, green leafy vegetables, seaweeds, algae, and whole grains.

Stopping yourself from eating meat is difficult, even impossible to a lot of people! I’m not telling you to! However, I am telling you that you should be aware of the effects of what you eat, specifically meat, and just how much you should eat it.

Tags: less meat, vegans, vegetarian