Food is Medicine, Medicine is Food
It has always intrigued me to think about the foods we consume and how it affects our health. I have taken multiple nutritional courses as well as watched almost every documentary about food that exists. I think of food as medicine, and what you eat will affect the way you feel. That is why I have decided to write about (almost) everything I know about the 3 most common types of diets in America; vegan/vegetarian, dairy free and gluten free.
The debate about vegetarian/vegan is interesting to me because I myself constantly debate not eating meat. The reason I have not stopped is because I don’t eat dairy & eat little gluten. The vegetarian diet is designed for people who do not want to eat meat. The Vegan diet is more intense because you don’t eat eggs, milk, meat or anything that comes from an animal. Issues can arise from this diet from lack of protein intake. It is scientifically proven that carnivores are ‘healthier’ than vegetarians, but also proven that vegetarians and vegans live longer. There are constant debates over which diet is ‘better for you.’ I think that it’s totally up to the individual, but that individual should be able to choose for themselves. It is also important for nutritionists, friends, and family to be able to distinguish a person that struggles with eating disorders that switch to a vegan or vegetarian diet in order to further restrict their food intake. I do not think that it is healthy for a baby to be brought up eating vegetarian because it is much harder for them to get the proper amounts of nutrition that they need. This is simply not fair to the child.
When it comes to dairy, did you know that approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy? More than 5 percent of children have a milk allergy, and 75% of the world has some sort of milk intolerance. Lactose intolerance in adulthood is most prevalent in people of East Asian descent, affecting more than 90 percent of adults in some of these communities. There are also several studies that prove that milk is not good for you. I am particularly passionate about this topic because I have done extensive research on it, am lactose intolerant, and have worked in & studied the advertising industry.
To start with, advertising industries are backed by companies that make the milk (Corporate America). Whenever you see an ad that says milk makes you grow to be stronger, GOT MILK, or milk is good for your bones, this is corporate America telling you that. If you google the “Got Milk” campaign it reads “Got Milk” is an American advertising campaign encouraging the consumption of milk, which was created by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, and was later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers.” Milk processors and dairy farmers have lump sums of money to poor into advertising the consumption of milk in order to make more money. This is just the Got Milk campaign.
Think of it like this….every other animal grows up drinking their mother’s milk, and continues to drink the milk from the same species until they are eventually weaned off. As for humans, most of us start out drinking our mothers milk and then at some point, someone thought it was a good idea for humans to start drinking cow’s milk. While humans are the smartest animals (next to dolphins :) ) this may not be our best idea. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of cows milk goes bad every month. It is just dumped out onto the ground. When we do ingest milk, we are also ingesting the cows hormones that are given to them. To sum it up, dairy is simply a slaughter industry. Cows are treated as milk machines, taken away from their mothers, and live a short life for what? The 15% of the population that can drink it? It is very sad and honestly makes me want to stop eating meat altogether, which is why I always consider it.
Lastly, gluten free. A lot of my friends are gluten free and honestly i’d say don’t knock it til you try it. I feel like our culture sometimes gives people are hard time for choosing to be gluten free as a new fad diet, but everyone I know has serious digestive issues when it comes to gluten. They have visited doctors that couldn’t tell them what is wrong with them, been prescribed serious drugs instead and tried basically everything when the root of their issue was gluten. My friend Victoria has had arthritis in her leg ever since she was a kid. It was so bad that she had to give herself a Corticosteroid Injection every single day. She stopped eating gluten and her arthritis went away. My friend Chloe had serious stomach issues, she was always sick and throwing up. Her doctor couldn’t tell her what it was, until she opted for the gluten free diet. She never went back. She has shown me the best gluten free places to eat in Boulder and honestly, i have to say after watching my good friends follow the diet it really is not as hard as it seems. I think there could be a lot of health benefits to eating gluten free, because wheat really isn’t all that great for you to begin with. Wheat breaks down into sugar, and sugar is not good for you. Eating gluten free basically forces you to eat fresh food vs processed, which is never really a bad thing.
Diets are designed to help you lose weight, but these 3 diets are more than a temporary way to lose a few pounds. Vegan/ Vegetarian, Gluten free and Dairy free diets are a lifestyle change that improves the way you feel, think and behave. At the end of the day our health is all we have. Food is medicine, and medicine is food. What you choose to put in your body will affect everything else in your life. That is why it is important to find what makes you feel your best and stick to those foods (with a few cheat days of course!)
