WOULD you like to enjoy the holidays without having to worry about cholesterol and heart diseases, about contributing to global warming and about helpless cows, chickens and pigs about to be cruelly slaughtered?
If the answer is yes, then one big solution would be to minimize or forego animal products in your food table.
As Nobel Prize-winning Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN Climate Panel, appeals to people worldwide to eat less meat to fight global warming and lessen greenhouse gas emissions, at the local front health experts are echoing this appeal, urging Filipinos to minimize meat in their diets during Christmas and New Year. Pachauri is a vegetarian.
An exclusive Inquirer interview in December 2007 quoted T. Collin Campbell, a Jacob Gould Schurman professor emeritus of nutrition biochemistry of Cornell University in New York saying: “If Filipinos decide to eat a plant-based diet and seriously reject fast-food chains, they would gain much stature, more health, and be much richer and independent in the future.”
‘Slow suicide months’
Medical doctor turned naturopath Omar Arabia calls December and January the “slow suicide months” and appeals to people not to wait for their bodies to alarm them that something has, indeed, gone wrong.
“Heavy advertising of ham and meat products can numb the intellect. When the metabolic meltdown occurs that’s only when the wake-up call starts,” Arabia said.
He cited two of his long-term recovered cancer patients who gave the meatless diet—among other healthy lifestyle changes—a try, and succeeded.
Lisa, a 15-year survivor of liver cancer, interviewed by the Inquirer a few years ago, and Linda, a 23-year-survivor of breast cancer, abided by this dietary prescription.
Campbell told the Inquirer that Filipinos should give plant-based diets a try. “The China Study,” which Campbell co-authored with son Thomas Campbell II, cited research data showing that animal protein promotes the growth of tumors. It publishes a project which culminated in a 20-year partnership among Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine
Some health experts noted that the nutrients one gets from meat or animal products can also be found in most plant and fruit sources. The Food and Nutrition Research Institute, for instance, said the protein value of beans in reasonable servings is the same as in pork, beef, chicken and other animal sources. In place of meat, good sources of iron are legumes and dried beans. Vegetarians are also asked to fortify their “vege-meats” (vegetable proteins textured like meat) with iron. She advises vegetarians to eat a variety of food.
Protein found in malunggay
The FNRI said malunggay’s protein content is two times more than that of milk, its Vitamin A four times more than in carrots, its calcium four times more than milk and potassium three times more than in bananas.
It has minerals and amino acids.
Author Dean Ornish, M.D., who developed the Ornish Diet, specifically formulated to reverse heart disease, recommends a vegetarian diet together with exercise, meditation, an emotional support group and quitting smoking.
One can search on the Internet for vegetarian restaurants offering Noche Buena meals that can approximate the taste of the “real thing.” Check out the vegetarian restaurants nationwide as listed at HappyCow’s Guide to Vegetarian Restaurants and Health Food Stores (http://www.happycow.net/asia/philippines/).
For those who find eating out expensive, you can learn vegetarian cooking (or “un-learn” unhealthy culinary habits as well) through the OB Varona Enterprises/Varona Vegetarian store at 525-0389 for schedules of free cooking lessons and vegetarian seminars with nutritionist Blessy Varona. And for just P175, you can already enjoy an eat-all-you can buffet meal.
You can also visit www.petaasiapacific.com for a free vegetarian starter kit which is loaded with information, tips and recipes.
