10/24 Six More Years
If you were given the option of having an additional six years to live, would you accept it? The secret is simple, live longer by eating a plant based diet.
An ongoing study of approximately 96,000 Seventh Day Adventists has just released some initial findings and they are extraordinary. The study indicated that vegetarian or vegan women lived on average 6.1 years longer than their omnivorous counterparts and men, a whopping 9.5 years longer.
It is amazing to me that by simply enjoying vegan food, I could potentially improve my life expectancy by six years. Food is much more powerful than I had ever realized. Until I became vegan, I used to think that the foods I ate were in two categories, they either made me fat or kept me less fat. I never thought of food as fuel or medicine. I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know that dairy and animal products caused heart disease, high cholesterol and cancers of all kinds. I did not know that the lean meats or fat free dairy products I was eating could potentially cause more harm to my body than the extra 10 pounds I was trying to diet away.
Now that I know how significantly the food I eat affects every aspect of my health, I am willing and excited to take responsibility for what I eat in a completely new way. The information is clear, dairy and animal products can cause life threatening diseases, vegetables do not. This is not in contention. It was not made up by hippies or separatists. Therefore, it seems like an easy choice to fill my life with fruits and vegetables and eliminate animal and dairy products.
It is up to us, regardless of our family history of this disease or that. Any one of us may have genetic links or predisposition to disease but we have the opportunity to create or impact our own health history with our food choices. Every cell in your body will respond to your new choices and regardless of what the rest of your family may or may not have had, your new choices will help you create your own physical experience.
Lets dedicate our time and energy to the things we can control like how we feed ourselves. Decide to nourish your body in a way that promotes health and longevity. The important thing is to start now, wherever you may be and go from there. Don’t look back at what you ate yesterday or an hour ago…make new choices now and give yourself your best shot at living a healthy, disease free life.
Below is the article written by Hilary Pollack in its entirety from VegNews online. I think it is worth sharing and most certainly worth considering.
The ongoing results of a new large-scale study illuminate the health benefits of adhering to a vegetarian diet.
“Loma Linda University’s School of Public Health recently released some of the findings from its current Adventist Health Study-2, and the results make a convincing argument for plant-based eating. The study is currently following roughly 96,000 Seventh-day Adventists with a variety of dietary habits, although many Adventists are vegetarian or vegan due to religious belief. Vegetarian Adventist men were found to live to an average age of 83.3, 9.5 years longer than other Californian citizens, and women to 85.7, 6.1 years longer than their omnivorous counterparts. Additionally, the study found that men who consume beef more than three times per week are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease, and women with a diet high in meat and cheese have a more than doubled risk of developing ovarian cancer. Loma Linda University includes more details and statistics on its official website for the study”.
I know that being vegan does not insure that I will be spared cancer, heart disease or any other condition, but I am confident that by eating a healthy plant based diet I am giving myself the best shot to live a long and healthy, disease free life. One that may even be six years longer than it would have been, simply because I chose to enjoy vegan food. So worth it.
Have a delicious day.
Tags: Adventist Health Study-2, Loma Linda School of Public Health, plant based diet, Seventh Day Adventists study, trying vegan, vegan wannabe
