An excerpt from chapter 11 of THE HAPPINESS EFFECT.
Let me take a second and talk about meat. As you noticed, I didn’t include it in the “big three.” Why? The vegan diet is pretty powerful, and vegans have proven that you can survive on a plant-based diet. The key word is “survive.” You are not looking to just survive. You are reading this book because you want a perfectly balanced life in total happiness and abundance.
The truth is that I am a meat eater, although I fill up on vegetables. I really love ground beef; I think I could eat a hamburger every day. I would, however, substitute goat meat for beef if the cost was reasonable. Goat meat is extremely beneficial for you with its high nutrient and high protein content, without the bad fats from beef. Goats are also mostly organically raised, and the meat really just tastes like beef (at least when ground, it does). Goats take up less space to raise and release less methane than cows, which would help our environment. However, Americans consume more beef than any other wealthy country, and Americans are near the bottom of the good health list when it comes to wealthy countries. I wonder if there could be a connection. Hmm.
Have you ever seen the tv show, Friends episode where Joey had meat sweats? To this day when I eat low quality meat, I tend to sweat profusely. My wife and I tested this and when I eat meat without chemicals, I have no reaction. It seems to be the chemicals in low quality meats. I try to only eat naturally fed (grass, free range, or pasture) meat without any chemicals added. I will not buy meat with hormones or antibiotics in it, as they affect our bodies in a very negative way. I prefer non-GMO meat. GMO crops have all been chemically treated, so the animal’s body is absorbing those unnatural chemicals as well, which means when we eat meat, our bodies will inherit traces of chemicals from fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides. Also, GMO corn and soybean fed cattle have less nutrient value than pasture-raised livestock. According to Heathline.com: “Conventional grain-fed beef is highly nutritious, but grass-fed beef contains more carotenoids, vitamin E and other antioxidants.”
I feel that paying a little more money for chemical-free meat is worth the cost. Better quality meat makes a huge difference in how your body is able to digest it, which benefits your other life centers as well.
I made my decision to continue eating meat because vegans do not consume vitamin B12 and some other smaller, less essential nutrients in great enough quantities to allow their bodies to reach a perfect balance. If you only eat plants, you will need to take B12 supplements to find balance in your body, which means you have to take a synthesized or man-made substance. But if you have to take a man-made chemical, doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of going vegan? This one little fact tells me our bodies are designed, or have evolved, to require the nutrients that can only be obtained through consuming animal protein.
We as a society need to figure out how to produce enough meat in a humane way, without using chemicals. Maybe we could try going back to smaller local farms growing crops and raising livestock for their immediate county’s use. We don’t need to feed the world. We do need to feed each other. Just a thought.
#gmo #grassfedmeat #naturalmedicine #naturalfood
