Sipping Tea With Dr. G - #1: Do I Really Have to Stop Eating Meat?

Welcome to tea time!  I am planning to start a new recurring article called "Sipping Tea With Dr. G".  In these articles I will share a tea recipe and then have a brief discussion about some food or health related topic.  Ideally these won't be long rambling because:
#1 I don't have hours of free time to write really long posts
AND
#2 Even though I want you to read these posts while you are sipping tea, I realize that you will probably be reading them on the toilet, so I will keep them brief.

First, a tea recipe:

Dublin Fog
Steep 1 peppermint herbal tea bag in a cup of hot water.  Add 1/8 teaspoon of vanilla and non-dairy milk of your choice to lighten as you desire.

Alright, let's get started.

I come across a lot of people who want to eat better and be healthier, but are not ready to become a vegan (no animal products...ever).  Good news, me either!  I always try to use the words whole food plant-based when I describe my diet because it does not exclude eating animal foods.  I know, shocker, right?  Now to clarify, most of the time I eat a completely plant-based diet, I can go for weeks at a time without eating anything from an animal.  But, here and there I will eat small portions of chicken, fish, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, pork, and rarely even beef.  I like these foods. I grew up with them like many of you did, and I am not ready to say that I will never eat them again.  But I am willing to eat a whole lot less of them than I did growing up!

So that begs the question, how much animal based food is ok to eat?  What is the magic amount? The answer is that we don't really know for sure.  The results of the China Study (a large population based study done in rural China, check out the book "The China Study" or the documentary "Forks Over Knives" for more details) showed that as animal based foods decreased in the diet the healthier the people were.  Most of the populations studied who had significantly decreased rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, etc ate about 1% or less of their total calories from animal based foods.  That doesn't seem like much, but look at that number over the course of a year.

The average person eats about 2000kcal/day x 365 days/year = 730,000 kcal/year.  1% of that is 7300kcals.  That comes out to 110 eggs, or 18 6oz steaks, or 31 6oz pieces of chicken, or 70 slices of American cheese.

Still seem too extreme?  That's ok, everyone has to start somewhere.  What if over the next year you cut your animal based food consumption in half and replaced those calories with whole foods and plants?  Or started with meatless Monday and slowly started to expand that?  I feel a New Year's resolution coming on.

The long and short of it is that eating a whole food plant based diet is part of a life style that chooses health over disease.  My job is to educate you, entice you with delicious recipes, and encourage you to change your life!  Eat plants :)

Thanks for reading!  Best health,

Dr. G

PS. If you got through this whole thing while still on the toilet you need more plants in your diet.