It’s a simple finding from a simple study, but one that reveals amazing potential benefits from a simple change in diet. Anyone can make the necessary shift in food choices and intake and reap the rewards of eating more like our ancestors did. And we’re not talking about the Paleo Diet!
Why not start now to get used to the Veggie-heavy diet we’ll all
be on by mid-century – by which time, we’re told, Animal
Protein production will become unsustianable?
Since the millennium, data mining – the filtering and analysis of information from broad data collection surveys among large populations – has become one of the most powerful tools scientists have at their disposal to discover connections between behaviour patterns, preferences and habits and social or medical outcomes. A recent data mining exercise by a team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health may go down as a classic in the anals of dietary research.
What they did
Researchers reviewed a database of food intake information from more than 10,000 middle-aged U.S. adults who were monitored from 1987 through 2016 and did not have cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. They then categorized the participants’ eating patterns by the proportion of plant-based foods they ate versus animal-based foods, and compared those findings with rates at which serious diseases and conditions developed over the term of the survey.
What they found
Their discoveries were both clear and shocking. Among the most notable of the study’s findings:
People who ate the most plant-based foods overall had a:
- 16% lower risk of having a cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and other conditions;
- 32% lower risk of dying from a cardiovascular disease; and
- 25% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who ate the least amount of plant-based foods.
The takeaway
The message we should be getting from this really doesn’t need to be analysed or amplified: It’s clear that we can all help ourselves lead longer, healthier lives just by cutting out animal protein intake and increasing our Vegetable and Fruit consumption.
My take
It’s no coincidence, I think, that the latest edition of Canada’s Food Guide, released just a few months back, calls on us all to change our eating habits serving up half a plate of Fruits and Veggies at main meals and restricting Proteins (Animal and Veggie) to no more than a quarter of our total food intake. The remaining quarter of our dinner plates, we’re told, should be occupied by Whole Grain products.
I also think it’s no coincidence that those recommendations – and the clear indications of the Johns Hopkins study findings – also support the concept behind the increasingly lauded Mediterranean Diet, which calls for heavier consumption of fresh Fruits and Veggies and reduced intake of Animal Proteins.
And the foregoing is all good – and fortunate for us all – since the coming food crisis which will make Animal Protein produce increasingly unsustainable between now and mid-century will force us to get used to the kind of dietary changes the Med Diet, the Food Guide and the Johns Hopkins study are all pointing to. I say, why not start getting used to the inevitable now, and making yourself more likely to still be around at mid-century to see how it all turns out…
~ Maggie J.