“The Doctors”, an Emmy Award-winning, one-hour daytime talk show aired an episode on October 26, 2011 that featured a segment discussing whether vegans or meat-eaters are healthier.">
Help keep One Green Planet free and independent! Together we can ensure our platform remains a hub for empowering ideas committed to fighting for a sustainable, healthy, and compassionate world. Please support us in keeping our mission strong.
“The Doctors”, an Emmy Award-winning, one-hour daytime talk show aired an episode on October 26, 2011 that featured a segment discussing whether vegans or meat-eaters are healthier.
The episode featured sisters Kelly (a vegan) and Kaitlin (a meat eater) who are in a constant battle over which one’s diet is healthier.
President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr. Neal Barnard, (who is a vegan) was brought in to discuss the benefits of a plant based diet. He pointed out that people who go vegan tend to lose weight without cutting calories or reducing carbohydrates. ”A plant-based diet can actually unclog arteries and reverse heart disease and diabetes, as well,” said Dr. Barnard.
He also discussed studies comparing the affect of different diets on people’s health and showed charts that depicted how vegans have a lower body-mass index and show a lesser frequency of type 2 diabetes as compared to meat eaters.
WATCH THE ENTIRE SEGMENT BELOW:
Doctors are rude and Dr. Neal is smarter you can tell
It may not have been intended that way, but smtteaents like “I just think that unhealthy vegans do not help animals.” do hurt those of us who are unhealthy for whatever reason. The author should choose her words more carefully and not insult large groups of people because we don’t fit her ideal of what vegan ambassadors should be. And, again, I think that is still a nasty thing to say even to those vegans who do eat junk food and get sick. Are we really supposed to say that only health food vegans make a positive difference? I think we’ll have a lot fewer vegans if we tell people, Oh, you can’t be a junk food vegan because that hurts animals, too! Either eat perfectly or don’t bother. Why not we just teach people that yes, you can be as healthy or healthier as a vegan, but yes you can be unhealthy instead of trying to hide the fact by putting everyone on a perfect diet. If people care about the animals, they don’t need promises of miraculous health. And if they’re just doing it for the health, they are not going to be consistent vegans and they are probably going to be disappointed. There’s a lot of judgment in the post above. That sentence is just one bit. I do eat very well because I don’t want to get sicker with other problems. That would just be too much to handle. But, I’m not about to judge someone if they believe that eating the way they do is worth a few years of their life or a 5% greater risk of this or that or whatever. There’s more to life than how long you life or healthy you are. People get a lot of enjoyment out of what they eat and, heck, vegan cupcakes have done a lot for convincing people that veganism isn’t martyrdom. Adults can choose for themselves what to eat and so long as they are eating vegan, I do think it is a personal decision.