Is There Anything Good to Eat?
Eat [real] food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael Pollan
Parathas oozing melted butter and veggies, spiced with chili. A cold cardamom lassi or caramel macchiato. Pizza. Chips and guacamole. Apples and peanut butter. Bright paneer masala with sweet tomatoes and fenugreek.
Food! Don’t you love it?
After school, what’s the first thing you want to do? Eat! After any sport or exercise, during a movie, while visiting with friends, what do you want to do? Eat! Enjoying the taste and energy of food is a central part of being human, especially being a teen human. The fact that you’re growing quickly is no news flash to you or your parents, who foot the bill for your appetite. Your changing body and rapid metabolism give you plenty of good reasons to open the fridge or forage through the cupboards.
What kind of foods are you looking for? What satisfies you? Probably different things on different days. But generally speaking, what do you reach for? Sweets? Fried foods? Fresh fruit? Bread and cheese? Anything vegetarian? Only vegan foods?
Naturally, you want food to taste good. No question about that! But you also want other things. Energy. Feeling good, not just full. The connections with friends and family that are often made over food. A healthy planet, one whose people and animals aren’t being harmed by what you choose to eat.
So it makes sense to think about what goes in your mouth. Does it leave you feeling good in every way?
You know that fresh foods are better for you than processed foods. If you read the label of ingredients on a package (Yes! Do that!) and don’t recognize most of the words, put the darn thing back on the shelf. Preservatives and sugars are really tough on your body. Same for palm oil and food coloring and artificial sweeteners. If you see that a package has maltodextrin, high-fructose corn syrup, saccharin, or aspartame, do yourself a favor and choose something else. Some on-line research will quickly show you that these ingredients can lead to a variety of health problems. Ironically, artificial sweeteners can even lead to weight gain! Our taste buds get used to their intense sweetness, making fruits and vegetables less appealing.
There are plenty of great foods that don’t have risky additives. You’ll soon learn what brands you want to reach for. Eat to have a healthy body, to feel good, both now and in the future.
What you eat today is connected to how your body will feel tomorrow and long after that. Sugar and fried foods especially have effects that build up in your blood and cells. One of the many awful effects of overeating either sugary or fried foods is diabetes. This is a disease you definitely do not want to get. It can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, and neuropathy (numbness and tingling in hands, feet, arms, and legs – even to the extent of requiring amputation). It’s becoming an epidemic because of people’s food habits, but you don’t need to be part of that.
The good news is that the most common type of diabetes is completely preventable! Move away from fried and sugary foods to improve the way you feel now and boost your health in years to come.
How does your eating help or harm our Earth? This question is especially important to your generation. Young people are really concerned about the world they’re inheriting.
There’s lots of evidence that being vegetarian or vegan is the single most important thing anyone can do to help the environment. More than giving up your car, more than recycling or taking short showers. Growing food directly for humans instead of animals is a much better use of land and water.
For example, 2,500 gallons of water are needed to make a pound of beef, but only 250 gallons – a tenth of that – is needed for a pound of tofu, and just 25 gallons for a pound of wheat.
In addition to gulping water resources, enormous amounts of land are used to grow food for animals or to shelter them. One of the major reasons the planet’s rain forests are being cut down is for animal agriculture. Once, these forests covered 14% of the world’s surface; by 2015, that was more than halved to 6%. The rapid destruction of forests on a grand scale contributes to global climate change.
You know about the problems that come with human-induced climate change. Larger, more violent hurricanes and tornadoes; extremes of heat and cold; flooding and fires; rising water levels as polar ice caps melt. You know that we all urgently need to take action to help Mother Earth.
You often hear that everyone needs to use bus and rail more in order to reduce the CO2 and other harmful emissions of private automobiles. But you seldom hear that all the planes, trains, trucks, cars, buses, and boats in the world combined create fewer greenhouse gases (13%) than raising, feeding, and transporting livestock for food. Livestock activities create an estimated 18% of all greenhouse gases.
Vegetarianism is also a compassionate choice. Animals don’t need to live miserable lives in crowded cages or barns and die often-painful deaths in order for you and me to be healthy.
India has more vegetarians than any other nation. However, as influences from the US and Europe seep into Indian culture, there is increased pressure to eat meat. Interestingly enough, the reverse is often true in the West. Going vegan is becoming more and more popular among Western young people as they become aware of the cruelty and environmental destruction of the animal industry and the health benefits of a plant-based diet.
Millions and millions of people are “plant-strong” and healthy without eating animals. Have some doubts about that? Go online and search for “vegan and vegetarian athletes.” You’ll come up with names like Anil Kumble, cricket champion, tennis star Novak Djokovic, and Patrick Baboumian, Germany’s Strongest Man. Or ultramarathon champion Scott Jurek; Fiona Oakes, fastest female to run a marathon on all seven continents; David Meyer, winner of World Championship gold medals in Jiu-jitsu; Mika Ireste, competitive roller derby player, vegan since age four. And lots more....
Give some real thought to vegetarianism – for your health, for the health of our planet, and for slaughtered animals. Do some research from solid sources, like those in the online book Being Vegetarian (https://rssb.org/ebooks.html).
But whether or not you choose to be vegetarian or vegan, do choose to be aware of what you’re eating. A lot of people unfortunately don’t realize that what they eat affects their body and mind. Athletes, doctors, and nutritionists know better, and so can you. Like a runner in training for competition, eat food that makes you strong and healthy, tastes good, and makes you feel great.