I continue my research with three more sources focusing on the question: how does being a vegetarian effect me physically, mentally, and emotionally?
The first source was written by Walter C. Willet M.D., who is the chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard's School of Public Health; making him a credible author. His essay talks about the unhealthy side of being a vegetarian and what sort of food a vegetarian should eat. "The all-American vegetarian diet is coke, pizza, and ice cream". A healthy vegetarian diet is lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and few starches and sugars. Willet recommends limiting eggs, fish, or dairy products because evidence shows that high consumption increases the risk of fatal prostate cancer.
Willet's article is helpful to me because it makes me see the darker side of being a vegetarian. My main purpose for this immersion project is to live a healthier lifestyle. If I don't pay attention to what I'm eating I could end up being worse off than if I stayed omnivore. I will use Willet's diet advice to develop a secure plan to eat healthy vegetarian meals.
Find this article here: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/health-advice/2010/01/11/does-being-vegetarian-mean-healthful-eating-walter-willett-md
My next source is an article written by Harrison Wein, Ph.D. called "Risk in Red Meat?" on the National Institutes of Health's website. In this article, Wein discusses a study done by Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. The study was used to find out the risks of red meat intake since past research shows that red meat is related to risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer; as articulated in my last reading log. The study had over 37,000 male and 83,000 female participants being in 1980 and every four years the participants would fill out a food questionnaire. The results: almost 24,000 people died during the study. 5,900 were from cardiovascular disease and 9,500 from some form of cancer. These were the people who had the highest consumption of unprocessed and processed red meat. What the scientists calculated was that for every one serving of red meat, the risk of mortality increased by 13% ad any extra serving raised it to 20%. They estimated that if people substitute 1 serving a day with foods like poultry, fish, buts, legumes, dairy and whole grains, their risk would lower 7-9%.
This source is very helpful because it has legitimate statistics that prove that eating red meat is bad for your body. This is something that will keep me in the mindset that I have to eat healthier foods if I want to live a healthy life. It also gives advice like the source above as to want foods I should eat as substitutes. Having these sources to help me make my eating plan makes the project much easier.
Find this article here: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/risk-red-meat
My last source that I will talk about is my primary research: talking to vegetarians at Ball State University. When I talked to Lizzy, I asked her how she felt in the first couple of weeks in being a vegetarian. Lizzy shared that she felt more active and awake therefore it made her an overall happier person. There were a couple reasons as to why this was. Knowing that she was helping the environment put her in a better mood and eating healthier also added to that. Nate Adams, a freshman studying Economics, had a different experience with going vegetarian. He said that he grew up not eating a lot of meat to begin with so when he decided to cut meat out of his diet, he didn't feel any changes to his mood or physically activity. This primary research shows that going vegetarian is different for everyone.
I did primary research because it was difficult to find papers and articles on how people felt emotionally after going vegetarian. I knew that the best way would be just to ask people about it. I found that their experiences being different very fascinating and it makes me want to ask more people about their transition. That is something I will do during the immersion project. I will try to interview at least one person a week about their experience when transitioning into a vegetarian.
Though these are the last 3 sources I will be sharing for now, I will continue my research to get better prepared for my immersion experience in March.
No comments:
Post a Comment