Essay on Changing Diet from Fast Food to Vegan

Diabetes is a disease that causes the human body to not create or not use insulin effectively. The body needs insulin to take the energy or sugars and turn it into energy. The human body needs energy to survive. Diabetes can be broken into three main categories. Type 1 diabetes is where the body makes no insulin at all. Type 2 diabetes is where the body does not produce enough insulin or it does not use it correctly. Gestational diabetes is more of a type 2 diabetes for pregnant women, which usually returns to normal after birth (Ruder 7-8).

Diabetes is a metabolic disease where an individual’s blood glucose level is higher than normal standards. Diabetes is a long term condition that causes not only primary issues related to the disease but secondary problems as well. Diabetes also known and referred to by healthcare professionals as diabetes mellitus, which is a phrase used to describe a group of metabolic diseases in which a person’s body does not produce insulin at all, or a person’s body does not use insulin properly, which is called insulin resistance. Type I Diabetes also known as juvenile diabetes is when the body does not produce insulin, approximately 10% of all diabetes cases are type I. Type 2 diabetes is when the body does not use insulin properly and approximately 90% of all documented cases worldwide is of this type. (American Diabetes Association, 2014) All types of diabetes can be treated, type I has no known cure however there have been some cases where

Being vegetarian or vegan is not only beneficial to the animals that are being slaughtered but it also beneficial to the earth and helps to reduce global warming. According to Wikipedia, there are more than seven billion people and out of those seven billion people only three hundred and seventy five million people are said to be vegetarian or vegan. This mass slaughter of animals and livestock is also one of the leading causes of global warming. People may think that the earth is slowly dying but that is not the case anymore as global warming has caught up with us. According to NASA, there are 406.94 parts per million of carbon di oxide in the atmosphere the highest it has ever been in 650000 years. The global temperature has risen by 1.7 °F and sixteen out of the seventeen warmest years on earth have been recorded since 2001. The arctic ice minimum has decreased by 13.2% per decade and in 2012 arctic summer sea ice shrank to the lowest extent on record. The global sea level has also grown by 3.4 millimeters per year and the global average sea level has risen nearly 178mm over the past 100 years. These statistics show you how quickly global warming and climate change are having an effect on earth and who knows what the stats will be in another 50 to 100 years the earth may become uninhabitable and humans will be the sole reason for this.

Because more and more people are becoming obese, certain groups have been reaching out and showing why the American diet is a problem, along with possible solutions. According to the Dietary Guidelines (health.gov/dietaryguidelines), “Three- fourths of the United States population are consuming either low, or no, fruits or vegetables.” The website also states that, “Instead

More than 150 billion animals are slaughtered each year. “Every year in America, without mercy, we murder 10 billion land animals, and 18 billion marine animals. Not for health, survival, sustenance or self-defense. People eat meat, cheese, milk and eggs for 4 reasons: habit, tradition, convenience, and taste.” (Yourofsky). Making people go vegan for a month or years, can significantly drop the high amount of animal cruelty that happen each day. This can cause an growth in the animal population. It can help animals live a happy life instead of being trap in a slaughterhouse waiting for their

Diabetes is a disease in which the body is unable to properly use and store glucose. The glucose then backs up in the blood stream and causes a person’s blood sugar to rise to high. There are two types of Diabetes. Type 1 is referred to as Insulin Dependent Diabetes. In this type the body completely stops producing insulin. Insulin is the hormone that lets the body use the glucose found in foods for energy.

If we were to have to conform to the USDA’s dietary guidelines of a healthy vegetarian eating pattern, a lot of issues would arise. Beyond the social repercussions for trying to impose a diet that the majority does not follow, there is are economic situations that will arise that are far more imperative than any social complaints that may come up in the short term. In our current economy, where we are barely able to keep with other developing nations, we cannot risk damaging any industry that are essential to our gross domestic product (GDP). Along with the effects of decreases to the meat industry, the availability of foods that meet the vegetarian guidelines are skewed to favoring higher income areas. So, if you would take a step back and look beyond the social lens, you will see something potentially far more dangerous.

If a person looked around and consumed the right amount of what they were eating, there would be absolutely no problems while on this diet. Also, there can be more variety achieved in this diet by consuming new and different types of fruits, and vegetables. There are even meat substitutes by a brand called MorningStar. In addition to getting all the correct supplements the human body needs, while on the vegan diet a person would not eat red meat or drink milk. By not consuming red meat, this allows for the digestive pathway to work more efficiently because it takes about three days to fully digest any red meat. Not consuming red meat also lowers your cholesterol, preventing gallstones, plaque buildup in arteries, and heart attacks. As for not consuming milk, the top three countries on the International Milk Genomics Consortium milk consuming list (Finland, Netherlands, and Sweden) are also the top three countries with the weakest bone structure. This appears quite deceiving given that children drink milk so they can develop a strong bone structure. It is also proven that almond milk has 50% more calcium than regular cow 's milk. Given this information, milk does not determine the strength of a person 's bones. Not consuming red meat will also lead a person to a better future with less bills to pay and no health risk. Overall, by switching over to the vegan diet

To eat a cow or not to eat a cow, that is the question. Americans eat more meat than people in any other country. But eating meat causes air pollution, water pollution, and may cause health problems. People should become vegetarians to prevent these problems.

Agriculture for meat and beef, eggs and dairy products are responsible for eighteen percent of all the greenhouse gas emission per year, which is more than the emissions of cars, planes, and trains together. And livestock and their byproducts are responsible for fifty-one percent of the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and for up to ninety percent of water consumption in the U.S.. Thousands of gallons of water are used to produce beef, eggs and dairy products. More than half of the oceans are fished and two acres of the rainforest get destroyed every second for food production. Switching to a vegan lifestyle can decrease all these factors and make the world we live in now exist longer.

Craig, W. J. (2009). Health effects of vegan diet. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 89(5), 1627S-1633S. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.26736N

In the year of 2012, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that Americans ate an average of 52.3 pounds of beef, 57.4 pounds of chicken and 43.5 pounds of pork per person.(citation?) Only 5% of Americans are vegetarians and with that much meat eaten by Americans, in one year alone why should you to forced to become vegetarian? With meat being the main staple in the Americans diet there is no reason we should take that of the table. That fact alone shows that most Americans’ diets are made up of meat sources. According to the United States Census Bureau (USCB) the U.S. population was 313.8 million; meaning that 16 billion pounds of beef, 18 billion chicken and 13 billion pounds of pork was eaten by Americans alone in

     Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body produces too little insulin (Type One Diabetes) or can’t use available insulin efficiently ( Type Two Diabetes). Insulin is a hormone vital to helping the body use digested food for growth and energy.

Vegetarian diets have also been linked to reducing heart disease. Heart disease is another common chronic disease. A contributing factor that can lead to a person having heart disease is hypertension (also referred to as high blood pressure). Factors that lead to hypertension include having high levels of fats and cholesterol in one’s diet. Vegetarian diets have low intakes of total fat, saturated fatty acids, and cholesterol. Since the vegetarian diet is lower in cholesterol and fats the chances for hypertension is decreased. Hypertension is just one cause that can lead to heart disease; the main cause of heart disease is due to having high levels of cholesterol. High cholesterol is an indicator that a person is consuming a high amount of animal products that contain cholesterol and saturated fat. Vegetarians consume lower levels of cholesterol in their diet. The vegetarian diet contains high amounts of soy, nuts, oats, and vegetables, all of which have been found to reduce cholesterol. Another reason why the vegetarian diet reduces heart disease lies in the fact that it contains high levels of antioxidants. Antioxidants include essential nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotenes which all help to minimize the damage that could occur in cells. These antioxidants are found in foods such as fruits

related to them. Vegan diets are proven to have health benefits for a lot of