Yes, you read that correctly. According to Alisa Miller over at NursingDegree.com, there are 57 health benefits associated with eating vegan. Actually, she's listed 47 health benefits and 10 other items of potential interest to the vegan eater. None of this information is new, but it certainly bears repeating. Below are my

favorites:

3. Fiber. A diet high in fiber (as vegan eating usually is) leads to healthier bowel movements. High fiber diets help fight against colon cancer.

10. Phytochemicals. Plant-based foods provide phytochemicals, which help to prevent and heal the body from cancer, boost protective enzymes, and work with antioxidants in the body.

11. Protein. That protein is good for your body is no surprise. It may be a surprise to learn that most Americans eat too much protein and in forms such as red meat that are not healthy ways of getting protein. Beans, nuts, peas, lentils, and soy products are all great ways to get the right amount of protein in a vegan diet.

12. Cardiovascular disease. Eating nuts and whole grains, while eliminating dairy products and meat, will improve your cardiovascular health. A British study indicates that a vegan diet reduces the risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Vegan diets go far in preventing heart attack and stroke.

15. Type 2 diabetes. Not only is a vegan diet a weapon against Type 2 diabetes, it is also "easier to follow than the standard diet recommended by the American Diabetic Association."

24. Weight loss. A healthy weight loss is a typical result of a smart vegan diet. Eating vegan eliminates most of the unhealthy foods that tend to cause weight issues.

27. Longer life. Several studies indicate that those following a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle live an average of three to six years longer than those who do not.

34. Allergies. Reduction in dairy, meat, and eggs is often tied to alleviation of allergy symptoms. Many vegans report much fewer runny noses and congestion problems.

35. Animal proteins. The average American eats twice as much protein as necessary for a healthy diet and much of that is from red meat. Getting protein from beans and grains is much healthier and reduces the risk for osteoporosis.

38. Mercury. Most of the fish and shellfish consumed has mercury in it. While some fish have less than others, it is almost impossible not to be putting mercury in your body when you eat fish.

40. Animals. Many people begin a vegan diet out of concern for animals. Whether opposed to the conditions of animals intended for food or eating animals in general, going vegan will help your conscience rest easily.

41. Environment. Growing plants takes much fewer resources than growing animals. By eating vegan, you can help reduce the toll on the environment.

45. Global food supply. Feeding grain to animals meant as food sources reduces the amount of food that is available to underdeveloped nations. Many people will go hungry while that same food they could be eating is given to animals raised for slaughter. Eating vegan ensures that you have removed yourself from the participation of this imbalance. (VeganBits note: Sparrow comments on our post Arguing for Vegetarianism, "that I learned in earned in my International Politics class a couple of years back is that world hunger is largely a problem of distribution.")

46. Hormone consumption. Eating animals that have been given hormones to speed growth (a common practice in the meat industry) means those hormones go into your body. Not only can this disrupt the natural balance of your hormones, but some of the hormones given to animals have shown to cause tumor growth in humans.

47. Antibiotics. Antibiotics are frequently given to feed animals, which can lead to bacterial resistance. Many of the antibiotics used to treat human infections are also used in feed animals.

If you're interested in the rest of the list visit NursingDegree.com

Reading the New York Times today, I came across a list of the 11 best foods you aren't eating. The author, Tara Parker-Hope, asked Dr. Jonny Bowden, author of The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, to compile a list of accessible foods that most of us should be eating, but aren't. Interestingly, only one of these foods isn't vegan...

1. Beets
2. Cabbage
3. Swiss Chard
4. Cinnamon
5. Pomegranate Juice
6. Dried Plums
7. Pumpkin Seeds
8. Sardines
9. Turmeric
10. Frozen Blueberries
11. Canned Pumpkin

I had to laugh when I saw this list. The number one item, beets, is something Jane can't seem to bring herself to make. We've bought them at the farmers market once or twice, but for some reason they keep winding up in the compost pile. Jane speculates that's because, as a child, she was forced to eat canned beets. She's never gotten over the trauma. As I'm writing this we actually have a bunch of orange beets in the fridge. Perhaps this post will inspire Jane to do something with them.

I'm happy to report that we tend to eat most of these foods ourselves. Obviously, we don't eat the sardines. Also, we don't drink a lot of fruit juice, mostly water and tea... And the pumpkin is something we usually only have around Thanksgiving, but we've got 9 of the 10 foods (not including the sardines) in our home at the moment.

Now, off to get myself a handful of pumpkin seeds...

Surprise, surprise... Junk food is bad for you. Back in January, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reported that just one high-fat, high-sugar meal can trigger a biochemical cascade, causing inflammation of blood vessels and immediate, detrimental changes to the nervous system. The good news is that just one healthy meal helps return your body to its optimal state. (Source: One Meal to Good (or Bad) Health)

Most people are aware that there are long term implications involved in their dietary choices. What isn't generally known is that there are short-term implications to your health as well, which is why you typically feel bad after a junk-food fest. However, if your diet consists of a lot of junk food, you may not experience that ill-feeling.

Junk food distorts a person's hormonal profile, says O'Keefe.

Studies suggest that fatty, sugary foods promote excretion of the stress hormone cortisol, which seems to further stimulate appetite for calorie-dense foods. And the big post-meal spikes in blood sugar are more likely in people who don't exercise or those who carry weight around their abdomen. All of it makes it tough for people to stop eating junk food once they're in the habit. "The more you eat it the more you crave it. It becomes a vicious cycle."

"Your health and vigor, at a very basic level, are as good as your last meal," says lead author James O'Keefe, head of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo.

When Jane and I first went vegan, we found ourselves in a place where we didn't really know what we could eat, so most of our meals were steamed veggies with tofu and a salad; or lentil soup with a crusty bread and salad... Traditional vegan fare. Our meals were comprised of things that were closer to whole foods, than processed foods. As we've become more comfortable with what ingredient are permissible , we find our diet has started to include items that might be problematic (see Jane's addiction). And while there's room for some junk food in a vegan diet, we find ourselves at the precipice of a slippery slope. Jane's buying a bag or two of Snappea Crisps every week, and I've developed an addiction to her brownies. Summer is almost here. Our farmers markets are full to overflowing every week. It's time to get a-hold of ourselves before things get out of hand! Vegan diet doesn't necessarily mean healthy diet.

Jane and I have been incredibly busy the last few weeks. And that means I'm really behind in my reading. It's gotten so bad, that I'm tempted to just mark everything in my reader as "read" and start fresh. But then, there might be something really valuable that I might miss out on. For example, I just stumbled across an article in the New York Times which talks about the Best Way to Cook Vegetables. According to this article, raw is not necessarily better. I guess that makes sense... some things are probably more easily digested if they are partially cooked. But I always thought that the closer you could get to food in its natural state, the better off you'd be. That's not necessarily the case. It depends on the nutrients you're looking for. According to this article:

Boiling carrots, for instance, significantly increased measurable carotenoid levels, but resulted in the complete loss of polyphenols compared with raw carrots.

Not surprisingly, frying was the least nutritious way to prepare the vegetables looked at in this study. So, next time you're at Johnny Rockets don't count those french fries as a veggie! But it does help to eat your veggies with some fat. Lycopene, lutein, and beta-carotene are absorbed in greater quantities when ingested with fat. That works for me... I love my tomatoes in guacamole! But I also really love my tomatoes right off the vine .

The overall recommendation here is to eat a large variety of fruits and vegetables daily, to help reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, and to help keep your blood pressure and cholesterol lower.

The latest dietary guidelines call for 5 to 13 servings - that is two and a half to six and a half cups a day. For a person who maintains her weight on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, this translates into nine servings, or four and a half cups a day, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

So make sure to eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies, prepared in a number of different ways. This will probably ensure that you're getting all your nutrients. Or, as the old idiom goes, "variety is the spice of life."

Don't forget, we're not medical professionals, so as always, seek nutritional advice from your practitioner of choice.

So, tonight on our local news program, they did a short blurb on eating locally to save the environment. In itself, this really shouldn't bother me. However, I find myself wondering, why, if the local news is so interested in saving the planet (yes, I'm making an assumption here)... why then didn't they suggest eating vegan, or at the very least for people to cut down on their meat consumption?

It's been well documented that you can make much more of a positive impact by eating vegan, than by buying local produce. We wrote about it in our post, Eating Vegan Trumps Eating Locally, where we cite the New Scientists article Food Miles Don't Feed Climate Change, Meat Does:

To drive his point home, Weber calculated that a completely local diet would reduce a household's greenhouse emissions by an amount equivalent to driving a car 1600 km fewer per year. He assumed the car travels 10.6 km per litre of petrol (25 mpg). Switching from red meat to veggies just one day per week would spare 1860 km of driving.

The New York Times ran an article by Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, entitled Rethinking The Meat Guzzler, in which he states:

"If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals."

Then there's Livestock’s Long Shadow, the UN report which states:

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential of CO2. Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport.

The University of Chicago published a study in 2006, stating that Vegan Diets Healthier For Planet/People Than Meat Diets:

“We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn’t have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you’ve already made a substantial difference.”

I could go on, there's plenty of material out there. So why isn't the news media screaming for us to cut down on our meat consumption? (Can we say lobbies? or Powerful Corporate advertisers?) Come on people, this is the obvious solution to a very large problem, the facts are staring us all right in the face. Oh, that's right, the earth is flat, and there be dragons here!