How To Kick Your Meat Addiction

Are you addicted to meat? I see it all the time – people who want to break the meat habit, but who just keep eating those nuggets, burgers and hot dogs. In fact, as I travel the country talking about veganism, meat addiction (acknowledged and not) may be the biggest barrier I see to a societal shift toward healthy, sustainable and kind eating patterns. So I decided I should reflect on what meat addiction looks like – and how you can break it. If you don’t have any urge to stop eating meat, this column really isn’t for you. But more and more Americans do want to cut back or cut out meat, and some of them find it difficult. If this is you, please keep reading.

First, let’s consider how we identify a meat addiction. You know you are addicted to something if, despite knowing that it’s bad for you or doesn’t jibe with your ethics, and despite wanting to drop it from your life, you keep consuming it. Addiction entails a craving that has more control over our behavior than our rational mind and desires. Of course, breaking an addiction can be extremely challenging — you don’t just snap your fingers and lose a craving. But in more than a few ways, those who struggle the most to break an addiction are, often, those who benefit the most.

In the case of being addicted to certain foods like meat or cheese, the addiction can manifest as obesity, disease, or loss of sex drive, energy or self-esteem. It can deaden our awareness of the impact of our actions and our capacity for empathy. When we fully understand and own the end results of poor food choices, we can challenge ourselves to break free, in the same way we might stop consuming other addictive substances. Nothing — no habit or food or substance – should ever own us.

Before beginning, it’s important to remember that, like any addiction, an addiction to animal products is both physiological and psychological. The culture and family traditions have held that indulging in meat and dairy and eggs is good and right. And omnipresent marketing and advertising campaigns constantly tell us that we should feel good about eating animals. So while it’s certainly critical that we take responsibility for our current state of health, we should also give ourselves a bit of a break.

Now, on to breaking the habit:

1. Recognize that you are addicted. By simply calling it out for what it is, you will no longer blindly and unconsciously keep indulging. You will be aware, alert to the denial that wants to repress any effort to change. When I first wanted to stop eating meat — for reasons of health and ethics — I did battle with my urges. I wanted to be a vegetarian, but I also wanted that taste of steak in my mouth. Or the tuna sandwich wolfed down with a root beer. I thought, “Wow, I can’t seem to stop myself from eating this stuff, even though I know it’s not right.” So I labeled it. I thought, “I must be addicted.” Which lead to, “I really don’t want to be held hostage by any addiction or attachment. I need to handle this. If I don’t handle this, I will not rise to my best potential.”

2. Be willing to do things differently. There is a magic quality to willingness; when you are willing to be different, you don’t have to know exactly what that looks like, but only remain open to change. When I was moving toward a plant-based diet, I said to myself, “I don’t know how I’m going to find foods that taste as good to me as the steak and tuna fish that I love, but I’m willing to believe there might be some other foods that are just as satisfying that don’t do that kind of harm. I’m willing to just try a few different menu choices when I go out, and I’ll at least pick up a few new items at the grocery store that would fit in to my new world view.”

3. Stay in the moment. Remember everything you’ve learned and seen. Every time you look at meat or cheese on your plate, even if you are still eating it, think about the process that went into making it. On my way to giving up animal products, I would try and see a quick visual of who the animal once was and what she went through before becoming the meal on my plate. That way, I was not in denial; I was aware. I did that enough times until it was just naturally distasteful to me, and the addiction no longer had a hold on me. I just didn’t want it anymore.

4. Replace the old habit. Do not deprive yourself so that you end up going back to your old habits. Find delicious food and enjoy the old traditions you always had with family and friends. Substitute hamburgers with veggie burgers, hot dogs with soy dogs, chicken enchiladas with bean and guacamole enchiladas. Have your familiar looking meals but make (or order) them with better ingredients.

5. Make yourself useful. This is the fun part, because you start feeling so empowered by the change you’ve undergone that you naturally want to give back. Cook some vegetarian meals and invite friends over; volunteer to bring cake or cookies that are made without eggs or milk to your kids’ schools; volunteer at an animal sanctuary so that you can feel even better about what you are not eating. This will make you feel good, even while it opens the eyes of people who might never even considered this way of eating.

6. Re-invigorate your path of healing. As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge sector of the economy that relies on people continuing to eat animal products; this means that there will be a constant onslaught of advertising that attempts to keep the business of animal agriculture and factory farming going strong. So it’s a good idea to stay on top of peer-reviewed nutritional reports, news about the environment and the economy, along with alerts from farm animal protection groups so that you remain informed and bolstered. I like Farm Sanctuary, the Humane Society of the United States, the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and PETA.

7. Watch out for the little addictions. One thing I’ve found to be true: healthy practices support other healthy practices. And of course, unhealthy ones do the reverse. If you want to be healthy and steer away from animal products, you might also consider how you feel after eating junk food or sugar. When I eat sugar I get depressed, slothful and anxious. Those feelings weaken me — and could weaken my resolve to be healthy. Of course we don’t have to be perfect or give up every little thing we’ve ever indulged in, but it’s a good idea to note what makes us backslide and then curtail it. Getting sugar out of my system, for instance, made me feel so good that I just started considering myself a healthy person. Once I began to perceive myself as healthy, it was easier to remain that way.

One thing about breaking your animal product addiction (that is less true of some other addictions) is that it’s okay to lean into a vegan diet — you don’t have to beat yourself up over small backsliding, and you don’t have to go (ahem) cold turkey right away. Many people have success with Mark Bittman’s “Vegan until 6,” and then they progressively move to “Vegan 24/7.” Some start with Meatless Mondays, and then move to three days per week. Before they know it, they’re vegan all the time. I encourage people who can’t (or don’t want to) adopt a completely vegan diet all at once to “lean into it” in whatever way makes the most sense for you.

Happy Eating!

For more information on how to optimize your health, visit kathyfreston.com

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Photo credit: brew127

Prescription for Health: A Meat-Free Diet

It’s come to this:

Researchers in the United Kingdom are now suggesting that fast food chains should hand out cholesterol-lowering drugs with cheeseburgers, milkshakes, and other menu items to combat the effects of these fatty foods. But they also say that statins don’t stop all of the unhealthy effects.

As a doctor, I agree that statins are not the solution, and I’m calling for a reality check.

Decades ago, we learned that the fat and cholesterol in meat boost the amount of cholesterol in consumers’ blood. And that leads to heart attacks. So doctors advised us to cut back on meat and get to know vegetables.

Then it was carcinogens: As meat is grilled, cancer-causing chemicals called heterocyclic amines form on its surface, suggesting an explanation for the higher cancer rates in meat eaters compared with vegetarians. Chicken turned out to produce much higher levels of carcinogens than beef.

Then it was chemicals. Studies showed that mercury, other heavy metals, and various pesticides show up in animal tissue. Suddenly, fish was our worst nightmare. State and federal monitoring agencies issued strong warnings, especially for children and women in their reproductive years. Vegetables could be washed or peeled, but that wasn’t possible with fish or other meats.

Then it was germs. Salmonella and campylobacter from the meat counter ended up on our kitchen counters and caused thousands of cases of illness every year. The bacterial threat reached a new level when E. coli O157:H7 in hamburgers killed diners of the Jack-in-the-Box chain in the Pacific Northwest. These and other dangerous uninvited guests still turn up routinely on beef, poultry, and shellfish. And government agencies spend millions of dollars trying to contain the problem.

The headlines went a step further. Mad cow disease emerged in European and sporadically in North American cattle. It is not caused by fat, cholesterol, carcinogens, or germs, but by a rogue protein, known as a prion. Government and industry officials spend millions on testing and culling operations, and neurological researchers study the relationships between mad cow disease and rare forms of dementia. Meanwhile, scientists might observe that there is no mad asparagus or mad eggplant disease.

And there is no strawberry flu or avocado flu, either. But bird flu and swine flu have emerged as potential pandemics. Birds and swine carry viruses, just as other animals. Ordinarily they would pose no risk to humans. But our collective appetite for pork and poultry means millions of pigs and chickens are raised for meat. Once the H5N1 virus enters a poultry farm, it spreads rapidly. And overcrowded pig farms offer a breeding ground for new forms of influenza, like H1N1. For months last year, swine flu hovered just below pandemic level. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all it takes to trigger a pandemic is for the bird flu to infect a person carrying a seasonal flu virus; the two viruses could spawn a disease vector like the one that killed 50 million people in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.

And now, in an attempt to counteract heart attack-inducing meat and dairy products containing saturated fat and cholesterol, we need to take a statin every day.

It’s time to wake up and smell the problem. Another study has shown that a vegetarian diet has essentially the same effectiveness as cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Millions of Americans now say no to meat. As they do so, their cholesterol levels plummet. Their coronary arteries open up again. Their waistlines shrink and their cancer rates drop 40%. A healthy vegetarian diet could revolutionize the health of the nation.

Photo Credit: flick3r&fade

Eat Like a Man

Today, Joshua Katcher challenges the conventional equation of masculinity with meat-eating, stating that this common conception is in fact both backward and hazardous. We hope you’ll agree that Meatless Mondays are sexy and that you’ll join us in a delicious meat-free day!

I just finished devouring a plate of char-lined, grilled sweet corn smothered with pico de gallo oil, mashed herbed potatoes with wild mushroom gravy, and grilled apple-sage grain-sausage kebabs with shallots, apple cubes, zucchini and smokey maple barbecue sauce. The protein, vitamins and minerals, carbohydrates and phytochemicals are all surging through my bloodstream, replenishing, building muscle, and sustaining my bones, organs and various tissues. Still, according to many, I am emasculated by my meal.

Growing up, and even as adults, we are often told to do certain things “like men.” Be a man! Act like a man! This phenomenon can basically be summarized as a call to toughen up, hide or mask any sort of sensitivity, and show no signs of weakness. I’ve seen a father reprimand his son for crying over a scraped knee, “Stop crying! Be a man!” I’ve heard the story of a friend who, at six years old, stood sobbing, finger on the trigger, as his father whispered coldly in his ear “Just shoot the goddamn deer. Don’t you wanna be a man?” Stoicism, that invaluable Greek paragon of virtue, could be one of the most sought-after states of existence for the civilized man. Unaffected, unreadable, perpetually poker-faced and methodically effective. And so we must “eat like men,“ too.

How do rabbits eat? They carefully chew vegetation. Strangely, no man scoffs at being compared to a rabbit when it comes to sex. “Doing it like rabbits” flatters a man’s virility, yet eating a diet that supports that same rabbit’s virility is lampooned. Instead, we consume entire animals with superstitious hopes of appropriating their strengths. The cover of September 2009’s Esquire Magazine proclaims “Eat Like A Man” and leads to a sixteen-page cover story entitled “How Men Eat.” It is a total meat-fest: a cheesy, eggy, frat party wrapped in bacon and bathed in blood. From Coca-Cola Brined Chicken to a three-meat-plus-bones gravy, and even to Jujubes:

“People Whine about some of them being made from dead horses… but they don’t know the Jujube eater’s darkest secret: By consuming dead horses we’re taking their power and virility and making it our own. Eating Jujubes is like eating powdered rhino horn or seal penis without any of the messy sociopolitical ramifications or bureaucratic hassle. Look! It’s just candy… a candy that can be eaten in pin-drop quiet… without recrimination from wives or healthniks… We’ll eat our jujubes…in determined silence, growing ever stronger, until one day we will rise with the thunder of a thousand of those same dead horses, our bellies hard-packed with their souls and gelatin and our teeth stained by their blood, and we will trample your pesticide-free fields, an army of raging stallions once again.” –Chris Jones, ‘The Only Candy A Man Should Eat,’ Esquire Magazine, September 2009.

So many men are afraid of being seen as compassionate. Because, on a deep level, it is logic and objectivism that are truly put at risk by emotion—and thus, control itself; at least, this is the conventional perception. Emotions are a far cry from being logical—they cannot be measured or mapped. There is no emotional stock market or well-being index; how would one measure compassion, love, hatred, or indifference? As for our food, animals cannot be seen by most men as sentient beings—they are units of production; therefore able to be controlled and manipulated, stripped of identity, wholly consumed.

“Vegetarianism may occupy the moral high ground, but among men it’s regarded as, if not a girl thing, then at least a girlie thing—an anemic regimen for sensitive souls subsisting on rabbit food and tofurkey. Meanwhile, meat eating persists as a badge of masculinity, as if muscle contained a generous helping of testosterone, with the aggression required to slay a mammal working its way up the food chain.” –Holly Brubach, New York Times Blog, 9/3/2008.

Is masculinity a roadblock to sustainability? Compassion, mercy, empathy and the like are all red flags, warning others that you cave in under the weight of empathy. Following through and getting the job done are put at serious risk when emotions are added into the equation. Men so often strive to be emotionless in this culture because a man’s worth is measured by his ability to get the job done. Shoot the animal. Bring home the bread. Launch the missile. Cut open the cat’s head to observe, objectively, the workings therein. Of course, women also participate in these activities—on a smaller scale—but living in a patriarchal culture places the source of power in the traditional definitions of masculinity. Few would argue that the stereotype of women as being more in touch with emotions is based in total fallacy, and few would argue that feminists fight incredibly against the discriminatory belief that emotion is a detriment to effectiveness.

Men eat power. They eat the things that they hope to be: muscle. It is a delusional relationship, and a destructive one at that. To worsen matters, diets heavy in meat and dairy have been linked to erectile dysfunction. Now that’s not too manly. What is manly is the hero who considers the personal and global implications of raising and consuming animals for food, and who takes action to do something about it.

Allan Benton of Smokey Mountain Country Hams (in his interview with Esquire) lastly remarks as a punch line, “I take my Crestor like everybody else.” Not me, Allan. Not me.

A New Decade and Reason for Hope

Let’s welcome Gene Baur, CSL’s newest Blog Posse member! Today, Gene highlights some of the legislative victories for animals over the last decade. But, he also points that we have a long way to go in our fight for animal rights. We can all make a difference today by participating in Meatless Monday!

The first decade of this millennium has been marked by stark contrasts. Industrialized animal farming continued to expand and gain control over an ever greater share of the marketplace, and the number of animals exploited for food in the U.S. increased steadily, reaching 10 billion per year. At the same time, there’s been growing public awareness and unprecedented opposition to the waste, inefficiency and abuses of animal agriculture. While agribusiness spends billions of dollars to sell its products, bestselling books like “Skinny Bitch” and “Eating Animals” have exposed millions to the harms of factory farming for the first time.

At the beginning of the last decade, no U.S. law existed to prohibit cruel confinement systems, like veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages. In fact, most state anti-cruelty laws exempted farm animals from basic humane protections. But, over the past decade, some states took action to outlaw common factory farming cruelties. Two states passed laws to ban battery cages (CA, MI), five passed laws to ban veal crates (AZ, CA, CO, ME, MI), and seven passed laws to ban gestation crates (AZ, CA, CO, FL, OR, ME, MI). Responding to growing public pressure, Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, pledged to phase out gestation crates (2–foot-wide metal enclosures where female breeding pigs are confined for years). We have a long way to go, but as the new decade dawns, we are poised to see additional laws and policies enacted to prevent cruel factory farming practices.

The last decade started with Farm Sanctuary suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to compel the agency to prohibit the marketing and slaughter of downed animals (animals who are too sick or injured even to stand) for human food. By the end of the decade, the Obama administration had locked in a federal ban on slaughtering downed cattle for human food. A similar ban should be enacted to apply to pigs and other species.

The Obama family recently planted an organic vegetable garden at the White House to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables, and the USDA established a community garden, dubbed “The People’s Garden,” at its headquarters in the nation’s capital. I recently moved to Washington, D.C. to further our work with policy makers to protect animals, consumers and the environment, and promote plant-based agriculture.

We are in the midst of a growing food movement, and I am optimistic about the coming decade. As agribusiness interests convene for meetings to discuss ways to defend their practices, compassionate citizens are picking up steam. Scientists and researchers at leading universities and institutions are issuing reports that decry the many harms of animal agriculture.

At the end of the last decade, for the first time in generations, the USDA’s year-end records showed that the number of animals killed for food in the U.S. dropped. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a solid trend, along with the increasing number of farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture programs and community gardens across the U.S. We have a long way to go, but there is definitely reason for hope.

Anti-Cancer Effects of Green Vegetables

Check out today’s blog to learn about the powerful anti-cancer effects of certain green veggies that might be on your plate this Meatless Monday. Don’t miss Dr. Fuhrman’s delicious recipe at the end of the blog!

Nutrition scientists have shown over and over that people who eat more natural plant foods—vegetables, fruits, legumes—are less likely to be diagnosed with cancer. But are all vegetables equally protective? If we wanted to design an anti-cancer diet, we would want to know which foods have the most powerful anti-cancer effects. Then, we could eat plenty of these foods each day, flooding our bodies with the protective substances contained within them.

So, which foods have the most powerful anti-cancer effects? Cruciferous vegetables.

This family of vegetables includes green vegetables like kale, cabbage, collards, and broccoli, plus some others like cauliflower and turnips (see the full list at the bottom of this post). They are named for their flowers, having four equally spaced petals in the shape of a cross, from the Latin word ‘crucifer’ meaning ‘cross-bearer.’

All vegetables contain protective micronutrients and phytochemicals, but cruciferous vegetables have a unique chemical composition: they have sulfur-containing compounds which are responsible for their pungent or bitter flavors. When cell walls are broken by blending or chopping, a chemical reaction occurs that converts these sulfur-containing compounds to isothiocyanates (ITCs)—compounds with proven anti-cancer activities.

Over 120 ITCs have been identified, and the various ITCs have different mechanisms of action. Because different ITCs can work in different locations in the cell and on different molecules, they can have combined additive effects, working synergistically to remove carcinogens and kill cancer cells. Some ITCs have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, or even immunologic effects. Some ITCs can inhibit angiogenesis, the process by which a tumor establishes a blood supply.

Some ITCs detoxify and/or remove carcinogenic compounds; the combined consumption of broccoli and Brussels sprouts (rich sources of the ITC sulforaphane) increases the excretion of certain dietary carcinogens. (1) Some ITCs inhibit cancer cell growth or induce cancer cell death: cruciferous vegetable juice, containing a variety of ITCs, has been shown to induce apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in breast cancer cells. (2)

Some ITCs can prevent carcinogens from binding to DNA and initiating cancerous changes in the cell. Sulforaphane activates enzymes that protect cells from DNA damage by carcinogens. (3) But if DNA does indeed become damaged, the growth of the damaged cell can be stopped to allow for DNA repair, or the cell can be programmed for cell death. These processes can control this damage. Several ITCs, including sulforaphane, indole-3-carbinol (I3C), and diindolmethane (DIM) stop growth or induce death in cultured cancer cells. (3) Sulforaphane blocks tumor formation and induces programmed cell death in colon cancer cells. (4) Allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), present in several cruciferous vegetables, inhibits proliferation and induces cell death in bladder cancer cells. (5)

Indole-3-carbinol and its metabolite DIM may be especially protective against hormone-sensitive cancers; they help the body transform estrogen and other hormones into forms that are more easily excreted from the body. (6-7)

These observations in cell culture and animal studies have been confirmed by epidemiological studies drawing connections between cruciferous vegetable intake and cancer incidence. Inverse associations between cruciferous vegetable intake and breast, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers have been reported. Similar associations exist for total vegetable intake, but cruciferous vegetables are far more potent:

•    Cruciferous vegetables are twice as powerful as other plant foods.  In population studies, a 20% increase in plant food intake generally corresponds to a 20% decrease in cancer rates, but a 20% increase in cruciferous vegetable intake corresponds to a 40% decrease in cancer rates. (8)
•    28 servings of vegetables per week decreased prostate cancer risk by 33%, but just 3 servings of cruciferous vegetables per week decreased prostate cancer risk by 41%. (9)
•    1 or more servings of cabbage per week reduces risk of pancreatic cancer by 38%. (10)

How can we maximize the ITC benefit of our cruciferous vegetables?  Methods of preparation and cooking can affect the availability of ITCs to be digested and absorbed.  Chopping, chewing, blending, or juicing allows for production of ITCs. Some ITC benefit may be lost with boiling or steaming, so we get the maximum benefit from eating cruciferous vegetables raw; however, some production of ITC in cooked cruciferous vegetables may occur in the gut once the vegetables have been ingested.

Cruciferous vegetables are not only the most powerful anti-cancer foods in existence, they are also the most nutrient-dense of all vegetables. Although the National Cancer Institute recommends 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables per day for cancer prevention, they have not yet established specific recommendations for cruciferous vegetables. I recommend 6 fresh fruits and 8 total servings of vegetables per day, including 2 servings of cruciferous vegetables, one raw and one cooked. Consuming a large variety of these ITC-rich cruciferous vegetables within an overall nutrient-dense diet can provide us with a profound level of protection against cancer.

List of cruciferous vegetables:
•    Arugula
•    Bok choy
•    Broccoli
•    Broccoli rabe
•    Broccolini
•    Brussels sprouts
•    Cabbage
•    Cauliflower
•    Collards
•    Horseradish
•    Kale
•    Kohlrabi
•    Mache
•    Mustard greens
•    Radish
•    Red cabbage
•    Rutabaga
•    Turnips
•    Turnip greens
•    Watercress

Recipe: Braised Bok Choy
Serves: 2
Ingredients:
•    8 baby bok choy or 3 regular bok choy
•    1 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Aminos or low sodium soy sauce
•    2 cups coarsely chopped shiitake mushrooms
•    2 large cloves garlic, chopped (optional)
•    1 tablespoon unhulled sesame seeds, lightly toasted*
*Lightly toast sesame seeds in a pan over medium heat for 3 minutes, shaking pan frequently.

Instructions:
1.    Cover bottom of large skillet with 1/2 inch water. Add bok choy (cut baby bok choy in half lengthwise or cut regular bok choy into chunks).
2.    Drizzle with liquid aminos. Cover and cook on high heat until bok choy is tender, about 6 minutes.
3.    Remove bok choy; add mushrooms and garlic to the liquid in the pan.
4.    Simmer liquid until reduced to a glaze. Pour over bok choy. Top with toasted sesame seeds.

For an extensive collection of green vegetable recipes like these, visit Dr. Fuhrman’s website and check out his most recent book, Eat for Health.

References:

1. Walters DG, Young PJ, Agus C, Knize MG, Boobis AR, Gooderham NJ, et al. Cruciferous vegetable consumption alters the metabolism of the dietary carcinogen 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo [4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP) in humans. Carcinogenesis 2004;25:1659–69.

2. Brandi G et al. Mechanisms of action and antiproliferative properties of Brassica oleracea juice in human breast cancer cell lines. J Nutr 2005;135(6):1503-9

3. Higdon JV et al. Cruciferous Vegetables and Human Cancer Risk: Epidemiologic
Evidence and Mechanistic Basis. Pharmacol Res. 2007 March ; 55(3): 224–236

4. Gamet-Payrastre I et al. Sulforaphane, a naturally occurring isothiocyanate induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in HT29 human colon cancer cells. Cancer Res 2000;60:1426-1433

5. Bhattacharya A et al. Inhibition of Bladder Cancer Development by Allyl Isothiocyanate.
Carcinogenesis. 2009 Dec 2. [Epub ahead of print]

6. Yuan F et al. Anti-estrogenic activities of indole-3-carbinol in cervical cells: implication for prevention of cervical cancer. Anticancer Res. 1999 May-Jun;19(3A):1673-80.

7. Dalessandri KM, Firestone GL, Fitch MD, Bradlow HL, Bjeldanes LF. Pilot study: effect of 3,3?-diindolylmethane supplements on urinary hormone metabolites in postmenopausal women with a history of early-stage breast cancer. Nutr Cancer 2004;50:161–7.

8. Michaud DS et al. Frut and vegetable intake and incidence of bladder cancer in a male prospective cohort. J Natl Cancer Inst 1999; 91(7):605-13

9. Cohen JH et al. Fruit and vegetable intake and prostate cancer risk. J Natl Cancer Inst 2000;92(1):61-68

10. Larsson SC, Hakansson N, Naslund I, Bergkvist L, Wolk A. Fruit and vegetable consumption in relation to pancreatic cancer: a prospective study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15:301–305.