Top 10 Reasons to Eat More Plants: #5 Our Food Choices Aren't So Personal
I know we are supposed to say that our food choices are personal. I have very often said this myself, especially in the first few years of eating plant-based. Anytime I sensed discomfort from others or felt it building up in myself when I discussed our family's lifestyle, I'd often follow with, "But what we eat is SO personal!" just to make us all feel more at ease. So here's the thing... When I think about how deeply I must have felt, as pre-plant-based-me, to believe that thousands of animals needed to die over the course of my lifetime in order for me to live - or how deeply I now feel to leave animals off my plate while living in an omnivore's world - definitely, to an extent food choices are very personal and attached to a deeply held belief. But for this post, I want to take a moment to share why I've come to think this "food choices are personal" business is only true to an extent and how important it is that we stop seeing our food choices as entirely personal. Because that's not the whole story.
“The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families.”
Imagine your daily life for a second and think how often food is a part of your social fabric. You're a parent, a son or daughter, a grandparent, a friend, a boss, a colleague, a business owner, a volunteer, a member of a community organization, a coworker. You have patients or clients. You prepare meals for others. You dine with others. You plan your office parties or snacks. You give thank you gifts of food. You're a host. You have people who love you, who depend on you, who you may someday depend on for your own care and who your quality of life (and how long you are on this earth) truly matters. The choices we make include others, even when they seem personal. They may influence or impact others. We are so interconnected. We have the ability to make choices that improve or weaken the quality of our own lives but I think this also includes the lives of those around us. And so I'm just not sure how we can keep saying it's personal.
I can imagine pre-plant-based-me reading through my website, and sort of skipping through parts, numbing out how this really relates to me. I'd likely feel like, yes, all of these things matter, but I have to eat animal foods to live - it's about protein, and there's a food chain, and our families and communities have taught us this since we were born basically. It's what we've always done.
What I wish I'd known earlier...
Here's what I wish pre-plant-based me would have known. My husband has a chronic condition that I now suspect may have been avoided had we always been eating plant-based. It's a really hard pill to swallow to think that my way of life (and serious cheese habit) could have been a factor in nudging him towards a less healthy lifestyle and a chronic condition. But I think that's likely true. And I know for a fact it was light years easier for him when I went fully plant-based too. Caring more about what I eat improves my overall health and wellness and sets a new stage for my whole family. Our eating habits are now based around longevity, not based around an unfounded notion that we may all fade into the earth if we don't eat enough animal protein. Pre-plant-based me didn't have all the information and hadn't realized how intensely my lifestyle was also impacting my husband's (or could be limiting my own) - which is one of the very deeply-felt reasons why I now live plant-based.
I can remember a few things pretty distinctly about the moment when I realized that plant-based eating was now going to be a way of life for me. 1) The shocking realization that I might not have ever explored plant-based eating without someone caring enough to plant a seed and without chronic disease leading us there, 2) One of my biggest worries was socially how eating vegan would all play out, and 3) A need to completely understand plant-based living, especially in consideration of my kids - but how would I know who to trust/where to find resources??
Someone had to plant the seed. I had to be ready to hear it. And I had to find resources that matched up with what I was experiencing and offered me the right kind of information to give me the confidence to know I was making the best decision for my whole family.
Making healthy choices together...
What we eat does matter. Food matters. Our health matters - and not just to us but to our loved ones. If you aren't familiar with the work of Blue Zones, you should check it out. Here's the Blue Zones' mission, "Inspired by the world’s longest-lived cultures, we help people live longer, better lives by improving their environment." Dan Buettner and his team talk extensively about the benefit of plant-based eating and about how they've found our environments can either nudge us into healthier, happier lifestyles, or be a road block to health and longevity. Let's do more than nudge each other. Let's make it damn easy. As Santa Barbarans, we pride ourselves on living in a healthy community. Still, I think we can do better. Yes, let's build better hospitals and better clinics and specialty centers. But let's do more about prevention so that we can try to avoid getting there in the first place. We can't do it alone. We need each other to do better together.
“The most meaningful piece of advice is to tell patients to make friends with people who eat a plant-based diet. Healthy behaviors are contagious.”
We need to bring more plant-foods in to our homes. We need restaurants to make delicious mushroom dishes instead of the newest take on pork belly. We need kids menus with actual healthy veggie options so our kids learn young, even when they're out, to care about what they eat (and they're way more likely to try new foods out to eat, at school, or at a friend's house - at least that's our experience). We need community events to focus on healthy options to make plant-based eating more normal and to support the common mission of enhancing our communities' lives. We need our go to resources for food and nutrition to help us learn about the risks of eating animal foods, not just the perceived benefits. Because it's likely that 15 of the top diseases and conditions that lead to death and disability in the U.S. can be prevented, arrested, or reversed by diet. That's powerful. We need to help each other feel more comfortable making healthy choices by making them together.
Getting started...
I share a number of resources within this site to help you learn more from those that I've come to count on and trust. I've never just trusted one voice, and wouldn't expect you to. You've got to do the reading and the research and determine who you trust and look at their background and the background of the research they rely on and make sure it's unbiased. Marketing dollars are driving a lot of the information we're getting. But the unbiased research and information is out there.
Please consider this site and this post a love letter to you and your loved ones and my community. Perhaps this is your seed planted. :) Check out the Blue Zones and the resources I share to learn more about the science and practice of plant-based nutrition to discuss with your families, friends, and health care team (in my first post Start Anywhere, throughout THE VINE, and in the TOOLKIT to start). And start to notice how your food choices may make you feel and impact your health and those around you. Start to imagine how can you help nudge others towards healthier and healthier choices. Because they matter and you matter.
If you feel the pull of your environment making it more difficult for you to make healthier decisions, you can do something about it. Think longevity, rather than taste to taste, meal to meal. It may be uncomfortable at first. But it can be exciting too! My husband did the research and took a chance, and our whole family is healthier because of it. Be the one to start make the healthier choices. Don't assume your kids can't grow to love beans + tofu. They're easier and cheaper (or just as cheap) as chicken + hot dogs and you can season them just as you would any meat - and they are deeeelish! Choose a veggie dish eating out with friends (or at least don't razz someone else for choosing it). Stock up your office snack zone with fruits and vegetables and plant-based treats. Do you run a restaurant or snack bar with a kids menu? Add more veggie options and maybe reconsider the chicken nuggets, burgers, hot dogs, cheese quesadillas, dairy based mac n cheese, and please please rethink how the french fries are prepared. (Bake 'em or air fry them please! Phew, I've been needing to get that off my chest. Even plant-based kids need healthier options.) When you're out, make a habit of asking about ways to eat more plant-based at your favorite places. Try a plant-based cookbook or meal plan or rotate in a new fruit or veggie every week while rotating out an animal food. Read the research. Start anywhere.
It matters how we live. Chronic disease doesn't have to be inevitable. If I've learned anything from all of my years spent researching and learning about the plant-based life, I've learned that. Make healthier choices for you because you matter to yourself. And to your kids. And to your parents, and your friends. We want each other to have long healthy lives. And we all worry about being a burden to others as we get older. Let's make it damn easy to live healthier, longer lives, not shorter more challenging ones. Our food choices aren't so personal, after all.