“Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food.” Hippocrates
The plant-based revolution is among us, and the Planted in Miami podcast is leading the way with banners. With 47 episodes already, the dynamic duo of husband and wife Janet and Alexander Ruiz are providing locals with information about the vegan lifestyle, which involves conscious living in general. Episodes have included interviews with a local running group leader to a life coach to a vegan chef. They include people making strides in the cultural evolution of the city, leaders in physical fitness, and vegan food makers. In the latest podcast, the two hosts express their gratitude towards everyone like the Biscayne Poet, Justin Trieger’s band, Happy Vegan Bakers, Bunnie Cakes, and Atlas Meat-free Deli, who participated in their party on June 5, 2017 at Love Life Cafe and Wellness Center. It also includes a marvelous interview with a medical student turned vegan chef, Nathi Alarcon. Being a former medical student myself, I really related to her journey to health.
Whether one is concerned with their health, the environment, animal abuse or all three as one should be, one benefits from eliminating the intake of animal products in their diets because they contain cholesterol, which (as everyone knows) leads to the number one killer in the US: heart disease. But, it’s not all about human health. We could all be super healthy, but if the environment is toxic, we will not survive. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of environmental degradation. Various animal activist groups like Mercy for Animals have uncovered footage of the dire conditions in factory farms along with the amount of pollution they spill into the atmosphere. Cows alone exude excessive amounts of methane and the land needed to raise them is destroyed rain forest. Basically, we are suffocating ourselves into extinction and the only way to survive is to stop messing around with nature and animals, to stop destroying them because we are destroying ourselves.
Plant-based diets nourish humans, the earth and the environment. More greens feed oxygen into the atmosphere and everything we need to survive we can get from plant-based foods. Like Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who all medical students quote on their first day, said food should heal people not make them sicker. Unfortunately, modern doctors do not follow the creed and most are too warped in the for profit system to have any knowledge of nutrition. It’s a business of disease and pharmaceuticals for high cholesterol, statin drugs, have made the most money.
Scientific studies like The China Study reveal that animal based proteins lead to a number of diseases including cancer. The World Health Organization recently noted processed meats as a Level I carcinogen on the same level as tobacco. Well, once upon a time, women smoked cigarettes while pregnant, and doctors smoked inside their office. Really, it was not thought of as harmful. It was just what everyone did. But, we are evolving because now we know better.
Removing animal products and giving farmed factory animals basic rights like the ability to live their life without being violated are vital to human survival and the next step in the evolution. I hope you all join the plant-based revolution. Thanks to Planted in Miami for their amazing work!
Miami Chronicles 