Read Online The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alicia Silverstone
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bronchitis three or four times each year. At a visit to the allergist, I was diagnosed with numerous allergies and was prescribed twice-weekly shots and an inhaler. Well, I lost the inhaler on a camping trip in my teens, but I was still getting allergy shots well into my early twenties. As far as I was concerned, I would need them forever. But very soon after becoming vegan, I stopped experiencing allergies or any asthma-type symptoms. They just disappeared.
You see, the human immune system recognizes milk from another species as an attacker—or allergen—that causes the body to go on red alert. This is why many people walk around with chronic runny, stuffy noses—even asthma and allergies—and think it’s normal ! But actually it’s the body’s own defense system trying to ward off a foreign invader. Dr. John Oski, chief of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, believes that up to 50 percent of all children are allergic to milk, although they remain largely undiagnosed. This allergy is the underpinning of all sorts of other conditions such as sinusitis, ear infections, eczema, and even behavioral problems. Get rid of the dairy, and you should breathe easier within a week. You’ll be amazed.
Dairy food has been linked to diabetes: Studies done at the University of Helsinki and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto showed that babies fed dairy-based formula began to develop antibodies for diabetes. As in the case of allergies, the protein in cow’s milk is perceived by the immune system as an attacker. So the immune system fights back—that’s its job! Unfortunately, one of these proteins is a dead ringer for a certain cell found in the pancreas, so in fighting off the perceived “attacker,” the body starts to fight its own pancreas, eventually destroying its ability to produce precious insulin. The studies show that genetics may be a factor as well, but it seems that dairy is a significant trigger.
In Puerto Rico, where approximately 95 percent of babies start life on cow-based formula, the type 1 diabetes rate is 10 times higher than in Cuba, where almost every baby begins on mommy’s boob. 9
We think of diabetes as a tragic twist of fate that pushes the sufferer into the medical system to become dependent on daily injections until death—if she’s lucky! Diabetes kills 72,000 people a year in the United States (and contributes to 230,000 deaths), 10 and what we’re drinking at the breakfast table plays a role. That’s the tragic twist.
----
What about Eggs?
Eggs are weird. Not technically a dairy product but commonly lumped into this category, an egg is the reproductive cell of a chicken. Hmm . . . We don’t eat our own reproductive cells or those of most other species, so what are we doing scrambling and poaching what a poor hen ovulates?
Egg producers go to great lengths to get their product good press, and it seems to work. Whereas eggs were considered bad guys just a decade ago, nutritionists and the media are now giving them a passing grade. But the nutritional benefits of eggs . . . protein, lutein, and an array of vitamins and minerals, are all easily found in plant-based sources. Meanwhile, eggs are crazy high in cholesterol; one egg contains approximately 200 milligrams of the stuff. So there’s nothing magic about eggs. In fact, 95 percent of the eggs sold in the United States come from industrialized operations using antibiotics that are passed on to the eggs. If you do choose to eat eggs and are buying them from an organic and antibiotic-free producer, there’s still no getting around the cholesterol issue. And remember: Conventional eggs are hiding in lots of the foods you might be ordering at restaurants: pancakes, Caesar salads, muffins, cakes . . . so choose carefully.
----
Dairy is messing with our hormones: Dairy cows are pumped full of hormones to force them to produce up to 20 times their normal milk supply, and those hormones go straight into you. Excess hormones
You see, the human immune system recognizes milk from another species as an attacker—or allergen—that causes the body to go on red alert. This is why many people walk around with chronic runny, stuffy noses—even asthma and allergies—and think it’s normal ! But actually it’s the body’s own defense system trying to ward off a foreign invader. Dr. John Oski, chief of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, believes that up to 50 percent of all children are allergic to milk, although they remain largely undiagnosed. This allergy is the underpinning of all sorts of other conditions such as sinusitis, ear infections, eczema, and even behavioral problems. Get rid of the dairy, and you should breathe easier within a week. You’ll be amazed.
Dairy food has been linked to diabetes: Studies done at the University of Helsinki and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto showed that babies fed dairy-based formula began to develop antibodies for diabetes. As in the case of allergies, the protein in cow’s milk is perceived by the immune system as an attacker. So the immune system fights back—that’s its job! Unfortunately, one of these proteins is a dead ringer for a certain cell found in the pancreas, so in fighting off the perceived “attacker,” the body starts to fight its own pancreas, eventually destroying its ability to produce precious insulin. The studies show that genetics may be a factor as well, but it seems that dairy is a significant trigger.
In Puerto Rico, where approximately 95 percent of babies start life on cow-based formula, the type 1 diabetes rate is 10 times higher than in Cuba, where almost every baby begins on mommy’s boob. 9
We think of diabetes as a tragic twist of fate that pushes the sufferer into the medical system to become dependent on daily injections until death—if she’s lucky! Diabetes kills 72,000 people a year in the United States (and contributes to 230,000 deaths), 10 and what we’re drinking at the breakfast table plays a role. That’s the tragic twist.
----
What about Eggs?
Eggs are weird. Not technically a dairy product but commonly lumped into this category, an egg is the reproductive cell of a chicken. Hmm . . . We don’t eat our own reproductive cells or those of most other species, so what are we doing scrambling and poaching what a poor hen ovulates?
Egg producers go to great lengths to get their product good press, and it seems to work. Whereas eggs were considered bad guys just a decade ago, nutritionists and the media are now giving them a passing grade. But the nutritional benefits of eggs . . . protein, lutein, and an array of vitamins and minerals, are all easily found in plant-based sources. Meanwhile, eggs are crazy high in cholesterol; one egg contains approximately 200 milligrams of the stuff. So there’s nothing magic about eggs. In fact, 95 percent of the eggs sold in the United States come from industrialized operations using antibiotics that are passed on to the eggs. If you do choose to eat eggs and are buying them from an organic and antibiotic-free producer, there’s still no getting around the cholesterol issue. And remember: Conventional eggs are hiding in lots of the foods you might be ordering at restaurants: pancakes, Caesar salads, muffins, cakes . . . so choose carefully.
----
Dairy is messing with our hormones: Dairy cows are pumped full of hormones to force them to produce up to 20 times their normal milk supply, and those hormones go straight into you. Excess hormones
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