Vegans celebrate world vegan month across the world annually. One of the revolution team is a vegan and we all have lived a vegan lifestyle at some point in our life’s, so it is an initiative we support and encourage people to focus the diet around plant based nutrition. Our product range fully reflects our ethos by being plant derived and vegan friendly.
A vegan diet offers many potential benefits both for health and the environment. It is fair to say that the human population overeats meat and animal products and this raises the questions: Are we carnivores by nature? Who needs cows milk? Baby cows or us? If we had to hunt and kill our meat, would we eat less or none all at? All questions open to debate, but what is clear is that we have lost our ancient symbiotic relationship with animals, with a meat and dairy industry that is largely inhumane and detrimental to human health. It is an industry that is governed by profits with little interest in quality produce. In a world where some people are starving and desperate for food, developed countries spend vast resources on growing grains to feed animals food they are not designed to eat. It is true that the main reason for this is to maximise profits as each animal is sold on its weight. The vast amount of grain feed required for meat production is a significant contributor to future deforestation; land degradation, water scarcity and species extinction.
Animals are given hormones to accelerate growth and shorten the lifespan, again to maximise profits but in detriment to human health. Disease in livestock is a costly business so animal feeds are routinely pumped with antibiotics as a preventative measure. With the above in mind, it would benefit the environment and human health to reduce meat and dairy consumption week to week and be conscious to source produce that is ethically produced as possible.
Is the vegan diet healthy and is it sustainable?
The vegan diet, if based around large amounts of fruit and vegetables and wholefoods such as nuts, seeds, and beans can be an extremely healthy diet and decrease the chance of degenerative disease. The increase of vitamins, minerals antioxidants, and phytochemicals can help lower the risks of:
- Cardiovascular disease
- High Cholesterol
- High Blood Pressure
- Type two diabetes
- Cancer’s
- Arthritis
- Osteoporosis
It is important too that foods are organic or GMO free as pesticides and herbicides cancel out the beneficial nutrients from non-organic fruit and vegetables. The vegan diet can have its pitfalls. Nutritionally it is deficient in vitamin d in northern hemisphere countries and the essential fatty acid omega three. Food choices can be limited with many ‘university vegans’ whose diets are based around processed beige foods that are very high in fat and carbohydrates with limited micronutrients needed for optimal health. The health benefits of meat substitutes are highly debatably. Revolution foods has never promoted soya as a health product.
It is a fact that traceability of organic and GMO soya bean has been lost so it cannot be ruled out that even the highest quality soya isn’t GMO. Soya has many nutritional and biochemical pitfalls that include:
- GMO soya is engineered to be resistant to pesticides and contains the highest pesticide residue of any food.
- The beans are high in natural toxins, also known as anti nutrients. This includes a large quantity of inhibitors that deter the enzymes needed for protein digestion.
- Soybeans contain, hemaglutinin, which causes red blood cells to clump together.
- Soybeans contains excessively high levels of goitrogens, which lead to depressed thyroid function
- Soybeans are very high in phytates, which prevent the absorption of minerals including calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc.
- Efforts are made to remove the anti nutrients from soy, soybeans are taken through a series of chemical processes including acid washing in aluminium tanks, leaching high levels of aluminium, a toxic heavy metal into soy products