vegetarian

Great armored bugs once lived in a basement hewn from Iowa bedrock. Amongst fermenting sauerkraut and tangled webs, my father took on the heroic battle of exterminating their presence. I cried every time, begging him to stop.

I was born with an innate belief that all beings have a right to live – they all serve a function in the web of biodiversity. It was a philosophical no-brainer for me to adopt a vegan diet.

Veganism is at an all-time high in the U.S., with 6 percent of American adults choosing to embrace a vegan diet or lifestyle according to a Top Trends in Prepared Foods report. This may not seem like a high figure but is significantly greater than the 1 percent of the U.S. population who were vegans in 2014.

A scientific study published in the Nutrition Journal showed that people who ate the plant-based way had an easier time losing weight than those who didn’t, according to Today. They also decreased their risk of developing heart disease. The Keto Diet is very popular these days and some people are choosing to do Keto the plant-based way.

All nutrients come from the sun or the soil. Vitamin D, the “sunshine vitamin,” is created when skin is exposed to sunlight. Everything else comes from the ground. Minerals originate from the earth, and vitamins from the plants and micro-organisms that grow from it.

The calcium in a cow’s milk (and in her 200-pound skeleton) came from all the plants she ate, which drew it up from the soil. We can cut out the middle-moo, though, and get calcium directly from the plants.

Referring to heart disease, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD asks, “Why is there reticence to provide the public with guidelines that will spare them this disease or its progression?” in an article published in The American Journal of Cardiology.