Why do I choose to not consume meat?
What type of food you want to eat should depend on what your body needs. We are indeed what we eat — you have a mechanism inside you that turns the food that you eat into your human body.
I believe that if you listen to your body well then it will tell you what types of food are good for you. I prefer to ask my body what foods will give me the best energy, happiness, and nourishment. The result is that I mostly consume food that is as nutritious and has as much life in it as possible (for example fresh, raw vegetables rather than cooked meats).
We are all unique individually, so the reason I choose not to eat meat may not be the same with you. But I do believe we should all consume food that is as far away from our human genes as possible. For example, pigs share 98 percent of human genes, cows share 90 percent, and chickens share 60 percent. So if a purely vegetarian diet is not an option, then I believe that fish — which genetically are much further away from us — is a much better choice than meat.
Depending on your digestive tract, how healthy you are, what foods you eat at the same time, your mental state, and other factors, it can take between 24 to 72 hours to digest meat. One study found that the average transit time through just the large intestine was 40 hours (33 hours for men, 47 hours for women). Imagine you leave a piece of meat outside in a hot climate for that long, would you want to eat it after that?
But that’s exactly what it looks like after being inside your body for two days — the inside of your body is a very hot climate! Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, travel through your system in less than a day and do not decay in the way that meat does.
Carnivores eat predominantly meat in their diet. Their stomachs have powerful digestive enzymes, and almost 10 times the amount of hydrochloric acid that humans or herbivores have. They have a shorter digestive tract. And they have sharp pointed teeth to bite and rip the meat apart, and their jaws chew by just moving up and down.
Herbivores, on the other hand, have a much longer digestive tract and they grind and chew their food.
The human body is structured similarly to herbivores, but very differently to carnivores. The average human adult GI tract is about 30 feet long. Most absorption occurs in the small intestine, which is approximately 10 feet in length and provides a surface area equivalent to a tennis court.
There are other reasons too. Unfortunately, most animals that are raised for food are not treated well, many of them never even seeing sunlight in their whole lives. Also mostly their diet is comprised of genetically modified food, very different from what nature intended. This can also lead to nutrient deficiencies.
I do not want to kill animals for food, but I also truly believe that we do not need to — our planet has enough food to feed everyone, without consuming any meat.
As always everyone’s body is a unique construction, so make sure that you listen to your own body. Remember, food is your body’s fuel and your body’s building blocks, so what you eat will affect you positively or negatively.
Ultimately, it is all about eating consciously.
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Ayda Ersoy is a nutrition and fitness director at The Diet Doc Hawaii. She can be reached at DietDocHawaii.com, Ayda@DietDocHawaii.com or 276-6892
