Cutting down animal products in the diet is a generally wise choice. There are very clear problems correlated with a lot of meat in the diet, whereas there are no common problems with a sensible variety of plant-based foods. It's not about being vegetarian -- it's about meeting the nutritional needs of a human body -- which are met in large part by vegetables, fruits and so on. Moderation, of course.
The more interested someone becomes in the elite functioning of their bodies, the greater the attention they will pay to their diet. Garbage in, garbage out. Most people notice a benefit in cutting back on the meat. Nothing to argue about here. If you don't, that's fine. Most do. But some folks feel hungry and tired when they start to cut back on meat. Why would that be, if they're getting all the nutrition they need? And why the craving?
Let's take a little detour. A useful definition of hunger is not "the feeling of an empty stomach," but rather "the body's craving for nutrients." Big difference. We crave what our body actually needs, that will make it stronger and healthier.
Let's take another detour. There's a theory about the role in digestion of our sense of taste and smell. Remember back to seventh grade health class, when we all read about how important it was to properly chew food? Not just to grind it up, but because saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digests carbs. Perhaps we thought grinding should be enough, and stomach acid would do the rest of the digesting that was needed. Problem is, only protein gets digested in the stomach. The fats and carbs have to sit around and wait, seeping out little by little along with the digested proteins. So in a sense, chewing, mixing in saliva does the job of the stomach, continued farther along. (This is why you shouldn't just chug your juice or smoothie. You should slosh it around, sort of chew it for a while, to get the digestion started.)
And now a final detour -- maybe back onto the main road -- dealing with smell and taste. Your body has to do some phenomenal calculations in order to digest food. It is an astoundingly complex task. As sophisticated a process of analysis as calculating the orbit of Neptune and its moons in your head ... even more sophisticated. Smell, then, is one of the first cues, the first analytical chemical tests that prepares the "enteric" system, the digestive system for the job ahead.
Indeed, the enteric system has more neurons, more "brain cells" than your brain. Smell does more than just make your mouth water. It's telling your brain to tell your gut what's coming, what enzymes to use and how powerful the acid has to be. Same with taste. It's more than just sweet and sour and salt and bitter. The very combinations, it's been suggested, act as a code, a sort of spectrum identifying and anticipating the foods that will be digested -- like the light from a star that tells us what elements it contains.
Regarding cravings, the classic example is the pregnant woman. Some women crave fish or chicken. Omega-3. Appetites can be emotional or physiological. Hard to tell the difference sometimes. But knowing the difference will determine whether you're optimally nutriated, or both overweight and undernurished.
The body needs what it needs, and doesn't care if it has to be a cannibal to get it. What is it in meat, then, that might be craved? First, it might be the emotions. Meat will make you strong, the propaganda goes. We can get over that with a bit of maturity and education. As for physically, there's protein, B12, a few other vitamins, iron, and trace minerals. The dark side of it is that there are also sex hormones and adrenaline and uric acid and other toxins in butchered meat. Slaughtering an animal makes it afraid, and that fear response makes the meat more flavorful. Sorry if you didn't know that. This unfortunate fact, though, accounts for meat's stimulating effects -- all those poisons. Eating a food that has sex hormones and adrenaline in it can make you not-so-tired. So that's one possibility. Meat is literally a drug.
If you're going to eat animal products, meat or eggs or milk, get the real thing, instead of the factory product. A cow raised in a stall for a year is not meat. A chicken kept in a box its whole life is going to be about as good for you as the box was good for the chicken. The pastel eggs they sell will feed your heart disease, only. And we all know that mass-produced milk has a government limit on how much infection it's allowed. You do know that, right? Ah,
here. The point is, buy free-range.
Meat is the major source of dietary B12, which is just vital at the cellular energy level. It is highly unlikely that a B12 deficiency would cause a regular mid-week weakness, signaling meat-time. The body is phenomenal at retaining its B12. But the B vitamins in general may be in short supply. Solution? Take a pill. Take two.
Not just vegetarians, but almost everyone gets too little Omega-3. Simple solution, in flax seed oil, walnuts, or even fish oil. It's about health, after all, not doctrinal purity. Nutritionists report that taking flax eliminates at least some food-cravings. So there you go.
Figure it this way. If you're going more vegetarian and still craving meat, or if only it will answer your appetite, well, the obvious thing about meat is the protein. Try a protein shake. See if it works. If so, mystery solved -- you wanted protein. If you're craving veggies, it's likely to be vitamins that you want. Maybe buy a juicer and drink a salad. Throw a handful of lentils or black beans or whatever into your stew. Variety. If you want ice cream, could be you're looking for fats? Try flax or olive oil or fish oil. Eat an avocado or some macadamia nuts. And while your at it, drink enough water. Dehydration messes up your internal chemistry, so you don't know what you want. And while we're on the topic, maybe you'll stop drinking all that soda and coffee?
A naive understanding about health thinks in terms of the body in general. I feel good, I feel tired, I'm achy. When we get a bit more sophisticated we start thinking about organs. My heart, my liver, my kidneys. When we get clever, we understand that all health, all energy, derives from how cells function. So we do what we can to cut down on free radicals and make sure we get CoQ10 (co-queue-ten) and the B vitamins and the like. But there's an even more basic, more important level, which of course would be mental attitude. The mind-body connection is what the body is about. All healing is psychosomatic. The placebo effect cures more problems than medications do. It's just common sense. It's just being responsible. Guard your thoughts and your emotions.
Sometimes as you're trying to fall asleep you might find that you've tensed up your shoulders, or legs or back or whatever. How odd. You'll consciously relax it, and in a few moments you'll be tense again. You might notice that you're holding your breath. You'll be driving, and you've forgotten to breathe. How can you be healthy if you have these unconscious stress reactions going on? Stress both causes and is caused by hormonal imbalances. Adrenaline. Cortisol. Those switches need to be off, most of the time. Why aren't they? No matter how good the diet, it's not going to be optimal until the whole system is under control. Point is, thinking matters.
Well, we've covered a lot of ground, with all these detours. Did we ever get to the answer to that first question, about tiredness and craving? It may be that the answer isn't known. There's a lot of pop literature on diet nowadays that claims there are different body types that need different nutrients. It does sound like it makes sense. If your ethnic heritage included for many generations a large amount of animal products -- say, if you're Masai, or Eskimo -- then you may need meat. But in the mere decades that we in affluent America have been exposed to high amounts of dietary meat, it seems unlikely that we've developed an actual genetic need for it. Meat has always been a luxury -- even in hunter-gatherer cultures. The Buddha died from eating pork. He was visiting some poor folk, who slaughtered their pig in honor of him, and he was too polite to refuse the meal. Point being, it's a luxury -- an expensive one.
Dogs eat grass and cats eat clay. They need something in it. If you need something in meat, that's not the same as thinking you need to eat meat. But moderation is almost the same as forgiveness. A little meat is no big deal. Vegetarians don't think of meat as food at all. But that's just a way of seeing things. No big deal. Be happy. But it's obvious that we'll be happier if we feel well. Diet is a major component of feeling well. Then all you have to do is get your thinking in line, and you'll be a buddha.
Perfection? Not in this lifetime. The world is outside of our control, that we should worry about perfection. But we're not helpless. There is a way that we are indeed Buddhas. We are the lords of our bodies. We can't remake it, but we can do some earthmoving -- redirect a few rivers, cut back some mountains. Not gods, but monarchs, then. That's a lot of power.
That's the sensible way of seeing things. We're not all-powerful, but we're powerful. We have cravings, and we have willpower. We have feast days and fast days. We live in a body, but it is the servant and we are the master. If not, well, time to get rational.
Be excellent.
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