A Plant-based Diet Changed My Life

Pat McAuley |  Aug 2018

2024년 4월 23일 shadowing 완료

 

 

 

TED Talker/연자

Pat McAuley

Host. of The Eat Green Make Green Podcast and Founder of. plant-based food and beverage brand, PlantPub

 

I picked up my girlfriend at the train station on an average weekday night in December of 2015. The second she got in the car, I could tell something was bothering her. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she started complaining about a situation at work. We got home, ate some dinner, and sat on the couch to do a little work on our laptops. I thought for a second I was off the hook, but shortly thereafter the venting resumed. 

Now, to that point in my life, and to that point in my relationship, anytime situations like that arose, let's just say I didn't handle them gracefully. They usually ended with me saying something like "don't bring that negative energy; figure it out," and I proceed to storm out of the room. Not my best quality, I know, but that was my way of dealing with it. But something was different about that night. For some unexplainable reason, I had this strange sense of calm and ease within me. Instead of my blood pressure rising, I sat there and actually listened to what she had to say. For the first time in my life, I felt someone else's pain and feelings as if they were my own. I reassured her it was all going to work out, and in the end it'd be okay. I waited for her to respond, but no response came. Instead, she just leaned over and hugged me. I'll never forget that hug. 

In the months leading up to that night, I was 25 years old, waking up with pain in my hand so bad I struggled to tie my shoes. My ankles, knees, and hips would crack like fireworks as I made my way up the stairs to the kitchen. I'd fire up my four eggs (no toast, didn't want the carbs) and I'd be out the door to the gym. I was an absolute machine. Yet despite my military-like discipline to this high protein diet, and spending hours a day in the gym—and I mean hours—beneath the surface, I was battling arthritis, allergies, asthma, skin issues, and a number of other bodily problems I won't scare you with, many of which I blamed on years of sports and four years of college football. I figured it was just part of getting old.  

I got to a point where I knew spending more time in the gym could not be the answer. I couldn't possibly work out more than I already was. I knew I had to change something on the diet side of things. So despite what everybody had told me—coaches, doctors alike—that a high protein diet was best for both my health and fitness, I decided to try something new. I don't quite recall where the idea came from, but I remember thinking nobody ever told me fruits and vegetables were a bad thing. That's one thing we can all agree on. The problem was I didn't really like fruits and vegetables; they were always the side to my hunk of meat that I would choke down or not touch at all. So I figured the most painless way to get them in was to fill the blender with some greens, any fruit and vegetables I had lying around, blend it up, and drink it down. 

I just started by replacing my four eggs in the morning with this green smoothie. That green smoothie gave me a taste of energy, and mental clarity, and a taste of "feel good" that I had never before experienced. So over the next few weeks, I started experimenting. If I ate something that made me feel as good as that new high I was getting from that green smoothie, I kept it in play. If I ate something that didn't make me feel as good, I gave it a Gronk-like stiff arm (and us New Englanders know there's no coming back from a Gronk stiff arm). When I stepped back after those few weeks and looked at the new foods I was eating versus the ones I had eliminated, it was very clear to me that on one side was plant foods that I kept in play, and on the other side was animal foods. 

I didn't quite know it at the time, but I had stumbled into what is commonly referred to today as a plant-based diet. Over the next six months of following a primarily whole food plant-based diet, not only did I continue to experience crazy amounts of energy and mental clarity, not only did I effortlessly lose that football weight and get down to the weight I always desired, not only did I get stronger in the gym, not only did I get faster on my runs, but every single health issue I had battled since I was three years old went away. The allergies, the asthma, the arthritis - all of it, gone. 

I couldn't help but wonder why at no point in my life did any doctor, nutritionist, parent, teacher, coach, friend, anybody give me that information. When I went to the doctor, whenever I have a problem, they tell me what was wrong, then they give me the pill, the inhaler, the epipen, the cream. We live in a system where, say if you're walking around with a splinter in your foot and you're limping around and you're in pain, in most cases you go to the doctor, they say you have a splinter in your foot, here's an orthotic for your shoe, here's a cane to help you walk, here's a pill to numb the pain. Wouldn't it make more sense to just reach down and pull the splinter out? Why wasn't I given that option? Because I would have chosen it years prior. 

I realized my health issues may seem trivial to some of you, but I didn't like bringing my inhaler to football practice in front of my buddies. I didn't like bringing an epipen to my girlfriend's house; it was embarrassing. So when all these things went away, it was a profound experience for me. I felt like I had been lied to my whole life. I decided to quit my job and seek answers. hat I found and what I learned shocked me. I learned that over 2 million Americans will die from disease-related causes this year. I learned that over half of those are from our top two killers: heart disease and cancer. I learned that heart disease is preventable and reversible, that the only diet on the planet that has been proven time and time again to not only stop on its tracks but reverse our number one killer is a plant-based diet. Dr. Dean Ornish demonstrated this way back in 1990, coincidentally the year I was born. 

I learned that according to the American Cancer Institute, just five to ten percent of all cancers come from purely genetic factors. That means that 90 plus percent of the deaths from our top two killers are actually a result of our diet and lifestyle. That means that whatever health situation you're in right now, it's not a result, for nine out of ten of us, maybe more - it's not a result of a bad genetic draw or that it runs in the family, but rather it's a direct result of what we choose to eat and do on a daily basis. So to rephrase that top number: nearly two million Americans will die this year from their very own diet and lifestyle. I learned that in 2015 the World Health Organization declared processed meats a class 1 carcinogen, and all red meats a probable carcinogen, meaning that we know without a doubt these foods promote the growth of cancer in the human body. Another widely used class 1 carcinogen is cigarettes. I learned that not just processed meats and red meats are the only problem - that according to the American Association of Cancer Research, all animal protein, including fish, dairy, and eggs, raises the level of cancer growth hormone IGF-1 in the human body. 

I could go on and on about the benefits of eating more plants and less animals, but there are many more experts out there that can do a better job than I can. But the evidence is so overwhelming that states like California have been fighting to remove processed meats from public schools, and that the country of Canada has removed dairy as a food group from their 2018 food pyramid and no longer advises their citizens to consume it. A number of doctors that I encourage you all to check out, that have spent a lifetime studying this: Dr. Dean Ornish that I mentioned, Dr. Collin T. Campbell, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Neil Barnard, and Dr. Michael Greger. And I highly encourage you familiarize yourself with their work. 

Now back to that night in December of 2015 - what was going on there? I've sat across from and interviewed nearly a hundred people on my podcast that have transitioned from a predominantly animal-based diet, or a standard American diet, to a plant-based diet. And almost all of them speak of some similar experience, some newfound sense of calm and ease within them. I've come to believe that when you align your daily actions with the human values you already have inside of you, this phenomenon occurs. What I mean by human values is that deep down, all of us are loving and compassionate beings. For example, if you left this auditorium today and on your way out to the car you saw a pig caught in the fence - this little cute pig here - and his legs bleeding and he's whining, not one of us would go over there and kill and eat that pig. Instead, we would feel bad for him, we'd go help him out, we might even take him to the vet. But then we'd get back in our car and without a second thought, we'd go home and fire up a BLT or a ham sandwich. We are now eating that same animal that we just showed love and kindness toward. I realize not many people make that connection, but I believe at a subconscious level our bodies know.

Furthermore, I believe that when you eat an animal, a once living, breathing, feeling creature, that you take on its energy. There's a scientific theory dating back to the 1940s that has been popularized by the likes of Deepak Chopra and others called cellular memory, and that our memories and experiences exist at a cellular level, not just in the brain, and are able to live beyond the life of a being. So when you eat a cow, for example, when you eat a burger or a steak, you are in fact eating a cow that's life looks something like: when it was born, ripped from her mother, she was then fed so much until she got so fat she could barely move, she was raped and impregnated, her baby, her calf, was then ripped from her at birth, she was milked for all she was worth, and the process repeats over and over and over. She spends her entire life in an enclosure no bigger than the circle I'm standing on. Ultimately, when she's no longer of value, she's hung upside down by her hind legs and slit at the throat. We then eat that animal. And to think that that fear, that anxiety, that stress, that pain, that anger, that dis-ease has no impact on our health and how we treat others is simply ludicrous. 

If you told me four years ago I'd be standing up here talking with you about things like love and compassion, not only for myself and in my health but for other humans and even animals, I would have laughed you out of the damn room. Yeah, here I am. And it started with a change I decided to make to my plate. And I stand here today a better man, in every sense of the word: a better friend, a better family member, a better boyfriend. 

So the next time you sit down to a meal, I encourage you all to just take a minute and think about what you're taking from the outside world and putting inside of your body, because it is the single greatest decision we make daily. And know that what you're about to eat not only impacts your health, but it has a profound impact on your ability to love and care for the people in your life. Thank you. 

 

Words&phrases/어휘공부

• off the hook: If you are off the hook, you have escaped from a difficult situation. I thought I was off the hook when my sister said she'd host the family party this Christmas. 
• vent: give free expression to (a strong emotion). he had come to vent his rage and despair
• lead up to something : If a period of time or series of events leads up to an event or activity, it happens until that event or activity begins The pilot had no recollection of the events leading up to the crash.
• hunk: a large, thick piece, especially of food. a hunk of bread/cheese/meat
• keep in play: In action or operation
• BLT : a sandwich filled with bacon, lettuce, and tomato
• ludicrous : so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing; ridiculous. it's ludicrous that I have been fined