Texans don’t play when it comes to their love of beef. Just ask Oprah, who took on the entire beef industry with her commentary years ago about beef’s ill effects. Soon after, Winfrey was feeling the effects of the Texas beef lobby, who were out for blood for her words they viewed as blasphemous.
But was she wrong, though?
According to most nutritionists and healthcare professionals, no.
The “regular” consumption of beef, regular by the standards of the US Food Pyramid, leads to all manner of negative health outcomes, according to doctors and nutritionists. One University of Oxford study showed that such regular meat eating offers individuals a greatly increased risk of heart disease, pneumonia and diabetes. Additionally, consistent evidence has shown that excess consumption of red meat and processed meat (such as bacon and sausages) may be associated with an increased likelihood of developing colorectal cancer.
And over-consuming poultry isn’t great for you either.
But wait, there’s more:
- Higher consumption of unprocessed red meat and processed meat combined was associated with higher risks of ischaemic heart disease, pneumonia, diverticular disease, colon polyps, and diabetes. For instance, every 70 g higher red meat and processed meat intake per day was associated with a 15% higher risk of ischaemic heart disease and a 30% higher risk of diabetes.
- Higher consumption of poultry meat was associated with higher risks of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, gastritis and duodenitis, diverticular disease, gallbladder disease, and diabetes. Every 30g higher poultry meat intake per day was associated with a 17% higher risk of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and a 14% greater risk of diabetes.
- Most of these positive associations were reduced if body mass index (BMI, a measure of body weight) was taken into account. This suggests that regular meat eaters having a higher average body weight could be partly causing these associations.
JENuine Nutrition
And nutritionist and entrepreneur Jennifer Jones knows these things personally.
According to her business’s website (JENuineNutrition.com), Jones was inspired to study holistic, integrative nutrition after decades of being a top-performing athlete and nationally qualified bodybuilder, but not happy or satisfied with following the conventional ways of addressing her own personal health and fitness goals.
“I’ve been an athlete my whole life. Basketball, volleyball are my main sports. But I always had these debilitating cycles. So, I finally decided to say enough is enough with this, because even though I was seemingly healthy, I knew something wrong,” said Jones, who was bodybuilding while a college student.
“I did an elimination diet and took something out of my diet, and then my symptoms were completely gone. I was completely healed and that’s when I knew food was medicine.”
Jones said that she then began providing personal training services to clients in a holistic manner before she even knew what holistic nutrition was.
“JENuine Nutrition is taking a genuine approach to lifestyle and nutrition management and for long-term health. Loving yourself to better health is living with intention and being more intentional,” which Jones says speaks directly to the relationship between what we eat, what we think and our mental well-being.
And though Jones doesn’t provide her male and female clients with meal plans but rather lifestyle and nutrition management under the dual mottos “Love yourself to better health” and “Live with intention, eat with intention,” she avoids meat.
And she’s not alone.
As of 2022, 5-8% of the U.S. population declared themselves vegetarian. That’s roughly 9.7 million Americans. And about one million don’t consume any animal products. Additionally, about 10% of Americans above the age of 18 fall within the category of vegetarian or vegan.
Community Wellness Initiative
The Community Wellness Initiative (CWI), a collaborative of several entities including SHAPE Community Center, the Alabama Garden, Blodgett Urban Garden, Palm Center Garden and Peaceful Planet Foundation, works to improve health outcomes of health-challenged communities like Third Ward and Fifth Ward.
The CWI started as an outgrowth of local author/activist Sherra Aguirre’s book “Joyful, Delicious, Vegan: Life Without Heart Disease.”
“I wrote it because I’m very passionate about health and wellness,” said Aguirre. “A lot of that’s due to my family history of heart disease, which is typical of a lot of African American families. So, I wanted to share the message that there are ways to actually prevent or even reverse it with a healthy, plant-strong diet.”
After issuing the call, several of Aguirre’s friends responded, including Dola Young, a retired attorney and certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach.
“The initiative is about getting a group of grassroots people who want their own health to be improved, and then sharing that information with their family and community,” said Young, about the initiative’s “each one, teach one” approach.
“Basically, it’s a group of community health ambassadors,” said Dr. Bandana Chawla, who with her husband Dr. Munish Chawla, are physicians who are board-certified in lifestyle medicine, and founders of their nonprofit, Peaceful Planet Foundation. “These 19 people are learning all that they can about nutrition, exercise, stress management, gardening, just various things, so that they can then be the ambassadors of health in their own community, and teach this information to their friends and family and community members.”
“Chronic diseases, whether it’s diabetes or heart disease or obesity, they’re caused by our diet and lifestyle,” said Dr. Munish Chawla. “We need to fix that, otherwise we can throw all the pills, all the procedures [at them, but] we’re not addressing the root cause.”
The Chawlas said Aguirre’s initiative was consistent with their work that seeks to address patients from a holistic (mind, body and spirit) approach, with community being a foundational component. And they promote eating vegetables and reducing if not totally removing meat from participants’ diets.
Montgomery Heart & Wellness Center
Dr. Baxter Montgomery, a board-certified cardiologist, practicing cardiac electrophysiologist and practicing internist with 25 years of experience in private practice, believes society’s over-reliance upon prescriptions and medical procedures is literally killing us.
“What I’ve noticed in my years of practicing here in Houston is that sickness has become the norm,” said Montgomery. “If you look at the data, about six out of 10 people have chronic illnesses and are on prescription medications. If you add over-the-counter medications to that regimen, you’re probably dealing with 70% or more.”
Montgomery says he’s seeing more young adults between 20-40-yrs-old with chronic illnesses such as Type-2 Diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart failure and heart disease. He contends standard medical treatment (pills, procedures, surgeries) may provide temporary relief, but don’t confront the underlying problems: poor dietary lifestyle, lack of exercise, lack of fresh air, lack of sunshine.
Montgomery moved to prescribe “therapies” like exercise, outside walks, dietary detoxes (cutting out meat) and plant-based nutritional regiments. He was so amazed by the results, that he developed a comprehensive program called “Heart and Soul of a Champion,” an integrative approach that’s “helped patients reverse chronic illness in a more natural way to reduce the reliance on prescription medication, reduce the requirements for medical procedures and surgeries, and get patients in a position where they are empowered to maintain optimal health.”
