You’ve probably heard that eating more vegetables and less meat is healthy. Maybe you’re even feeling inspired to try eating a vegan diet—which excludes all animal products, including dairy and eggs—to improve your health or lose a little weight, even with the intent of preventing animal exploitation. I’ve talked to many clients and customers who embrace raw foods, green smoothies, vegan diets for cancer, and paleo diets who have obvious magnesium deficiency symptoms – migraines, leg cramps, and heart palpitations. Yet they’ve been told that a particular diet will take care of all their problems. And many have been told that a vegan or vegetarian diet is the healthiest diet of all.

Truth is: we really don’t have a good analysis of who is healthier and who is not – the meat eaters or the vegetarians or the vegans. And even if we did  – science and statistics can’t tell you how your individual body will react to foods. Neither can a health enthusiast tell you what to eat (even though they may think they have all the reasons why you should or shouldn’t).

You have to experiment on your own body. What your body does with the food you give it is experiential and individual.

It also depends on your environment. A vegan stranded in the Arctic Circle would be well-advised to start eating raw seal meat – as soon as possible.

Most important is that you…

feel good after eating certain foods

they are grown and prepared with little or no chemicals

you chew it thoroughly (see Module 8 of Future Health Now!)

you don’t overeat (see Module 13)

it’s not refined or denatured

Also, look at what your ancestors ate. If for thousands of years they ate plenty of meat… avoiding meat can be a hard choice for some people’s DNA. Not impossible.

And I know of no cultures that avoided ALL animal protein. The Chinese, for example, ate little or no dairy – but still ate meat (despite popular belief). Many Hindu sects largely avoided meat – but did eat plenty of dairy.

Tonight on Dr. Carolyn Dean LIVE we’ll be joined by guest Shakaya Breeze, health advocate, blogger and [former] vegan enthusiast. We’ll be talking about diet, dietary choices, vegan vs. whole foods and gaining insights along the way! You will love hearing the beneficial interactions with our callers and hosts alike including the body/mind connection, identifying the \'conflict\' in the \'conflict basis\' of disease and much more!!