Plant-based Is the Natural Diet: Dr. Kim Benson (vegan), Part 2 of 2

Today, Dr. Benson will talk about the benefits of switching to a plant-based diet in detail. We begin with her perspective on dairy consumption. “When you look into dairy and see what's actually in that liquid, you've got things like hormones. You've got lipids, proteins, sodium, IGF, which is Insulin-like Growth Factor, which is a hormone that manages the effects of the growth hormone in your body. And really, you don't want to be consuming that.”

Many mistakenly believe that the best source of omega-3 fatty acids is fish-people. Dr. Benson cautions that there are multiple reasons to remove seafood from our diet. “Some of that plastic breaks down into microplastics, these little beads of plastic which the fish consume, and that gets caught in their guts. And so, of course, when we consume the fish, it means we're consuming that as well. And so we're finding that fish contain PCBs, which are cancer-causing chemicals. Also with wild fishing, we've found that mercury is very high, especially in tuna and swordfish. If you want to make sure that you are getting your vitamin D and your omega-3, the good news is there're plenty of options in the plant kingdom.”

“Let's just think of an example. A meal that's high in meat proteins they've discovered reduces something called tryptophan levels in the brain. So if your tryptophan level is reduced, that will have a knock-on effect for serotonin and melatonin. So you might find that you're not sleeping so well, and you might find that your mood is affected. It might make you feel a little bit more anxious, even sort of underlying levels of aggression. So conversely, if you want to up your tryptophan levels, then you could eat things like oats, peanuts, bananas, lentils, and black beans, because they all contain tryptophan, and they'll help to boost your mood and also help your sleep patterns.”

“When I did my holistic health studies, it became very clear to me we’re far more than a physical body. And we have mental, emotional, and etheric spiritual bodies. And everything works together. And so we need to have everything in balance. So this is where spirituality comes into the picture. So when we're in balance, then everything works optimally, and we will be more loving, more peaceful. We'll have an underlying level of joy. We laugh more easily. And all of these things are intrinsic to our health.”