Busting Meat Myths
Hi Byte Wellness Fam!
How are you feeling. I’m “ret to go”.
Might have something to do with the way I’ve been piling my plate high with veggies since we started having our discussions about food as a superpower. No doubt all that plant magic (phytonutrients) is propelling me forward.
Check out the conversation we had during this week’s #PhyteWellWednesday Workshop. (Recording below). We talked about all the nutrients we miss out on if we don’t eat enough whole plants- with an emphasis on fruits and veggies.
If you’re not getting invites to these sessions, you can text TEXT to 1(866)717-1919 to get Wednesday text invites and Daily Wellness Texts.
Discussion Question
Discussion question:
When was your last meatless meal? How was it?
Meat Myths
In this week’s conversation, we broke down 2 important food myths that keep us from eating enough plants. Both of these myths lead us to center our meals around meat. Building our meals around meat is a problem because, if we’re not careful, we can end up filling up on the protein, saturated fat and salt in meat without leaving enough room for the fiber, unsaturated fat, vitamins, and phytonutrients in plants.
Here are the two food myths we need to unlearn in order to eat a balanced diet:
1) The only way to get enough protein is to eat meat
-FALSE! We can get plenty of protein from plants (especially beans/legumes, nuts/seeds, and high-protein grains like quinoa.
-Also not true that plants don’t offer high-quality proteins (complete proteins with all 9 of the essential amino acids we need). Soy and quinoa are complete plant proteins.
-Other plants can be mixed and matched to make a plant dish that offers complete proteins. For example eat beans/legumes with nuts/seeds (like hummus) to get complete proteins. Or, combine beans/legumes with grains (like red beans and rice, or a black bean burrito) to get a set of complete proteins.
2) Humans can’t live without meat
-FALSE! Practically all of the nutrients we need to live come from plants. Fiber, vitamins, minerals, unsaturated fat, protein, phytonutrients all come from plants.
-The only nutrient that’s very hard to find outside of meat and animal products is nerve-friendly vitamin B12. Even iron, which is generally more plentiful in red meat, can be found in greens and other plants.
-Eating a balanced diet that includes a wide variety of plants means that we get practically everything we need to survive AND what we need to thrive. A daily multivitamin can cover the rest.
-On the other hand, if we prioritize eating meat and miss out on our fruits and veggies, we potentially lose out on 25,000 phytonutrients (plant magic) that our systems rely on.
-Phytonutrients do amazing things like help us block inflammation, counteract toxins, control blood sugar and blood pressure and so much more. There’s no pill we can take to give us all those phytonutrients all at once. The only way to get those plant magic nutrients is to eat a variety of lots of plants.
Check out the recording above for a full discussion on why each of the meat myths above is FALSE.
Have you fallen for either of these myths in your lifetime? Do you have friends and family that repeat these meat myths? How will you approach those conversations (if at all)? Let me know!
Happy Healthy Living,
Dr. Wuse