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The Western Diet

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There are so many issues that this world is currently facing but hardly anyone of us is actually trying to solve these issues. Many of our fellow human beings are suffering from some sort of health issue ranging from diabetes to heart disease. Not only are we slowly killing ourselves with our poor diets but we are also killing our environment by creating more and more waste and pollution. The third issue that we are currently facing is our economic issue due to our excessive spending and lack of money and income. The issues that we are currently facing can be resolved by decolonizing our diets because our health will improve, it will save the environment and it will provide the economic growth that we need. We are currently facing a war within …show more content…

In the article, “Escape from the Western Diet” by Michael Pollan, he argues that, “people that eat the Western diet are prone to a complex of chronic diseases.” Since meat is available everywhere in the United States, everyone is able to get their hands on meat and processed meat on a daily basis. We can eat more than double our weight of meat in the entire year, that just shows us that we tend to eat a heavy meat diet on a daily basis but we are too stubborn to change that. Pollan also states that, “the flood of refined carbohydrates has pushed important micronutrients out of the modern diets.” We live in a world that wants stuff to be done as fast as possible and well that includes food. Since we mass producing meats with the use of drugs and other forms of processing it causes some of the important nutrients that we need to leave the food. In Pollan’s article, it states that, “since healthcare is an industry, it stands to make profit on new drugs and procedures to treat chronic diseases than people changing their eating habits.” Not only are we harming ourselves in not making the proper eating choices but the healthcare industry will stay idly by in order for them to release a new drug to make money. In order for us to improve our health we have to take the first move into that direction …show more content…

The truth is that if we decolonize our diets it’ll be more effective than just simply exercising. In Layne’s article, she says that, “decolonizing our diet is about removing the items from the diet that would not traditionally be there.” We have to eat only items and foods that are native to our region of the world to prevent any more health issues related to food. In the past our ancestors lived off the land and had a plant based diet and they continued to live for many years because their diet kept them health. Layne also states that, “a plant based diet is 80 to 90 percent plants, grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, and veggies which was the Native diet.” With a plant based diet we are not only eating healthier but we are removing all the harmful effects of what the Spanish have caused when they colonized the early Americas. Though we might not like the idea of decolonizing our diet at first it's a start that need to happen. Layne concludes her article by saying, “Our bodies are craving nutrition and that has been lost down the genetic line, but our bodies remember.” The reason why we might eat so much meat is to try restore or reobtain the nutrition that we are craving but in order to get that nutrition we have to go back to having a plant based

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