Meat for Kids?

Mother Nature knows what is best for us. Like every parent, she wants to provide each of her children with the highest quality of food for their body. So, is meat good for us or our children? Every animal eats by instinct. We are the only species that eats according to our culture, our society and advertisements.

One of the best gifts we can give to our children is a healthy foundation. Is giving them meat, strengthening that foundation or weakening it? Read on to find out why meat may be detrimental to health.

1. Excess protein is detrimental

While our body does need protein for growth and repair, the quality and quantity also matter. Though animal proteins contain all the essential amino acids, they don’t contain any fibre. This enables us to eat them in excess. Plant proteins, such as beans, legumes, leafy greens etc contain good quality proteins and can easily provide the essential amino acids.

2. Meat is high in fat

Animal based foods are rich in fat, causing younger people to get health issues such as obesity, high blood pressure and even heart attacks.

3. Meat contains cholesterol

Only animals produce cholesterol. We are animals, and so we, too, both need and produce cholesterol. Excess cholesterol comes from animal products, including dairy in our diet. Cutting out all animal products will naturally bring down the cholesterol levels.

4. Meat lacks fibre

Fibre forms the bulk of our stools. It helps to cleanse the gut and to remove the toxins that have been collected. There is no fibre in any animal products but all plants are rich in fibre.

5. Animal foods are acidic

Our body is alkaline and thrives on alkaline foods such as fruits and vegetables. Meat is acid yielding in our body (proteins break down into amino acids) and this results in leaching of calcium from our bones and also increasing the risk of cancers.

6. Meat causes lethargy

Since our digestive tract is designed for plants, meat is hard to digest. When we eat animal products, the body’s energy goes to the digestive system, leaving us feeling heavy and lethargic.

7. Meat can cause hormonal imbalances

Since animals produce hormones, just like we do, and also since they’re often given hormones in order to grow bigger, faster, these hormones are transferred over to us when we eat meat, causing hormonal imbalances in our body. Diseases like hypothyroidism, PCOD, premature puberty, menstrual, irregularities, and even hormone dependant cancers can be linked to meat.

8. Meat is cancer causing

Heme iron found in meat increases the risk of cancers, heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are the carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals formed from cooking meat, nitrites added to processed meats promote cancer, and toxins resulting from meat cause colon cancers.

9. Meat contains antibiotics

While most parents avoid giving antibiotics as much as possible to their children, they don’t realise how much of this they may get from the animal products they consume. Animals produced for consumption are treated with antibiotics, to avoid the spread of disease, due to the inhumane conditions they live in.

10. Meat causes stress

When an animal is being slaughtered, their stress hormones are at their peak. When we consume that dead body, we are also consuming the stress hormones, resulting in us feeling irritated, angry, anxious or frustrated.