Quick link: Grab your popcorn! This week covers a great tv show and a movie. Enjoy 🙂
How to Stay Young – BBC 45 mins
Vegan Stories – USA 90 mins
____________________________________________________-
Most people want to know how to stay youthful, without actually being younger…ugh imagine starting out all over again…no thanks!
I just watched this BBC documentary How to Stay Young, it doesn’t offer the secrets to time travel but it does cover best practices that look after your body as you age…and guess what most of the power is in your hands!
Spoiler alert!
Even if you read my extract below I still highly recommend watching this great doco, I have left out a lot, including a test you can do on yourself to test your likelihood of ageing well-you will just have to watch it to find out how! You can also see what a 100 year old vegan looks like.
They found:
Through DNA methylation blood tests on identical twins that 75% of how we age is down to lifestyle and 25% is genetic.
Smoking, followed by stress and weight are three factors that will lead to fastest ageing.
You can be slim and fit but still have visceral fat around your organs which puts them under stress. The presenter was shocked to find she had about 6 litres of it, in spite of an active lifestyle.
The way to get rid of this hidden time bomb is to eat lots of high resistance starch called inulin…which occurs in pulses like lentils and chickpeas. This high resistance starch enters the large intestine where it produces an acid which enters to body to reduce internal fat. (You can also find inulin in other plant products.)
In America there is a Seventh Day Adventist community that lives around ten years longer than the average American.
The residents of this highly vegetarian community are part of a global study on diet.
The global study found that amongst the respondents, the healthiest were…
vegan!
Animal protein (meat, fish, dairy, eggs) stimulates a hormone in our bodies that we need for growth, but as we get older, especially during middle age, this hormone speeds up ageing. The more you replace meat protein with vegetables, the slower you age.
Nut consumption also lowers the risk of heart disease. Walnuts are the best. (If you want to shell your own they are even better …use a flat screwdriver in the bottom end of the nut and twist to split the halves apart, you can then use the screwdriver to dig out the treasures within)
The presenter describes himself as a ‘committed meat eater who doesn’t know if he will be able to maintain a vegan diet’ but he decides to start off with Meatless Mondays.
__________________
Yay for him!! Many schools in the L.A. district now follow Meatless Mondays with their school lunches too. This is a good start to changing the entrenched Western expectation that every meal must contain meat to be complete. It took me a long time to break this mindset when I first went vego, so I get it. Eventually that perception does disappear though and you don’t miss it at all 🙂
I have great respect for vegetarians and vegans, in the early days especially, it takes a lot of strength to follow your heart, and I don’t think they get enough credit…or even give themselves enough credit.
Other recommendations from the documentary include:
Exercise – dance is more effective than repetitive gym work.
Reduce stress – if you can take your dog into work, do! Otherwise try exercise, meditation or ‘me’ time.
Attitude – a positive one about life and ageing really help your health.
They also talk about Laron Syndrome which dramatically slows down growth and ageing by leaving affected people’s bodies unresponsive to growth hormone. They also seem to be immune to cancer and diabetes.
Modern science is using what it has learnt from studying Laron Syndrome to try and create a medicine that slows down the ageing process.
It might be a while off…so in the meantime, dance, spend time with animals and eat
vegan!
____________________________________________________________
The BBC didn’t need my cash for this but I certainly will give them credit!
There is something amazing happening in New York right now which I would be happy to contribute to, but they must have a very generous benefactor and aren’t asking for donations. It is run by Be Fair=Be Vegan
.
A high-profile billboard and poster campaign bringing attention to the plight of animals exploited for human gains is running in NYC’s Times Square, Javits Center, and the streets of Manhattan, from August 8th to September 4th.
More on this next week.
Once again this week I honour the power of the camera and choose to support:
Vegan: Everyday Stories is a feature-length documentary that explores the lives of four remarkably different people who share a common thread – they’re all vegan. The movie traces the personal journeys of an ultramarathon runner who has overcome addiction to compete in one hundred mile races, a cattle rancher’s wife who creates the first cattle ranch turned farmed animal sanctuary in Texas, a food truck owner cooking up knee-buckling plant-based foods, and an 8-year-old girl who convinces her family of six to go vegan.
You can watch it, download it or arrange a screening of for free through the above link. My donation goes towards getting it out there. It is really, really good.
- Title: Vegan: Everyday Stories
- Run Time: 90 minutes
- Country: USA
- Language: English
- Release Dated: June 4, 2016
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 HD
52 charities - 52 weeks 