Grilling Up Amines, Sulfides, & Secondary Bile Salts: How animal products are giving you cancer, colitis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. (ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE GRILLING THEM!)
6.25.2020
Like most mothers, I am constantly regrouping and second-guessing myself, but never when it comes to our plant-based path. My worrying comes in the form of: how much time do I dedicate to waking up others (re: the environmental imperatives and their personal health), how does that weight against time taken away from Q, and how is that time calculated against helping secure a stable environment for his future… and for every other species, souls he loves, and for the future of all those kids he wants to have.
Continue for: how charring meat causes carcinogenic heterocyclic amines (MMMmmm, Cancerous grilling!), how consuming animal products causes bacteria in your gut to create hydrogen sulfide (<—associated with colitis) and secondary bile salts (<—associated with the following cancers: colon, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, liver, pancreas, and biliary tract)…and that’s on top of the diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all the other diseases I’ve mentioned many times, and on top of the irreversible damage those products are doing to our environment); plus two full days of a family feasting and living-by-example with plant-based whole-foods (cheapest, healthiest, most environmentally friendly diet of them all.)
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
Q’s Morning Chalkboard: we’re up to page 365 in Dune, he’s talking about it all the time, and this long spate of 80+ degree days coupled with no rain is making for lots of dry dirt outdoors for him to imagine as Arrakis.
Plant-Based Kiddo Breakfast: cinnamon oatmeal with golden flax and frozen raspberries. (“Don’t heat them up! I like how they taste like little jewels of delicious ice!”)
Q gets 30 minutes of solo TV a day and he chooses to do it over his breakfast. Usually he watches PBS kids, but he asked to watch Charlotte’s Web this week, and we spread it out over several days.
A) I loved this movie (and book) as a kid and I love it even more now.
B) If you do as well, but you’re still eating the pig-flesh, how do you reconcile the sympathy for the cartoon pig, but not the smarter-than-your-dog, sings-to-its-young, real-live pig needlessly slaughtered just for taste?
How’s summer homeschool going? All Chtulhus all the time.
What lunch prepping looks like. On the docket: even more lentil loaf tacos. :-D
Lentil Loaf Tacos with: quick-pickled cabbage, bell peppers, romaine, sorrel, roasted corn, and “Holy Moly!” sauce.
Vanilla coconut nice cream that partially melted while I got distracted cleaning up the counter. :-)
How Q spent an afternoon in the 90s: “Mama, I built myself an ice cave!” (I was working on paperwork in the room beyond.)
Real Life
Sometimes things are a topsy-turvy mess. Tuesday was a bit of swirl because we woke up to the news that there was a water-main break and we shouldn’t use our water through the day without boiling it.
The alert was lifted in the late afternoon, so I was in the process of running every line in the house (per the OCWA recommendations), making oatmilk, and searing up some mushrooms/peppers/quinoa for a eat-it-during-your-Board-Meeting meal, when two things happened simultaneously: I noticed the lid had leaked oatmilk every where and I received a text saying that an Audit Meeting I thought was at 5:30 had started at 5.
I laughed out loud at the comedy, responded to sweet Board President Maggie pronto, hopped on over to Zoom, and cleaned up this chaos while absorbing a brief about how our district is going to navigate these alarming times… which come with financial hardships to districts as well as all the logistical labyrinths.
Had a short break before the 6PM Onondaga Central Board of Education Meeting and prepped this Plant-Based Whole-Food Dinner: quinoa with seared mushrooms and peppers, steam-sauteed mustard greens, romaine, quick-pickled cabbage, balsamic tomatoes, avocado, roasted corn, and enchilada sauce.
Dessert? Sweet cinnamon oatmeal (<—overnight oat recipe that’ll be coming up soon, has dates in it for sweetness) with peanut butter and unsweetened flaked coconut.
Onondaga Board of Education <3
Nightly Reading
I’m reading about the necessity of cardio and remembering with alarm that my day was full of movement but I’d forgot to factor in cardio (spoiler: I’ll do the same thing the next day, and we’ll get to that in the wrap up.)
Plant-Based Kiddo Breakfast: sweet cinnamon oats with strawberries and peaches.
I remembered “Peaches” (by the Presidents of the United States of America) when Q pulled some peaches victoriously from the freezer, laughed at the memory of that ridiculous creation, asked if he wanted to hear a funny song from my childhood, and the result was dancing and “We NEED to add this to our mix.” :-D
“It’s two people so shocked by a shai-hulud that they are scared right out of their shoes!”
The beauty, health, and deliciousness of plant-based whole-foods! <3
Plant-Based Whole-Food Mama Bear & Cub Lunch: quinoa (with mushrooms and peppers), peas, broccoli, romaine, quick-pickled cabbage, and “Holy Moly!” sauce.
Q calls this the “Blackest Black Smoothie”: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, spirulina, and oatmilk.
Kids, Cats, and Boxes. :-)
Q found a good way to stay out of the sun but keep me company while I trimmed bushes. <3
Plant-Based Family Feasting: vegetable red curry (cauliflower, peas, mustard greens, kale, broccoli), hempeh, pea shoots, green onions, roasted corn, furikake, and peanuts for Ian and Q who were going big-time. :-)
Remember how I said that our best doctors are advising you to eat at least 30 different plants a week? I used to log this on our computer, I kept failing to document on multiple systems, so I’ve started a new place for it within the log.
We started this list on Monday and this is where we’re at by Wednesday: 40 different plants so far.
Y’all need more fiber in your diets and you need more diversity in the plant line-up delivering it you. Start logging it and you’ll see where improvements can be made. You only make what you measure. <3
I started this thinking we were going to be low in greens, but that category keeps growing and I find myself realizing we need to be adding more in the beta carotene and anthocyanin realms.
Nightly Reading
One of my oldest friends bought “Big Orange Splot” for Q and it is one of our favorite and dearest books. It’s all about the importance of representing yourself truthfully and not blending in with what society expects of you.
Love this book as much as we love Mark.
Below is some continued mind-illumination from gastroenterologist Dr. Will Bulsiewicz in his now super-hot bestseller “Fiber Fueled”
Oh Hey, we talked about TMAO before in that same essay where Dr Kim Williams (former President of American College of Cardiology) was stressing the many reasons we need to stop eating animal products for the sake of our cardiovascular systems…but what does a world renowned cardiologist know? Surely not more than you?
If you’re seeing these posts and you’re not moving forward step by stumbling step, then you are doing yourself and your kin a negligent disservice. That’s why I am so fiery over here. Ignorance is bliss until you’ve been informed, and then it’s just willful disregard.
Want Further Reading? (I need to wrap this up to go make lunch for my kiddo):
“Chemicals in Meat Cooked at High Temperatures and Cancer Risk”
“Emerging Roles of Hydrogen Sulfide in Inflammatory and Neoplastic Colonic Diseases”
“Hydrogen sulphide: a bacterial toxin in ulcerative colitis”
“Secondary bile acids: an underrecognized cause of colon cancer”
“Bile Acids and Cancer: Direct and Environmental-Dependent Effects”
“Eating red meat daily triples heart disease-related chemical” (TMAO)
“Trimethylamine-N-Oxide (TMAO) Predicts Cardiovascular Mortality in Peripheral Artery Disease”
“Trimethylamine N-Oxide and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality”
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
