Vegetables Rule, Oxidants Drool
May 18th, 2010 | by admin |Who cared more about our health and well-being growing up than our mothers? No doubt, we all remember her command at every meal, “Each your vegetables!” And, though we often had to “gag through it,” we usually did as we were told. Most vegetables, it seems, are an acquired taste. Not only does something like a spear of asparagus suddenly take on interesting new flavor nuances as we get older, but as adults we come to understand the importance of learning to eat vegetables for the many ways they sustain our health. But, if you need one more reason to pile on the veggies and hold the beef, a new Korean study has shown that switching to a vegetarian diet for five days a week can significantly reduce the amount of two environmental chemicals, antibiotics and phthalates, in your body.
At this point you may be asking: “Why are ‘antibiotics’ bad if they’re so good at fighting infections? And, what the heck are phthalates!?” Antibiotics are destructive to micro-organisms, and that’s why they are used in the treatment of infectious diseases, i.e., they destroy bacteria. But, since their very nature is the destruction of life or the prevention of the inception or continuance of life, it’s not good to have them roaming around in your body looking for something to destroy when you don’t have an infection, especially if you are pregnant. Antibiotics are widely used in industrial farming to maintain production levels and tend to move on up the food chain. Phthalates, on the other hand, are colorless, crystalline, slightly water-soluble solids used as solvents, additives and plasticizers in everything from nail polish, dyes, perfumes, and shampoo to raincoats and garden hoses. But, obviously should not be an additive in a biological system, like the human body!
Back to the study: Participants stayed at a Buddhist temple for five days and ate a strictly vegetarian diet. The researchers analyzed urine samples before and after the stay, and found that levels of both antibiotics and phthalates had dropped dramatically by the end of the experiment. In addition, the researchers had measured the diets of the participants before the start of the study and found that what the participants had eaten 48 hours prior to the study had an effect on the amounts of chemicals found in their urine.
So, once again your mom was way ahead of the times! Vegetables, in addition to all their other benefits to our body, are excellent antioxidants. So, eat your vegetables! They will help your body to eliminate the harmful pollutants of the twenty-first century.
Source: The journal Environmental Research.
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