The Dog Days of Summer have certainly arrived, and, as usual, with ‘dogged’ determination! There’s no better time that “the good ‘ole summertime” to de-clutter, minimalize or simply lighten things up in general.
This endeavor usually takes the form of emptying out the garage or finishing up any spring cleaning that didn’t make the cut in April. However, summer is also a fantastic time to improve your eating habits; far better than January 1st with your shiny New Year’s Resolution bearing down upon you and the colder weather beckoning a hearty stew.
We tend to eat less anyway during this time of year. It’s just too darn hot to be stuffed to the gills and who wants to turn the stove on? Not me! Lazy, hazy days well motivate us to eat lighter; so why not make it easier on yourself and go with the flow.
We have options to choose from but if you’re unsure where to start, perhaps this is the perfect time to try something new on the culinary front. Incorporating “healthy eating habits” is certainly commonplace enough, but if you’re ready to shake it up a bit, if you’re ready to eat lighter, cleaner, healthier AND have the added medical benefits, now is the perfect time to try veganism.
What is Veganism?
I’m glad you asked. The Vegan Society as we know it today was founded in 1944 by Mr. Donald Watson, UK. Mr. Watson also coined the word vegan, based on the doctrine that “man should live without exploiting animals.” Yet evidence of veganism can be traced back for hundreds of years. The Greek mathematician and philosopher, Pythagoras (570 BC – 495 BC), followed a basic vegetarian diet, allowing only the flesh of sacrificial animals.
Like me, you’ve probably assumed at some point that vegan and vegetarianism are interchangeable. They’re not, although the differences can seem murky. Let’s clear it up:
Neither vegans nor vegetarians eat meat, but, vegans don’t consume any animal products whatsoever, including the obvious eggs and dairy, and they may delve deeper into it foregoing leather, wool and silk. Proponents of both lifestyles incorporate more than food consumption as a way of life on varying levels.
There are health benefits to eating clean, raw, sometimes cooked fruits, vegetables and grains. By nature, these foods are high in fiber, magnesium, folic acid, Vitamins A, C and E. They are low-cholesterol and generally lower in calories. These foods tend to clean out your gut, are known to lower blood sugar levels and improve kidney function.
But, there’s cause for responsible caution. Vegan foods are also low in essential fatty acids, Vitamin D and B12, iron, calcium, iodine and zinc, indicating that strict adherence would require you to monitor their levels, and supplemental intake is highly likely.
What does this all mean?
You can decide for yourself. While vegan advocates come to the lifestyle for a combination of religious, health or moral beliefs, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can simply choose to take advantage of the cleaner way of life to suit. Summer is the perfect opportunity to set these new habits before the Holiday Craze comes barreling through.
Perhaps you’ll adopt an 80/20 rule toward veganism: for breakfast and lunch you can have peanut butter/chia seed/coconut oatmeal, cauliflower hash browns, avocado hummus toast with tomato, or a sesame ginger veggie noodle bowl, and then enjoy meat or seafood as part of a sensible dinner. Or switch it up with meat and seafood proteins in the morning, savoring a vegan cream of asparagus soup, or portabella fajitas for dinner; which might not be such a bad idea because, depending on your constitution, consuming heavier animal products in the morning allows you the rest of the day for proper digestion.
The point is, your options for integrating healthy eating habits are endless and exploring vegan ideals might be the right way to go. Ourseniors.net exists to help meet those challenges of all types. Good senior home care, senior assisted living, and medical care may all be involved. Please call on Ourseniors.net, its Senior Transition Pro Team and our senior living magazine, OurSeniors.net Magazine for help in vetting and locating these senior services such as in-home senior care.
You can contact an OurSeniors.net Advisor by phone at 866-333-2657 (se habla Español), or by using Contact Us. Check out our website at Ourseniors.net and take an online look at our senior living magazine, OurSeniors.net Magazine.
Disclaimer:
OurSeniors.net Magazine, LLC also d/b/a FindingAssistedLiving.com (FAL) website contains articles on many medical topics; however, no warranty whatsoever is made that any of the articles are accurate. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained or cited in an article touching on medical matters is true, correct, precise, or up-to-date. The overwhelming majority of such articles are written, in part or in whole, by nonprofessionals. Even if the article is written by a professional, and or the statement made about medicine is accurate, it may not apply to you or your symptoms. The medical information provided on FAL sites are, at best, of a general nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a medical professional (for instance, a qualified doctor/physician, nurse, pharmacist/chemist, and so on). None of the individual © OurSeniors.net Magazine, LLC also d/b/a FindingAssistedLiving.com, LLC-Copyright © 2018 contributors, system operators, developers, and sponsors of neither FAL nor anyone else connected to FAL can take any responsibility for the results or consequences of any attempt to use or adopt any of the information presented on this web site.
Nothing on the FAL family of sites should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a medical opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of medicine. Please consult a physician and or Healthcare Professional.
