3 big health benefits of vegan diets every Aussie should know.
Australian vegetarian and vegans are the country’s healthiest eaters. Plant-based diets guard against the risk of both chronic and infectious diseases.
There are 3 big health benefits of plant-based diets that every Aussie should know about:
1. Vegetarians and vegans are Australia’s healthiest eaters according to nation’s largest ever diet study by the CSIRO.
Australia’s vegetarians and vegans have the best quality diet among the population, according to the country’s largest ever diet study, the CSIRO Healthy Diet Score 2016.¹ Surveying 86,500 Australians, it compared the eating habits of the typical adult with those who follow special diets, such as low-carb and low-fat. ‘Those avoiding meat or animal products (vegetarians or vegans) had the highest Diet Score,’ the CSIRO reports.²
2. Plant-based diets reduce risk of chronic disease, including obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Australia’s biggest killer is chronic disease. Our current eating habits, which the CSIRO describes as a ‘shocker,’ are behind growing rates of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and one-third of all cancers.³
Not only are well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets ‘healthy and nutritionally adequate,’⁴ according to Australia’s Dietary Guidelines, they are associated with lower ‘all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.’⁵ Plant-based diets ‘help reduce risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and some types of cancer.’⁶
3. Animal agriculture is linked to pandemics. Most new infectious diseases originate in animals eaten by humans, including HIV-1, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19.
Bird flu. Swine flu. Mad Cow disease. About ¾ of new or emerging human infectious diseases originally came from animals.⁷ In particular, ‘the human quest for more animal-source food’ has been linked to the transmission and spread of most recent diseases, such as SARS, HIV-1 and novel influenzas, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).⁸
The FAO warns that ‘the rapid growth in livestock production and supply chains is creating public health threats associated with an animal-to-human pathogen shift, which implies pandemic risk’.⁹ Australia is not immune to this risk. In 2020, the country’s largest ever bird flu outbreak hit Victoria’s egg and poultry industries.¹⁰ Efforts to contain the virus’ spread involved the culling of half a million chickens and turkeys.¹¹
COVID-19 also originated from an animal source, probably a bat.¹² The transmission to humans most likely occurred at a live animal market, or ‘wet market,’ in Wuhan, China.¹³
Notes:
[1] Hendrie, G., Baird, D., Golley, S., & Noakes, M. (2016, September). CSIRO Healthy Diet Score 2016. https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/media/2127/2016-csiro-healthy-diet-score.pdf
[2] Hendrie, G., Baird, D., Golley, S., & Noakes, M. (2016, September). CSIRO Healthy Diet Score 2016. https://www.totalwellbeingdiet.com/media/2127/2016-csiro-healthy-diet-score.pdf. See p. 36.
[3] CSIRO. (2016, 26 September). C’mon Aussie. Your diet’s a shocker. https://www.csiro.au/en/news/news-releases/2016/cmon-aussie-your-diets-a-shocker
[4] National Health and Medical Research Council. (2013). Australian Dietary Guidelines: providing the scientific evidence for healthier Australian diets.https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/n55_australian_dietary_guidelines.pdf. See p. 35.
[5] National Health and Medical Research Council. (2013). Australian Dietary Guidelines: providing the scientific evidence for healthier Australian diets. https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/n55_australian_dietary_guidelines.pdf. See p. 1.
[6] Healthdirect Australia. (2019, December). Vegetarian and vegan diets. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/vegetarian-and-vegan-diets
[7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017, 14 July). Zoonotic Diseases. https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
[8] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2013). World Livestock 2013: Changing disease landscapes. http://www.fao.org/3/i3440e/i3440e.pdf. See p. 2.
[9] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2013). World Livestock 2013: Changing disease landscapes. http://www.fao.org/3/i3440e/i3440e.pdf.See p. 3.
[10] Wakatama, G. (2020, 5 October). Devastating bird flu outbreak in Victoria sees NSW prepare for the worst. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-05/nsw-sets-up-bird-flu-incident-management-team/12730286
[11] Wakatama, G. (2020, 5 October). Devastating bird flu outbreak in Victoria sees NSW prepare for the worst. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-05/nsw-sets-up-bird-flu-incident-management-team/12730286
[12] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, 4 June). Animals & COVID-19. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html
[13] Maxmen, A. (2021, 31 March). WHO report into COVID pandemic origins zeroes in on animal markets, not labs. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00865-8
Originally published at https://vstats.substack.com.
