Everyone knows that what you eat affects how long and how well you can live. Read on to discover how the question of meat factors into your longevity goals.

Vegetarian Benefits
Becoming vegetarian has more rewards in store than ethical integrity; it can also offer some wonderful health benefits. In general, vegetarians suffer from fewer degenerative diseases than their carnivore counterparts.

It has been estimated that one third of all cancer patients developed their disease because they did not include a sufficient amount of whole plant fibers in their diets. Studies have also shown that vegetarians – when following a well-balanced, low-fat, high-fiber vegetarian diet – often have lower incidence of coronary artery disease, hypertension, and obesity.

Save the Meat for the Weekend
The recent Western obsession with protein diets is turning out to have potentially fatal results, namely osteoporosis and kidney failure. During protein metabolism, your kidneys must excrete the excess components of protein, known as amino acids.

To complete this process, the kidneys neutralize the acids by binding them to calcium, which in turn, depletes your body’s store of this essential mineral.

The rate in the U.S. of osteoporosis is strikingly higher than China, where almost everyone eats a lower protein vegetarian diet. Evidence has also been found that excess protein weakens the kidney function. But you don’t have to give up meat entirely to attain longevity.

In studies of animals with chronic kidney failure, simply reducing their intake of protein extended their lifespan by up to 50 percent! Take this advice: limit your meat eating to only the weekends, and you will be taking a balanced and healthy approach to your diet.

Choose Fish
If you do decide to eat meat, you will want to make educated decisions about the meat you choose. Of all animal products, fish is the healthiest choice because it is high in protein and low in fat. The omega-3 fatty acids that are found in fish protect your blood vessels from plaque, prevent high blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and help you maintain good respiratory health.

Populations that eat a diet consisting of mostly fish, vegetables, and local fresh fruits experience practically no cardiovascular disease and have a high percentage of healthy seniors.

Ladyironchef comment

This is just a article i found somewhere, i still eat meat, but i eat it with lots of greens and fruits : )

We have always been curious to find out why a hotdog is called a “hotdog” and not a “colddog”?

The origin of hot dogs started all the way from the main ingredient – the sausage. There is some disagreement though as to whether the Austrians or the Germans invented the sausage. However, most people will credit the origin of sausages to the city of Frankfurt in Germany around the late 1400s. The frankfurter sausage was later nicknamed as “dachshund sausage” by a Frankfurt butcher who happened to own a dachshund (a dog with a pretty long body).

It is from Europe that the “dachshund” sausage was introduced to North American. Again it not quite clear who actually was the first to introduce sausages with bread roll in the States. Whoever it was, the “dachshund” sausage roll became a very popular fast food in Chicago where it spread to the rest of the country. People began to serve the “dachshund” sausage rolls in baseball parks and soon having hotdogs at the games became an American tradition.

It was in 1901 during one of such games that the vendors were peddling pipping hot “dachshund” sausage rolls. A sport cartoonist, Tad Dorgan heard the vendors hawking their “dachshund” sausage rolls and drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages nestled warmly in break rolls. The term “hotdog” was immortalized when Dorgan was unable to spell “dachshund” and instead settled with the term “hotdogs”

And that’s how hotdogs came to be !

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