Vegetarianism is Healthier; Eating Too Much Meat Hurts the "Heart"
Introduction: Experts say that when humans turn into "carnivores," it not only harms the body, "it also causes the human brain to secrete excessive dopamine, abnormal acetylcholine activity, leading to irritability, strong desires, and affecting intelligence."
For many people, the memory of meat from childhood is tied to it being a luxury, bundled with the small meat coupons of the planned economy era. Back then, you could only eat dumplings with meat filling during big occasions like the Spring Festival. For more children, the memory left behind is of secretly eating crispy meat scraps with a mouth full of fragrance. Now, more and more people are starting to eat less meat or even refuse it all in the name of health. There's also a joke that says rural people don't understand city people: "We followed the city folks to eat meat, and now the city folks are all starting to eat vegetarian."
Eating Too Much Meat Hurts the "Heart" and "Brain"
Scientific research has found that early humans only ate fruits and vegetables, not meat. It was only after the last Ice Age, when the required fruits, nuts, and vegetables were no longer sufficient, that they started eating meat from dead animals as a supplement to survive. But after the Ice Age, vegetarian foods became abundant, yet the habit of eating meat continued. In real life, we all know many "carnivores" around us—hamburgers, roasted meat, roast duck, braised pork—who can't have a meal without meat. According to data from the 2002 National Nutrition Survey, the daily consumption of animal-based foods for urban and rural residents in China was 248 grams and 126 grams respectively, while the standard given by the Chinese Nutrition Society is only 50-75 grams per day.
In fact, there was much controversy about eating meat in ancient China. The *Lüshi Chunqiu · Zhong Ji* pointed out that those who are good at nurturing life are "those who do not savor many delicacies," because "savoring many delicacies fills the stomach, and when the stomach is full, one feels greatly bloated, and when greatly bloated, qi cannot circulate." The "many delicacies" mainly referred to animal foods like swimming fish, flying birds, and running beasts. The ancients believed that eating too much of these foods would stagnate the spleen and stomach's digestive function and also affect the smooth flow of qi and blood. Now, more and more experiments are proving that eating too much meat is extremely harmful to the human body: The United States has at least 1 million new heart disease patients each year, and nearly 600,000 lose their lives because of it. A report from the U.S. Heart Disease Research Committee pointed out that most of these heart disease patients are due to eating too much meat, too few vegetables, and too little exercise. In addition, eating a lot of meat is also closely related to metabolic diseases such as high blood lipids and obesity. Recently, the British *Daily Mail* even published an article stating that even seemingly unrelated diseases like arthritis, gallstones, Alzheimer's, and osteoporosis are inextricably linked to eating too much meat. "When humans turn into 'carnivores,' it not only harms the body, it also causes the human brain to secrete excessive dopamine, abnormal acetylcholine activity, leading to irritability, strong desires, and affecting intelligence," experts say.