Is Reducing Consumption of Animal Products Healthy?

This part of the assignment is to provide a short background that eating a plant-based diet and reducing animal products, while being healthy for the planet, can also be a healthy option for people. Provide responses to the following two topics. 1. Plant Based Athletes: To recover faster and stay competitive as they age, many athletes are moving toward plant-based diets in many sports, even sports such as Mixed Martial Arts, 100 Mile Ultramarathons, and the NFL and NBA. In fact, the NBA may be the sport where players are embracing plant-based diets the fastest! (http://www.stack.com/a/the-nbas-vegan-revolution-why-so-many-players-embrace-a-plant-based-diet (Links to an external site.)). Name 3 plant-based athletes in 3 different sports of your choice and a short description of what they have accomplished. If you don’t follow sports, you can select from the following athletes. (You would find it interesting to read about each of these athletes.) Scott Jurek/UltraMarathoner, Venus Williams/Tennis, Alex Honnold/Rock Climber, Heather Mills/Skier, Tom Brady/Football, Fiona Oakes/Marathoner, Carl Lewis/Sprinter, Leilani Munter/Race Car Driver, Patrik Babaumian/Strongman, and Ruth Heidrich/Ironman Triathlete. Note: If this subject interests you, there is a new movie by James Cameron coming out Sept. 16 on the topic: https://gamechangersmovie.com/ (Links to an external site.) 2. The Blue Zones: In 2005, National Geographic published an article “The Secrets of a Long Life” (https://www.bluezones.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Nat_Geo_LongevityF.pdf (Links to an external site.)). Provide responses for the following: a. What are the “Blue Zones” referenced in the article? (search the internet for “Blue Zones” to find the answers) b. What are the longevity diets in the Blue Zones? (search the internet for “Blue Zones longevity diets” to find the answers) c. Discuss how changing to a Blue Zone longevity diet could impact climate change? (50-100 words minimum) PART IV: How much would reducing meat consumption lower your Carbon Footprint (6 pts)? The Cowspiracy documentary refers to a non-peer reviewed article claiming 51% of climate change is caused by animal agriculture (Goodland and AnHang 2009). A review of all of the research currently available shows the impact to range from a low of 9% if you consider the US only (EPA 2017 https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks (Links to an external site.)), to 14.5% for the world (FAO 2013) to the mentioned high of 51% in this one paper and the movie. Keep watching as this area of research develops. Scott Kruis, the TA for this class, is working on this for his PhD so has lots of insight if you would like to talk with him more about this. Regardless of this final percentage for impacts, on an individual basis reducing your meat intake may be one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint.