Intro

The Game Changers debuted on Netflix in 2018, a documentary produced by some of the most influential people and successful athletes of all time: James Cameron (directed two of the top three-grossing films ever), Arnold Schwarzenegger (7-time Mr. Olympia - and renowned actor), Lewis Hamilton (T-1 most decorated Formula 1 driver ever), Novak Djokovic (21 Grand Slam titles), and Chris Paul (NBA all-star and 2-time Olympic gold medalist). This documentary was one unseen before in its willingness to disrupt the dietary norms of today. It quickly became a sensation in the athletic and health community. It provided both anecdotal and concrete evidence of the many plant-based dietary benefits as well as the drawbacks of a meat-heavy diet. It challenges the notion of popular eating habits. It pushed back further against the meat culture and dove into the most pressing issue to date: climate change. The Game Changers provided shocking facts about the overwhelming amount of resources the meat industry requires to produce a minute amount of food and related this to the wastefulness greatly accelerating climate change. However, meat production has tripled in the past 50 years and is still on the rise, expecting to be a $1.3 trillion industry by 2027. This begs the question: is it even possible to create a plant-based market big enough to combat the meat industry? Discussed below will explain why society should invest in plants, for our health, the environment, and the economy. It is time to put our money where our mouths are.

Health

It is no secret there are positive social attitudes toward the consumption of meat and animal byproducts. Most children, similar to myself, were told from a young age to drink their milk in order to get big and strong. Meat is also a sign of success; filet mignon is often the pinnacle of menus in modern restaurants and ordering it is an unspoken sign of wealth. So why are some of the world’s strongest, fastest, and wealthiest athletes on the planet going plant-based? Considering they depend on their bodies for their livelihoods, why take such a risk and go outside the social norms and gamble on the effectiveness of a new diet? That’s because they’re not gambling. 

Lewis Hamilton, Tom Brady, and Derrick Morgan are only a handful of the outspoken plant-based athletes today. In athletics, power and precision are key, both rely on proper fuel, “Hard-working muscles run primarily on glycogen, a form of carbohydrate stored in our liver and muscle. Carbohydrates, which come almost exclusively from plants, also provide our brain with its primary and preferred fuel — glucose — which helps us stay sharp and focused during intense training sessions and competitions,” (The Game Changers, 2018). Meat, on the other hand, is often abundant in dietary fat, which, unlike carbs, cannot produce energy fast enough to meet the body's demands during intense exercise. Furthermore, “efficient blood flow is another cornerstone for optimized performance, since blood is how oxygen and vital nutrients reach the cells in our muscles, brain, and the rest of our body, while also helping to eliminate waste,” (The Game Changers, 2018). An experiment conducted with the Miami Dolphins football team demonstrated that “a single animal-based meal can quickly thicken our blood which slows down the flow of oxygen and the nutrients blood transports to the areas that need it most, including the muscles we use during exercise. People who avoid meat experience the opposite effect, since plant-based meals allow blood to remain fluid and flow quickly to its destination” (The Game Changers, 2018). There is even a common ingredient found in plants like spinach, lettuce, carrots, and beets that actually send signals to the body telling it to expand its arteries, creating larger and more efficient channels of blood flow through the body. High-level athletes understand the importance of their performance, and every edge over the competition is a step toward winning. It’s been made abundantly clear that nutrition for athletics is of the utmost importance, and those who understand their bodies need for proper fuel in the form of food sooner will thrive. 

However, we are not all 45-year-old Tom Brady, a 7-time super bowl champion and current player in the NFL. While he may eat plant-based to provide the nutrients needed to compete at his best, this is the far extreme to the benefits a plant-based diet provides. High blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, cholesterol issues, heart disease, and cancer are the plagues of today’s society. These diseases are affecting people at horrific rates: the United States CDC states that “37.3 million Americans—about 1 in 10—have diabetes” (CDC, 2022). The Cancer Treatment Center of America estimates “that one in two men, and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime” (Cancer Treatment Center, 2022). The American Heart Association describes cardiovascular disease as the most lethal disease in the country, stating “on average, someone dies of CVD every 37 seconds in the US” (American Heart Association, 2022). Taking these statistics into account, it could be inferred that our medicine is to blame, yet global advancement in medicine is one of the most dominant fields of innovation to date. The Game Changers suggest it is our diet that faults us. The Global Burden of Disease Study, the largest study of risk factors for disease in history, “concluded that the number-one cause of premature death in the United States, and the number-one cause of disability, is the standard American diet” (GBDS, 2018). In 2011, a study conducted by European dietitians concluded that eating just one-quarter of a chicken breast per day increases the risk of the fastest-growing cancers, like lymphomas and leukemias, by up to 280%. These staggering findings about meat consumption have overcast the data on plant-based benefits which was prevalent as early as 2007. A review of multiple major cohort studies published in Nutrients concluded that “vegetarian diets confer protection against cardiovascular diseases, cardiometabolic risk factors, some cancers and total mortality. Compared to lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets, vegan diets seem to offer additional protection for obesity, hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular mortality” (Nutrients, 2014). The numbers arguing for veganism speak for itself. Studies show that the prevalence of type-2 diabetes is 7.6% among non-vegetarians and only 2.9% for vegans. The mean BMI for vegans is 23.6, while for non-vegetarians it is 28.8, which qualifies as overweight. Following a primarily plant-based diet can also lower LDL levels, meaning bad cholesterol, by 10-15%, while those following a strict vegan diet can lower their LDL levels by as much as 25%. Regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or any other diverging factor between individuals, the science is sound and it highlights that plants allow all people to live longer and healthier lives. 

Environmental Benefits

Plants do not only benefit the human species, due to the interconnectedness of our planet nearly every living being benefits in some way from this turn in the human diet. Approximately 70 billion animals are birthed, raised, and slaughtered each year for human consumption. It has been estimated that if humans killed each other at this rate, we would be extinct within 17 days. This is not natural production and consumption, the planet’s homeostasis is impacted by the consequences of the meat-producing industry. 

Globally meat and dairy production account for about 14.5% of total global emissions, beef, and lamb being at the forefront of this group by a substantial margin. This is predominantly due to two reasons: the physiology of livestock, and the number of resources needed to produce and raise livestock. Cows and sheep are referred to as “ruminants'' due to a physiological adaptation that provides them immensely strong stomach bacteria capable of digesting tough fibrous material, such as grass. However, “this digestive process causes the animals to belch out methane, a greenhouse gas that is around 28-34 times more powerful than CO2” (Carbon Brief, 2022). Secondly, raising cattle requires immense resources: “grazing cattle need plentiful supplies of grass – meaning farmers often use nitrogen fertilizer on their fields to stimulate plant growth. The production of nitrogen fertilizer causes the release of CO2 and the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide” (Carbon Brief, 2022). Furthermore, the conversion of land for beef production and animal feed is the leading cause of deforestation in many regions, notably the Amazon, which is one of the last prominent carbon sinks in the world. Professor Willett, a leading nutritionist at Harvard University, states: “Eating beef raised on grain produced in the Amazon is like coal-fuelled power plants – the worst thing you could possibly do''(CarbonBrief, 2022). Plants, on the other hand, use environmental resources in a much more subtle way. “On average, emissions from plant-based foods are 10 to 50 times smaller than those from animal products''(Carbon Brief, 2022). When comparing the carbon footprints of plant-versus meat-based burgers, both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger were reported to be around 20 times smaller than that produced by the same amount of beef. Scientists are stressing now more than ever that if the world is to meet its goal of limiting global warming to ‘well below’ 2C, some degree of diet shift will be necessary. And if we are to strive for the most optimistic target of 1.5C, dietary changes must be even more substantial. 

Economics 

While these dietary changes may be good for people's health and the environment, they will never be implemented if they do not provide economic benefits. In 2021, a paper at the University of Michigan discussed the economic implementation of a plant-based diet in society and highlighted findings based on meat prices, healthcare, agriculture, and development. First, during COVID-19, the prices of the meat sector soared due to immense supply chain pressure as many factories were forced to shut down, creating gaps in the production process of meat, including butchering, grading, packaging, and distributing. When certain plants or facilities are shut down and the process is interrupted, it causes delayed production time and increased prices to compensate for this lack of supply. As food prices rise, it hurts other economic areas as it reduces consumers' surplus, limiting purchasing power of other goods such as travel or technology. Secondly, healthcare was inversely correlated to the meat industry. As previously stated, plant-based diets significantly reduce risk of various health diseases. Thus, it has been found that people following a plant-based diet have fewer nutrition-induced health issues, saving both the individuals and the healthcare system millions of dollars annually. Further, agriculture may be the largest area impacted by a possible meat-to-plant dietary shift in society. As highlighted above, cattle require immense resource usage. If society ate less meat and dairy, we would utilize land more efficiently. Farmers could producing plants that require fewer hectares for a similar amount of caloric and nutrient intake; thus freeing up billions of hectares for natural vegetation, forests, and ecosystems. Lastly, economic development would be largely impacted by the transition to plant-based diets. With less land designated for livestock, new buildings, community centers, apartment complexes, and other infrastructures can be built to bolster economic growth. According to data released by the trade group Plant Based Foods Association, the plant-based food industry has created “55,634 high-paying jobs in the U.S and on average, jobs in the plant-based industry paid $59,300 per year—approximately $12,500 more than the average American income.” (PBFA, 2019). Furthermore when pinning these industries side by side, “plant-based industries have a higher return on assets, or the after tax earnings of assets, by a factor of 0.98%” and “plant-based industries have a higher return on the capital invested by the owners or stockholders by a factor of 2.46%”(fuanalytics). And while this may appear small, depending on the revenues generated, it can represent millions of dollars. Overall this represents that the economy would grow through a transition to plant-based diets, there would be more money to spend on goods rather than healthcare and the constantly increasing prices for land would drop noticeably as more land would be available to settle and build. 

Conclusion 

It is no secret that the transition from a meat-based agricultural industry to a plant-based one would be challenging. However, there are benefits that encompass all aspects of life: personal, environmental, and economic. Nonetheless, we are pushing against the clock and need to further be educated as a society on the impact our choices have on the planet. The simple difference between having plants versus meat at dinner is a simple choice everyone can make that helps them decide what kind of world they want to live in.  

References 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, January 24). The facts, stats, and impacts of diabetes. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/spotlights/diabetes-facts-stats.html  

Daisy Dunne, T. P. and J. G. (n.d.). Interactive: What is the climate impact of eating meat and dairy? Carbon Brief. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/  

Faunalytics. (2022, October 27). Meat vs. plants: A key business ratio comparison. Faunalytics. Retrieved November 29, 2022, from https://faunalytics.org/meat-vs-plants-key-business-ratio-comparison/  

The game changers official film website: Documentary. The Game Changers. (2019, September 20). Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://gamechangersmovie.com/  

Heart disease and stroke statistics - 2020 update. professional.heart.org. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://professional.heart.org/en/science-news/heart-disease-and-stroke-statistics-2020-update  

Le LT, Sabaté J. Beyond Meatless, the Health Effects of Vegan Diets: Findings from the Adventist Cohorts. Nutrients. 2014 Jun;6(6):2131-47. Mje. (2021, November 17). Planting the seed for plant-based diets and their effect on our economy. Michigan Journal of Economics. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2021/11/17/planting-the-seed-for-plant-based-diets-and-their-effect-on-our-economy/  

Ritchie, H., Rosado, P., & Roser, M. (2017, August 25). Meat and dairy production. Our World in Data. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production