4 Reasons to Keep Dad Healthy All Year

We spend all day on Father’s Day focusing on the important men in our life, but that shouldn’t end Monday morning! Make your husband, dad, brother and/or son always feel special by taking a moment to highlight how important and powerful consuming a plant-based diet can be for their health.

Men in our culture often get a bad rap for not being health conscious. There’s a billboard from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services promoting regular check-ups right next to Fenway Park (where the Boston Red Sox play baseball) saying that “Every Year Thousands of Men Will Die from Stubbornness.” In fact there are ads everywhere proclaiming that to be masculine means you must eat huge steaks or burgers and fries all the time! And that salads are somehow only for girls and being vegetarian.

Well, good news is that times are changing and many ads and more importantly men are shifting gears.  We get to see in Joe’s film “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead” how helpful adopting a plant based diet including juice was for two of our favorite guys, Joe and Phil.

Here’s a quick look at research that supports just how great fruits, veggies and juice can be for men.

1.) Eating a vegetarian diet may help men live longer with a 12% lower risk of dying compared to those are mainly meat eaters.  The 70,000+ men in this study were less likely to die from all causes and heart disease specifically. Other studies have shown a link in men between vegetarian diets and lower rates of other common chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.

2.) Men who drank 5 oz (150 mL) of kale juice for 3 months had a significant reduction in their LDL (bad) cholesterol, increase in HDL (good) cholesterol and higher antioxidant levels in their blood. These men made no other changes to their diet besides drinking kale juice and their weight remained stable. The juice alone was enough to provide important benefits in a short amount of time, highlighting that small changes can make a big difference.

3.) Following a healthy lifestyle, including eating vegetables, during midlife was found to significantly lower the risk of dementia later in life in Japanese-American men.

4.) For men who smoke, eating 3 fresh kiwifruits a day for 8 weeks significantly lowered their blood pressure and made their blood less sticky and clogged (reduced platelet aggregation).

Rebooting dads across the globe are getting healthy for their kids.  Dads like Joe V, , Izzy O, and Jerry are finding that juicing and eating healthier is giving them the energy they need to get active and participate fully in their children’s lives.

Celebrate the important men in your life all year long!