Plant-based Is the Natural Diet: Dr. Kim Benson (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Dr. Benson, who holds a PhD and doctorate in Natural Medicine, is the Canadian founder of the Inner Healing Academy that offers classes and coaching on plant-based eating. As a passionate educator, she has given more than a thousand public presentations to raise awareness of the compassionate vegan diet and help people empower themselves in life. Dr. Benson believes that people can take full control of their food choices and live harmoniously with all living beings on the planet. She has written two books: “Go Dairy Free & Thrive: Learn why and how to go dairy free,” and “Go Vegan Successfully: Everything you need to know to make a smooth transition to a plant-based diet and ensure you get all your essential nutrients.”

Let’s hear from Dr. Benson regarding her story of becoming vegan. “What happened was my youngest son, when he was 18, and he graduated from school, he said, I am going to be a vegetarian now. And he was determined, and he said, ‘You've got these animals here, Mom, and you’d never eat your own animals.’ And I said, ‘No, because (I) have a connection with them.’ He says, ‘Well, why are you then paying for other people to kill their animals? And then you go and buy the meat in the stores.’ And I consider myself an animal lover, and here I am paying for other people to do something I will not do myself. So, it kind of made sense and I thought, well, I'll go vegetarian with him.”

Why are humans meant to follow a vegan diet? Dr. Benson explains. “If you consider our intestinal tract, it's quite long. Food can take up to 48 hours to pass through the intestinal tract, which is much more akin to an herbivore, like a sheep, because it takes a long time for it to pass through the guts. But for us, it could be lingering and hanging around within the system for a long time. And oftentimes things do get caught in the colon and colon cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in some parts of the world. It's quite a common cancer and that is due to often festering foods in the colon.

So it's best that we have foods that will pass through smoothly, easily digested and pass right through. There's a clean movement through the system. So yes, when you look at the intestines, I think it's clear that the plant-based diet is our natural diet.”