I just watched two documentaries on health and nutrition. Stop it. I can hear you already: "borrrrrrrrrrring". If you're willing to stay with me for just a moment, it could change your life.
For those who need a scientific approach to determining whether the nutritional information you're getting is valid, there's Forks Over Knives about two pioneering doctors who realized that conventional medical treatments for heart disease were not producing cures or preventing heart attacks.
The other documentary is for those who find experiential information more to their liking. It's called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. This documentary was shot by an Australian businessman who was suffering from all the side effects of the good life that came along with financial success. He takes us along as he travels across the US and juices for sixty days.
The first documentary is serious and speaks to the changes in the eating habits of Americans of the last sixty years and what has happened to the health and waistlines of the population in the process. They make a compelling argument for a plant-based diet for good health and disease prevention and for the treatment of disease. It also explains the relationship between processed food and the food addiction that has gripped the country.
What is surprising is that most people completely accept the nutritional information they get from food manufacturers. They don't realize that this information is coming to them through advertisements designed to make them want to buy the food. Also, most people also believe their fat is completely their fault, convinced they cold lose it if they could only control themselves and just stop eating so much. They don't realize that processed foods are designed to fool the body's mechanism for recognizing that it has consumed enough calories.
In both documentaries, you can watch people naturally reverse the conditions for which doctors have prescribed them medication. The conditions reversed include heart disease, diabetes, and cancer -- the big three -- as well as autoimmune diseases, arthritis, migraines and allergies.
I always wonder why people would prefer to keep their discomforts. I can't tell you how many people say to me, "It runs in my family." It never occurs to them that their family generally eats the same way, so they eventually suffer from the same diseases. My mother became a diabetic in her fifties. She and my father were both diagnosed with high blood pressure. My mother has had two different kinds of cancer and my father had heart disease and died of Alzheimer's. My oldest brother didn't heed the warnings either and he has been diagnosed with diabetes too.
I've changed my eating habits over the years. The first changes came in my late twenties when a doctor told me my blood pressure was high. He gave me a month to change my diet and lose weight. If I didn't, he said he would have to put me on medication. At the time I thought, I don't want to have to start taking pills for the rest of my life this early. So I lost twenty pounds through diet and exercise. When I returned to the doctor's office he was shocked. He said no one ever listened. They always opted for the pills.
Today we have become far too reliant on science to get us out of the messes we create. We expect the magic pill will be developed to reverse the course of all of our bad behavior. When someone advises a plant based diet, the usual response is that it seems extreme. Having to give oneself a shot every morning, open heart surgery and gastric banding are considered reasonable.
Please, get your hands on one of these documentaries or any of the others out there that talk about the relationship between food and health. Don't wait until you need open heart surgery.
Former President Clinton has access to the best health care this country can provide. For him, all that resulted in was repeated episodes of chest pain and cardiac procedures. Clinton is now a vegan. He finally had enough of conventional health care and decided to do something extreme to get healthy.
Don't assume you're healthy because you're thin and continue to ply yourself with cheeseburgers and 16 oz coffee drinks either. One of the biggest myths is that just being thin will save you. One of my best friends is fighting cancer right now. She turned to me when we last spoke and said, "How did this happen? I did everything right."
All of us process food differently. Just because the food doesn't make you fat doesn't mean you're getting the nutrients you need or expelling the things in food that will make you sick.
Obamacare is not about health; it's about whether or not you will be able to get some kind of treatment for the disease you'll eventually contract. Come on people, let's not be the fat nation. Let's be the fit, healthy nation. What do you say?
Sorry for your loss, however.
My great aunt, similar diet and health profile except for back issues, will be 96 this year.
there is a symbiotic connection between the bad nutrition we get from corporate agribusiness and the multi-trillion dollar 'health' industry.
the way our economy is set up, if we all started eating healthy, we would go into a depression economically.
simple economics
After just two weeks of no bread/corn/rice I was 15 pounds lighter and felt great! Yes it's hard to keep the protein up because I was never a big meat eater, but I supplement with nuts. I also avoid dieting martyrdom by having the occasional pizza night :)
Thanks Robin - love you!
My parents used to force us to eat mealy tomatos, slimy, bland avocados, & a whole host of frozen veggies in the winter.
I was in my 30's before I could even look at an avocado & it was a few years after that before I was cooking with fresh tomatos. Then there was the crate of mangos that they bought on a trip to Hawaii that we were forced to eat in the 7 days we were there... It took a trip to Costa Rica well into adulthood to put those back on the menu.
Eating habits are solidified in childhood, when your tastebuds are really sensitive. Something for all parents to bear in mind when teaching their children good eating habits. Good quality fruits & veggies are now available year round in most places.
I have 4 close friends that went vegan on their own, without any doctor or nutritionist's input. All are in varying stages of anemia.
If you go vegan, get some professional input!
I remember the first vegetarian cook book I ever read, and it was quite honestly horrid -- steam everything and don't add spice, ever. americans haven't had the best relationship with their food.
I have been anemic all my life -- i eat limited portions of meat -- you can cut a chicken breast in 1/2 and get two meals out of it and with some greens i get enough iron. Go for about 4 oz servings of meat and you drastically improve you diet all the way around. You don't even have to worry that much about fats if you reduce the amount of meat you eat. Enjoy one sausage -- two is pushing it. Smaller portions of meat are also infinitely more sustainable, and its way past time we started thinking about the world we are leaving for other generations.
I know that he has been extremely careful with his diet but I have been involved with some social events where he did not eat a vegan diet. Possibly since then he became a strict vegan but can you tell us the date this began?
www.westonaprice.org
Forks Over Knives is going to change how a lot of people eat.
Really, those promoting this way of eating seem to feel the need to set up a contrast between two diets in order to make themselves look good and justify their choices -- those whose diets do include meat and dairy, a "meat based diet," as slothful, gluttonous and decadent, as opposed to their own very prudent, thoughtful, and spare "plant based diet."
Go out and find some people who eat mostly meat and dairy. Good luck, there aren't many out there. And, you can't count hamburgers, with the bun, fries, onion rings, etc as meat, you can only count the burger itself. I think what you will find is that most people eat a highly processed grain and starch diet, supplemented with highly processed added fats and sugars. As an afterthought they include meat and plants. (Btw, Bill Clinton is not vegan, he eats fish.)
What should be promoted is a real food diet. If your food met any stainless steel vats on the way to your mouth, you probably don't need to eat it.
P.S. I recently went vegan after eating meat, fish and dairy. I finally started losing weight, physically I feel and look better. The Standard American Diet is not good. But tell someone to eat more veggies and the usual response is, that sounds extreme.
Not many people get many of their meals at steakhouses. Of course, if you got to an Italian restaurant, pizza place, burger place, etc, you will notice that the largest portion of the meal is highly refined grains or potatoes, supplemented with plenty of fat and sugar.
The very same years that we have seen an enormous increase in our weight and diet related diseases are the years we greatly increased consumption of highly refined grain, starch, fat and sugar. That is the Standard American Diet and where we see the increases, are where we have seen the health problems.
Obesity is a problem all over the country, not just the Midwest and Southwest.
My "take" on things pretty much jibes with what klbrz said. The hyperbolic way many members of Team Veg describe the diets of those who eat meat and fish tends to gloss over their own carbohydrate consumption and to imply that people who aren't vegans or vegetarians are strangers to green plants. What nonsense. SOMEBODY's eating all the fruits and vegetables I see in the grocery stores and it sure isn't the small number of vegetarians and even smaller number of vegans out there. And newsflash: It's actually quite possible to eat a vegan diet that's just as lousy as the SAD.
I supported the vegan cause for many years, up until last year when I started seeing what nasty, condescending, sanctimonious and holier than thou attitudes vegans have. I thought those "meat is murder" bumper stickers were just hyperbolic, trying to prove a point. Last year I found out that not only do they really mean that, but they call farmers "slave owners" and compare killing animals for meat consumption to the holocaust!!! Boy, did I learn a lot about vegans!
There is no derision from me, that would be your department.