The clinic doing some of the best research on fasting in general is True North Health Center in Santa Rosa, but it's main mission is to help folks "get their health back".
Changing diet to one that is truly healthy is by far the most efficient way to lose weight. Why did I choose the words "truly healthy" to describe the efficient weight loss diet? Because nearly any diet you can name has advocates who proclaim it to be healthy. Because several very noticable changes to waist and health occur in fairly short order in transition to a truly healthy diet. Because one can eat until completely satisfied and still go to a very healthy weight with comparative ease and rapidity. Because the various systems of the body one may have experienced with discomfort will return to balance: digestive issues auto resolve, endocrine imbalances auto resolve, cardiovascular issues auto resolve, blood sugar issues auto resolve. Medical professionals will not necessarily welcome this information with open arms. In health one is not typically conscious of heartbeat, breathing, digestion, etc. If we are conscious of discomfort in any physiologic system we are most likely not consuming a truly healthy diet. It really is that simple. Getting back to exercise: strenuous physical activity when overweight is uncomfortable and difficult. When one is in health it is pleasurable and even joyful. Strenuous physical activity when overweight can even be dangerous. Body "intelligence" knows this, it is "telling you" - Don't do that! This is the reason "New Years resolutions" to "hit the gym to lose a few" never last... My own opinion is when one is overweight one should be moderately active everyday, a good amount of walking does that. But first and foremost figure out how to eat all you want and still drop to a very healthy lean weight, resolving health issues as you go, basically without even trying. If the diet you follow doesn't automatically take care of weight and health issues, and you don't know why, or what the alternative is that does do that automatically, then it's very likely your understanding of nutrition needs expansion. But don't feel bad...it's a very (very) common problem. How common? Look at how most people die. The truly healthy diet is completely nutritious and satisfying, and once acclimated also more delicious than all the unhealthy diets combined, which begin to taste like what they are - toxic substances masquerading as food that rob us of our nature given right to good health. Without realizing it we have become addicted to flavor additives such as salt, sugar and spices. Vegetables stewed in calorie dense spiced sauces is not the truly healthy diet. The truly healthy diet is fresh and lightly cooked low fat plant based whole foods without added sugars, salts, and oils. It is not complicated. The most difficult part of making the transition to a truly healthy diet? Facing the fact we have become addicted, and then dealing with it as an addiction. If you're in AA you can't keep booze in the house. It's the same problem with food. It's really that simple. What is the first thing one does when they get serious about beating addiction? They get help. Addictions that are culturally universal and accepted, such as alcohol and unhealthy food, can be particularly pernicious. Enablers are everywhere making it even harder...social acceptance is one of our strongest instincts. The thing that makes it easier? You have to really want to feel good. It's that simple.
Not in terms of ongoing modifications to an established species, but how a species comes into being to begin with. It seems correct given the diversity and numerosity of species that there would likely have been points of coincident emergence.
There is an idea afoot currently that humans will evolve toward adaptations to technologic support, which seems inherently non logical. How can biologic mechanisms and systems evolve toward anything that is non biological? It would require technologic mechanisms to be transferred biologically to subsequent generations. There are biologic boundaries that make it impossible for different species to procreate, now we're to believe technology is capable of biologic procreation?
It is possible to think biologic evolution toward greater conditions of conductivity is possible (the many technological conveniences of post industrial conditions) but that is toward greater fragility also, and a greater likelihood of extinction.
by Jordan Peterson a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology, and psychological theoretician.
It reminds me of a well known Freud quote: ""the goal of psychoanalysis is to bring someone from the state of abject despair into the realm of common misery". I've always thought he may have had tongue in cheek saying it, but it also points the way one can be wholly in the world as it is, and be OK with it. That does not mean there are no longer ideals to fight for, rather to have them in the context of "this whole thing is bigger than us, there's only so much that can be done, and I'm OK with that".
The ground plane for wholeness perspective for me is "it created us, we did not create it".
Pineapple! Can it be that easy? Here's an eye doc talking about the study that shows pineapple cures eye floaters:
Yep. Fruit is good for us! Who knew? :>) I eat pineapple frequently when I find good quality. Been doing it for years. Wondered where those pesky floaters got off to:)
In terms of biomass the plant kingdom far far outweighs the animal kingdom. So what does that have to do with anything? Hypothesis: it has everything to do with the pre-agricultural conditions our biology and instinctual "drives" evolved in, the relative scarcity of energy (food calories) in those pre-agricultural conditions, and our subsequent instinctual proclivity toward finding and consuming higher sources of energy where choices were available. Hypothesis: our biology and instincts evolved pre-agriculturally where early human population density was a function of the certain conducive conditions, namely relatively warm climates, and the highest density (on earth) of all life forms. Under those conditions the most available calories were (by far) plant based. Therefore the most efficient conversion of calories to energy (least effort spent obtaining) came from plant foods. The "paleo diet" view that most calories came from animal sources of calories is being contested (and overturned) by archaeological anthropologists who instead of looking at surviving tools measure composition types of biological evidence. In the evolutionary expansion of human habitat from rainforest to colder grassy savanna the plant to animal biomass ratio was still heavily weighted to plants. Humans hunted more, but most calories continued to come from plants. Even with more advanced tool making capability (clothes to keep warm), human population densities continued to cluster to "conducive conditions". I think of this as a "treeline" metaphor, where we see a transition to tundra above a certain high elevation. Locations on the planet are more or less "conducive" to density and variety of life forms based mostly on temperature, and resultant availability of calories. Our species has evolved primarily toward those more "conducive" conditions that are characterized by plants being the more available and efficient sources of calories. Consequently we see in studies of pre-industrial cultures that average levels of longevity and health comport closely with the ratio of plants to animal in the diet. More plants equals greater average levels of longevity and health. Finally, "our subsequent instinctual proclivity toward finding and consuming higher sources of energy where choices were available" (as mentioned earlier), goes a long way to explaining our collective "post-industrial dietary stupidity" in regards to the toxic crap we invent in laboratories and manufacture in factories, and then market and sell as "food". This includes BTW the factory "farming" of animals (hard to call that abhorrent process "farming"). So...we are "driven" by instinct (unconsciously) to consume the most calorically dense substances we can wrap our lips around. And now we have the technology to manufacture exactly those substances. We have an inherent soft spot for science fiction also...the one from the 50's about "meal in a pill" has been particularly collectively self destructive. Current "food science for profit" has leveraged our instinct for high calorie substances to the hilt. And now the shaft is in so deep we don't even know it's there. Time to wake up.
One of the topics Dr. Doug Graham speaks about frequently is the symmetries found in nature versus the asymmetries of questionable logic introduced with technology. Here he addresses the notion that artificial concentration of nutrients is a good idea.
Dr. Michael Greger in conversation with Brian Rose of London Real. Dr. Greger is an unusual combination of infectious enthusiasm and expert scientific perspective. Here he recounts the story of how he came to be that person, and the very significant work he's been doing since.
Dr. Kent L. Thornburg gives a TEDx Talk on he epidemic of chronic disease and understanding epigenetics, and challenges us with this question: When will we decide to eliminate chronic disease? And Dr. Thornburg is a pretty impressive guy, perhaps we should hear what he has to say. He received his PhD in Developmental Physiology and studied Cardiovascular Physiology as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Postdoctoral Fellow at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). He participates in co-funded projects with scientists in England, New Zealand, France, Finland and Australia. He serves regularly on advisory panels at the NIH, the American Heart Association and the Children’s Heart Foundation and recently served as Co-Chair of the task force to determine the 10-year vision of the developmental origins of health and disease for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. I enjoyed Dr. Thornburg's talk, I hope you do too.
The Game Changers is a documentary film produced by James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar) on health and performance. It's perhaps the most coherent summation of the advantages of a plant based diet so far. That one thing alone makes it worth seeing. But it's also enjoyable -- "a good watch".
So many people still don't know about the power of a whole foods plant based diet to reverse disease. Or they've heard "claims" but don't believe it. Or they think it's too hard to give up their love for the foods they've eaten their entire lives. The truth is it's a much easier way to live. The truth is keto is hard, and healthy carbs is easy. This brief vid is a series of MDs giving vignettes about specific patients they've seen in their own practices. The last docs presentation is particularly compelling.
This recent interview of Dr. Graham is a pretty good overview of his perspective on the essentials. He is also a long time professional athletic trainer, and his perspectives on physical activity are also invaluable, but not touched on here. --"It's the food" -- I am reminded of a funny but slightly sad anecdote. There is an increasing contingent of well known medical doctors that have come to prominence as a virtue of their unusually high rates of success in healing most of the diseases that afflict contemporary developed world humans, which are (briefly) cardiovascular diseases (heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke), diabetes, auto immune disorders, disorders of the digestive tract and other organs of elimination, and strides are even being made in treatment of the most stubborn of these diseases, cancer. These doctors of high success rates are frequently in attendance at medical science conferences, where doctors and researchers are working hard on figuring out the mechanisms of these modern diseases, but without significant progress. "It's very complicated!" they say, and it's true biology is tremendously complex. Consequently the standard of care for patients with these diseases is lifetime prescriptions for "incurable" diseases. But these doctors, the ones having outsized success treating these "incurable" conditions, are in these conference rooms (literally and figuratively), raising their hands and saying "it's the food". They may as well have not said anything, no one is listening. But they do keep saying because they have seen it to be so obviously true in their own practices, over and over, ad infinitum. The bottom line is health is not all that amenable to technological solutions, and via "the unconscious desire for immortality" we have been over complicating all things regarding health. But it's really not all that complicated, nor is it hard to do...if only we knew where to begin. Doug Graham's perspective has been remarkably helpful to me in learning "what to do" to create health. I can't say I do it perfectly, but it remains my "north star" and I've noticed over and over the closer I hue toward "north" the better I feel, the more energy I have, and the more balanced are my emotions.
How many times have we heard, "you need to keep your energy up, get some protein." ? Or we order a salad at a restaurant and the waiter asks "do you want a protein with that?". The waiter is partially right because leafy greens, the primary stuff of a good salad, have lots of vitamins and minerals, but are low in "available energy". And available energy is the nutrient we need on an immediate basis, every day. We can actually wait for vitamins and minerals, our body stores them, and if our stores are (ideally) not depleted we're good to go. But we need energy with every meal, it's the primary reason we get hungry. The waiter is wrong because the energy is not coming from protein, it is coming from fat. Let's back up a bit here. Vitamins and minerals are "micronutrients", so called because the actual quantities we consume are (microscopically) tiny. They do not provide "available energy", they have other longer term functions. Macronutrients on the other hand do contain "available energy", and we need them every day to have abundant energy. The formal name for available energy is "calories"...you've heard of those...don't forget there are "good" calories and "bad" calories. Hostess cupcakes have calories, but are also laced with toxins, and devoid of vitamins and minerals. Good calories are whole foods consumed in (or close to) their original state. The three macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The confusion about protein is that of the three macronutrients it has the least "available energy", and is used primarily on a longer term basis to build tissues and bones. We do not use protein for available energy under normal circumstances. The two macronutrients with high levels of available energy are carbs and fats. And let's not forget there is such a thing as "good carbs", all plants are carbohydrates. In fact the use of the word "carbs" to designate junk foods is actually a misuse of the word, a more accurate term for junk foods would be "toxic substances". Keeping the discussion to whole foods (good calories) the available energy in the restaurant salad comes from fat, not protein. And these are the fats in animal products, which frequently have more calories coming from fat than protein. To oversimplify a bit, the protein is stored for later use, and the fat is used for energy. It is also not difficult to get more protein than is healthy, and the effects of that on health are not good: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/ There is another source of available energy in typical salads, the vegetable oils used in the dressings. I'm not going to get into that problem here...suffice it to say veg oils are a "junk food" devoid of micronutrient content. So yes, there is a lot of available energy in junk foods, but these calories, like the hostess cupcakes, are laced with toxins, devoid of micronutrients, and really bad for us. So don't eat that junk:) Since we are talking about salads let's mention a whole food that has plenty of available energy - fruit. A fruit salad can even be on a bed of greens, which adds a lot of minerals to the vitamin rich fruits, making a nutrient dense meal with plenty of available energy. It can be very simple to prepare, and it really doesn't even need a dressing! (Just be sure the fruits you use are ripe and delicious.)
Bloomberg news published an article on vaping this morning, link below. Long and short of it is a lot of cases of lung damage are showing up in doctors offices. Gee whiz, it takes a looong time for lung damage of that magnitude to show up from cigarette smoking. The implication would be vaping is way more dangerous than smoking. This is a little bit like the "food - not food" question that is at the root of all the post industrial diseases that are killing way too many of us way too prematurely. How do you know if something is "air - not air"...well that one is pretty straight forward. Clean air is usually pretty easy to detect...although there are plenty of products on the market meant to "freshen" your air. None of it qualifies as (simple, pure, clean) air. Ever notice how "thick" the exhaled "vape" smoke is? It can't possibly be clean air...which is invisible. Why is it we don't know what toxins are yet? There has to be better ways of getting pleasure than beating on ourselves. According to the article all the (apparently many) early signs that vaping is dangerous were "missed". OK, if you buy that one I got a bridge you might be interested in:) Biz as usual. So how do we know if something is "food" or "not food"? Well, food is grown in mineral rich (hopefully) organic soil. Not food comes out of "food science" labs and mixed into real food. Food is very close to the form it was in when picked from the tree or pulled out of the ground. The further it gets from that simple raw organic form it gets the more "not food" it is. It is, BTW, very difficult to get "food" at a restaurant. Unfortunately! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/vaping-illness-signs-were-missed-or-ignored?srnd=premium
Edit - fortunately a good friend sent a PDF of the article, and I'm going to copy it here with a few added comments:
Improving American nutrition would make the biggest impact
on our health care.
By Dariush Mozaffarian and Dan Glickman
Mr. Mozaffarian is dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Mr.
Glickman was the secretary of agriculture from 1995 to 2001.
The Democratic debate on health care has to date centered around who should be covered and who should pay the bill. That debate, which has been going on for decades, has no clear answers and cannot be easily resolved because of two fundamental realities: Health care is expensive, and Americans are sick.
Americans benefit from highly trained personnel, remarkable facilities and access to the newest drugs and technologies. Unless we eliminate some of these benefits, our health care will remain costly. We can trim around the edges — for example, with changes in drug pricing, lower administrative costs, reductions in payments to hospitals and providers, and fewer defensive and unnecessary procedures. These actions may slow the rise in health care spending, but costs will keep rising as the population ages and technology advances.
And Americans are sick — much sicker than many realize. More than 100 million adults — almost half the entire adult population — have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Cardiovascular disease afflicts about 122 million people and causes roughly 840,000 deaths each year, or about 2,300 deaths each day. Three in four adults are overweight or obese. More Americans are sick, in other words, than are healthy.
Instead of debating who should pay for all this, no one is asking the far more simple and imperative question: What is making us so sick, and how can we reverse this so we need less health care? The answer is staring us in the face, on average three times a day: our food.
Poor diet is the leading cause of mortality in the United States, causing more than half a million deaths per year. Just 10 dietary factors are estimated to cause nearly 1,000 deaths every day from heart disease, stroke and diabetes alone. These conditions are dizzyingly expensive. Cardiovascular disease costs $351 billion annually in health care spending and lost productivity, while diabetes costs $327 billion annually. The total economic cost of obesity is estimated at $1.72 trillion per year, or 9.3 percent of gross domestic product.
These human and economic costs are leading drivers of ever-rising health care spending, strangled government budgets, diminished competitiveness of American business and reduced military readiness.
Fortunately, advances in nutrition science and policy now provide a road map for addressing this national nutrition crisis. The “Food Is Medicine” solutions are win-win, promoting better well-being, lower health care costs, greater sustainability, reduced disparities among population groups, improved economic competitiveness and greater national security.
Some simple, measurable improvements can be made in several health and related areas. For example, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers and hospitals should include nutrition in any electronic health record; update medical training, licensing and continuing education guidelines to put an emphasis on nutrition; offer patient prescription programs for healthy produce; and, for the sickest patients, cover home-delivered, medically tailored meals. Just the last action, for example, can save a net $9,000 in health care costs per patient per year.
Taxes on sugary beverages and junk food can be paired with subsidies on protective foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables, beans, plant oils, whole grains, yogurt and fish. Emphasizing protective foods represents an important positive message for the public and food industry that celebrates and rewards good nutrition. Levels of harmful additives like sodium, added sugar and trans fat can be lowered through voluntary industry targets or regulatory safety standards.
Nutrition standards in schools, which have improved the quality of school meals by 41 percent, should be strengthened; the national Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program should be extended beyond elementary schools to middle and high schools; and school garden programs should be expanded. And the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which supports grocery purchases for nearly one in eight Americans, should be leveraged to help improve diet quality and health.
The private sector can also play a key role. Changes in shareholder criteria (e.g., B-Corps, in which a corporation can balance profit versus purpose with high social and environmental standards) and new investor coalitions should financially reward companies for tackling obesity, diabetes and other diet related illness. Public-private partnerships should emphasize research and development on best agricultural and food-processing practices. All work sites should demand healthy food when negotiating with cafeteria vendors and include incentives for healthy eating in their wellness benefits.
Coordinated federal leadership and funding for research is also essential. This could include, for example, a new National Institute of Nutrition at the National Institutes of Health. Without such an effort, it could take many decades to understand and utilize exciting new areas, including related to food processing, the gut microbiome, allergies and autoimmune disorders, cancer, brain health, treatment of battlefield injuries and effects of nonnutritive sweeteners and personalized nutrition.
Government plays a crucial role. The significant impacts of the food system on well-being, health care spending, the economy and the environment — together with mounting public and industry awareness of these issues — have created an opportunity for government leaders to champion real solutions.
Yet with rare exceptions, the current presidential candidates are not being asked about these critical national issues. Every candidate should have a food platform, and every debate should explore these positions. A new emphasis on the problems and promise of nutrition to improve health and lower health care costs is long overdue for the presidential primary debates and should be prominent in the 2020 general election and the next administration.
The article is great, but there is a glaring omission...the primary reason we have such a hard time getting this message out to the public, never mind all the good suggestions in the article. How bout we just start by getting this information out there? Why can't we even do that??? It's called big pharma folks, one of the primary sources and purveyors of the mountains of misinformation on diet and health we, mostly unaware, wade through everyday. And why do they do that? Well first of all this industry is making a bloody fortune that depends on lots of sick people. Second of all, so called Health Care ("disease management" is more accurate) has, according to the article at the link below, become the primary contributor to US GDP. Which is a very big deal with all sorts of political ramification: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-industries-driving-us-economy.asp
And why do I say why are we mostly unaware of all this misinformation? Because it comes to us through primary media sources. The New York Times is definitely taking the lead on bucking this trend. Good for them. The other reason is because we hear so many half-truths that appeal to our pre-existing habits and biases. A good example of this is the so-called Paleo Diet. The range of diets possible under this name is huge. (To be fair the term "Vegan" has the same problem.) The all bacon all the time contingent is not healthy. The rate of heart attack in the paleo movement is reason enough to see this. The rate of digestive/congestive issues is another marker. And there are many others. There is a healthier contingent in the paleo world, these are the folks that consume mostly plants. You can measure this by volume or calories. Let's measure by calories: as "calories consumed" as a percent of total gets closer to the low fat plant based whole food prescription Paleos get healthier. Imagine that. OK I'm coming off my soapbox now, for the time being at least:) The original blog below: ------------------------------------
Unfortunately for me the New York Times has instituted a hard paywall for online viewers, so unless you are paying the $8/mo subscription fee this link will not let you read the article.
I say unfortunately for "me" because the NYT has been taking a lead recently against the "foods" (toxic substances really) that are killing us prematurely by the millions (leading cause of death by far), and the NYT is a major voice in the US and developed world in general. I like to feature this kind of story in my blog to reinforce the idea that I'm not "off the deep end" over here :)
Oh well, I'm making this a blog anyway just to note the fact increasingly prominent voices are in effect saying "enough is enough" and calling for greater awareness of this clear and present danger to our country and our fellow sisters, cousins, and brothers.
I will however quote the sub heading (which we can see), and provide the link for digital subscribers to the Times.
"Improving American nutrition would make the biggest impact on our health care."
And a quote from the article: --------------------
Mackey says most Americans wouldn’t enjoy eating like he does (he has 15 fruits and vegetables a day) because their taste buds are used to a diet that includes a lot of processed foods.
“So the reason why these plant-based meats have taken the world by storm is that they taste very similar to regular meats, whereas if you get a [healthy] black bean burger with flax seeds and sweet potatoes in it, that’s going to taste great to me,” he says, but not to most people.
Mackey says the good news is that people can retrain their palate to “enjoy pretty much anything” by consistently eating something they typically didn’t like before.
“I love fruits and vegetables,” Mackey says, because he trained his taste buds to love them.
---------------------------
So let's say a person retrains their palate to love fruits and vegetables. They are also going to notice they don't feel the many physical discomforts of eating bad foods (antacids are the best selling over the counter medication). They will notice they can eat fruits and vegetables till they are coming out of their ears and they will still drop to a healthy BMI. They will notice good nutrition + healthy BMI = a lot more energy, and they will want to move their bodies, and they will enjoy it.
How many conclusive studies, for how many years, did it take before the Surgeon General put warning labels on cigarettes? More than 7000 studies over three decades. Governments are short sighted, they prefer industrial sources of revenue to public health.
Now, compare how much revenue was generated by the tobacco industry to how much is being generated by all the industries profiting in some way from all the various diseases directly caused by bad diet. I don't have a stat for that but my guess is at least 20x the revenue, adjusted for inflation, is being generated by bad food in many various ways.
The government will tell us (finally) that tobacco is bad for us. They will tell us that alcohol and drugs are bad for us. But they won't tell us bad food is the bigger problem. Will it take 20x as many studies and 20x as much time for gov to begin telling us a processed food animal based diet is bad for us?
Don't count on government or industry to reverse behaviors that are generating hundreds of billions of dollars annual revenue. Do count on those sources of revenue to be protected by dozens of industries and many thousands of influential individuals. Count on those sources of revenue to be protected by bad science, and count on seeing those conclusions on the front pages of mass media. (Bad science is essentially that which is generated by profit motive, with studies designed to produce a certain result.)
Count on never having heard of the many thousands of good science studies going back decades. If you start looking into it count on being surprised the good science outweighs the bad by multiples of 100.
Don't count on gov to promote truly healthy diets. The change will be a grassroots effort driven by individuals from all walks of life that have begun to see the big picture and want health for themselves and their loved ones.
On a related note, there is an interesting movie coming out soon titled "The Game Changers".
Have you heard the latest news? After almost fifty years of dawdling, the following information was finally accepted as credible. The August, 2019 issue of 'Complementary Therapies in Medicine' includes a study in which cardiologists assessed the plant-based diet as a therapeutic treatment for heart patients. Cardiologists concluded: "A plant-based diet may contribute to the reversal of cardiac morphological and functional abnormalities in the setting of CHF.” Well, it took them long enough, but doctors are finally coming out in favor of the vegan diet.
Look around. Veganism is gaining momentum, and the raw vegan community is growing by leaps and bounds. Soon enough, veganism will be the rule, rather than the exception. Governments around the world are pushing for vegan, because it is the most economical and most environmentally friendly way to feed their people. Heart disease and Type II diabetes kill more people than all other causes combined. Both conditions are caused by our food and lifestyle choices, and could be completely eradicated almost immediately. Will you be leading your family to health this year, or will your family have to suffer more unnecessary losses before veganism becomes the norm in your home?
Vegans make up roughly one half of one percent of the US population, yet vegan athletes seem to be winning everything is sight. One weekend in July of this year, vegan athletes won four different championships in four different professional sports. The writing is on the wall, and all you have to be able to do is read. Burger King is about to release a vegan burger that they say you will not be able to distinguish from their original. Several other fast food chains have announced that they are increasing their vegan options. The airlines all offer vegan meals, and some even offer fruit meals. The NBA has a position paper on their website in favor of veganism for their athletes.
Various churches, politicians, models, and all types of rich and famous people are joining the vegan bandwagon. If you are unsure about your vegan stance, make your decision soon, because eating anything that doesn’t come from a plant is soon enough going to be as socially unacceptable as slavery, smoking cigarettes, and child abuse has become.
Biologic survival comes down to thousands or millions or billions of unconscious bio-mechanical autonomic functions that run our body and protect us from danger, whereas mysticism could be said to be coming into that state where oneness (of everything) and wholeness are consciously experienced at the same time. It is not always called mysticism as there are variations in this state of consciousness, children experience it when they are playing, athletes experience it when they are "in the zone", artists experience it when "visited by the muse", scientists experience it when realizing a great functional truth, and any individual might experience it when they simply sit and breathe. Some of the key features of this state is no awareness of the passage of time, and the sense of serenity that comes with complete engagement. Alan Watts describes the impossibility of focussing simultaneously on an image of dual oppositional components (at 2:30) https://youtu.be/7SfZZlpfaN0 Seeing both images at the same time is similar to seeing "magic eye pictures"http://www.magiceye.com/. One must defocus the eyes in a way to be looking at everything instead of one thing. It may not come easily because focusing on just one thing is a survival mechanism that allows us to find food and detect danger. So perhaps then the mystical experience is the defocus on just one thing, and instead a focus on "everything" simultaneously. Then might it also be said that the basic conundrum of the human condition is the "tension" between (the autonomic mechanisms of) survival, and the boundless freedom of mysticism?
In a 2 minute video Dr. Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine talks about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an effort by the National Breast Cancer Foundation to raise awareness of breast cancer. He also seems to have found a pink elephant in the room...
A BBC environmental analyst writes an article "Plant-based diet can fight climate change - UN" https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749 Perhaps human health and environmental health are directly correlated. But industrialization is compelling for all kinds of reasons. "Dr Freud" - please tell us how do we balance the instinctual "unlimited growth" impulse? Freud sez - knowledge has got to be the answer...unless, that is, we want to wait for nature to take care of it for us (lemmings off the cliff version).
So we have a plant based message for the environment and a plant based message for human health.
Meanwhile T. Colin Campbell's work created so much backlash it's been virtually forgotten. The message itself is quite simple: animal proteins are carcinogenic. He also has the broader message that nutrition is the critical foundation piece in health, and that a plant based diet is best, but that in itself is not such an unusual message.
"Animal proteins are carcinogenic" is quite unusual, heretical even, as it reverses long held ideas about what is good for us.
Campbell was a carcinogenicity researcher (among other things). The lab research showing that animal proteins are carcinogenic (which preceded the China Study by years) was simple - give the test animals high doses of a known carcinogen to make them cancer prone, then give them diets with no animal protein compared with diets of increasing % of calories from animal protein. Then he cycled the test animals on and off the diet with protein. The result was clear, add protein and tumors begin to form. Cycle off protein and tumors begin to recede, cycle on again and tumors begin to grow again. Campbell said the result was so clear it was like turning a light switch on and off.
To the best of my knowledge this study has been replicated, and not a one off, or a mistake.
Does this translate to humans? Not directly, first of all we are not shot up with high doses of carcinogenic chemicals to make us cancer prone. Right? Only 1 in 2 of us will have the diagnosis at some point in our lives. All of Campbell's test subjects got cancer when fed animal protein. Second, we are not mice, but mice are omnivores and so are humans. BTW omnivorous does not connote "optimal" diet, it is what a species will eat to survive when calories are scarce. It is increasingly obvious the optimal diet for humans is plant based.
And the backlash against the "animal proteins are carcinogenic" message is being whittled away gradually, most recently when the World Health Organization said red meat is a probable carcinogen. It's going to take awhile, meanwhile a big fad diet now is "carnivore" where nothing is consumed except meat. Nice of them to volunteer for an epidemiologic study:)
Did you know the rate of progression in Alzheimer's in the population is off the chart? It's progressing faster than heart disease and cancer (both of those are still increasing also however). And yet we know from Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn that a simple change of diet completely reverses progression of heart disease, and probably reduces chances of cancer by some exponential function. Well, apparently not everyone knows this yet, else why would rates continue to progress? Addiction denial? Yeah, probably part of the reason. But most have not even heard the news yet. Or if they have they simply don't believe it. Their doc would surely have mentioned it, yeah? Diet is the foundation piece of disease reversal. You can't "inhale" toxins every day and expect to make up for it with pushups or running. Prescription meds are also toxic BTW. If you're on the typical meds (arthritis, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, acid reflux, high cholesterol) you're working a double whammy. Wonder why the doc didn't mention that as he ripped the top sheet off the prescription pad... Meanwhile our beloved pharmacological scientists are working hard on a (patentable prescription) drug for Alzheimer's. Gotta love those trillion dollar guys. However! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Intelligent application of activity is rocket fuel. It activates and accelerates all the various detoxification "circuits" in the body. As we all know, basically, there's cardio and strength training. Both are good! But recently there's increasing evidence that strength training (lifting weights) is best of all. And now there's a controlled study showing reversal of dementia in animals via strength training! (We're animals aren't we?) Here's a New York Times article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/well/move/how-weight-training-changes-the-brain.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Dr. Klaper is an eloquent individual, and this is Dr. Klaper at his most brilliant. There is a lot of backlash against this information, which takes many forms, and we consciously or unconsciously welcome hearing it because the underlying message is "you don't have to change". Change is a pain in the ass. Some of time however it is very much worth the trouble. As they say, the truth will out. Better sooner than later...in some cases later may be too late.
Counter productive intercene squabbling has broken out in the whole food plant based community. Many "vegans" are now ex-vegans, which confounds and irks the "true believers" who want to "save the animals", and "save the planet". We're focusing on the wrong animals. The term "vegan" is problematic because it does not specifically address human health. But health, physical and emotional/spiritual, is the core problem. Healthier human cultures would be more apt to recognize and abstain from self destructive practices such as industrial scale manufacture of animals for food. We might even begin to unwind the economic "growth at all costs" paradigm that brings us ever closer to the brink of global economic collapse. The potential for an historic paradigm shift in human existence is present, but we're less effective than we could be because we're mixing our metaphors. We use the terms "vegan" and "whole food plant based" interchangeably as if they were the same thing. Yes there is overlap, but they are not the same thing. Vegan can be a breakfast of (the registered trademarks) Fruit Loops and Pepsi, whereas whole food plant based comes directly from mineral rich non-toxic soil to your table, and is the healthiest diet for humans. "Whole" is a critically important element in the phrase "whole food plant based", because it connotes (primarily) two things: unprocessed (whole), and nutritional sufficiency. It also connotes "whole (intact) nutrient structure" (an apple not a vitamin pill). Can you imagine a diet of only empty calorie foods? All the supplements in the world will not make make it healthy. We love science fiction, the technologic promise of convenience and "better than nature". It's the dream that does not die easy that's killing us. Physician heal thyself. Fixing the physical-emotional-spiritual health disaster that has befallen our species makes us more effective, conscious, compassionate, and ethical. This is not a utopian dream, it's a practical potential. We did not create Earth, it created us, and will very likely survive the end of humans whenever and however that occurs. Earth is a very sweet spot (waaay better than Mars:) ...Let's hang around for awhile. Collectively we do not understand the rapid and profound shift in physical health and emotional/spiritual consciousness that occurs with a whole food plant based approach because we have not yet experienced it individually. Let's work toward increased awareness by clarifying our message with a focus on human health. The animals and the planet will thank us.
