Can You Spell V-E-G-A-N? by Doug Graham

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.

Alan Watts - from survival to mysticism

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?

Dr. T. Colin Campbell: Food, Cancer And The Future Of Plant-Based Science

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine hosted an event in April 2019 where Dr. Campbell was a speaker. This one on one audio interview was conducted just after Dr. Campbell's presentation to the audience.

https://www.pcrm.org/news/exam-room-podcast/dr-t-colin-campbell-food-cancer-and-future-plant-based-science

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: What About Prevention?

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...

https://youtu.be/q_m2VFuYP_M

maybe the world will have to go vegan ?

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:)

How Weight Training Changes the Brain - New York Times

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. Michael Klaper - The Main Cause of Artery Clogging

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.

Gotta love Dr. Garth Davis

Speaking (for only 3 minutes!) before the 2020 USA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee...get em Dr. Garth!