Going Whole Food Plant Based

I've been thinking recently about writing a blog titled "things I've noticed going vegan" based on my own experiences and observations and some of the challenges I ran into. I would still like to, but meanwhile want to share a vlog on a similar topic. One of the things I realized along the way is the importance of conceptual underpinning -- if it's explained in such a way that just makes tons of sense, it gets a whole lot easier to do.

Here's the personal story of one couple who read a book based on Dr Joel Fuhrman's "Nutritarian" approach that changed their lives:

Our 3 Year Whole Food Plant Based Vegan Transformation

After the nearly unthinkable horrific tragedy in Las Vegas a friend sent an email with the sardonic header "we should declare WAR on ourselves" calling for increased sanity on gun control.

I'm all in favor of increased sanity. My response to the email was as follows:

I don't mean to negate the need for gun control in any way...it's a critical issue, and more and more apparent every time something like this happens.

But compare the number of gun deaths to car deaths, and then compare that number to heart attack deaths, then compare that number to all combined deaths due to heart disease, strokes, dementia, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disorders, and medical deaths due to meds.

We are a sick society in more ways than one...most people have no clue why they're sick, or that it is not normal, or that meds are not the answer, in fact they are part of the problem. No wonder people are pissed off?

I don't watch much tv, but i did tune into the news on this incident. I was struck by how many commercials for meds there are these days. Wow. This has become normal? We've been sold down the river.

And the juxtaposition of those commercials with the footage on the tragedy was more than just ironic...the promise of health via magic pills vs the tragedy...it was surreal and unsettling.

People don't know why they are sick, or how simple and cheap the (real) cure is, but they have vague notions they are being fucked by big industry and gov.

Yep they are pissed and getting more pissed...good mental health depends on correct chemical balances in the brain. Well, we've sold that commodity down the river too.

The surprisingly dramatic role of nutrition in mental health

clinical psychologist Julia Rucklidge explores a range of scientific research, including her own, showing the significant role played by nutrition in mental health or illness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqXHHCc5lA

we gain perspective

We become inured to life's conditions. It's part and parcel of how adaptable we are. When change is gradual it sneaks up on us, and we're in a new reality that has become normal. We may have accepted sub optimal conditions without realizing it. There will even be very simple things we can do to get back to a better place, but we won't see them because they are not "normal".

Rich Roll, author of a wonderful book called Finding Ultra, speaks to this topic in this presentation:

Dr. Lustig's New Book - A Critical Topic For Our Time

Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist known for his campaign against refined sugars, has a new book that surprised me a bit. It surprised me because it's rare (unheard of?) to see an established and well known health authority take on the the powerful processed food industries in such a public and confrontational manner. The title alone is worth the price of admission:

"The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains"

https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-American-Mind-Corporate-Takeover/dp/1101982586/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Well done Dr. Lustig! Bravo.

I've been calling the raping of health for profit "An Accidental Genocide", because I do not believe there was a developed conspiracy at the advent of the processed food industry. We genuinely believed, based on best interpretations of nutritional science at the time, that concentration of nutrition with technology was a very good thing. By now we realize that we are not evolutionarily adapted to these concentrated substances, our bodies don't "recognize" them and don't know what to do with them, they clog us up, then make us fat, and then eventually make us sick. And we now know that a whole foods plant based diet is the very best thing we can do for our bodies, our health, and our happiness.

Lustig's current book however is not about how to eat better for health, it delves into a dark topic depicting the ongoing and very real destruction of the health of the majority of developed world citizens. There are dystopian resonances here, and Lustig is to be commended for raising a brave voice against the forces perpetuating this tragic state of affairs.

I call it an "accidental" genocide because these now deeply rooted industries "backed in" to a situation where the profits are simply too compelling to give up because nutrition science is now clear on the relationship between whole foods plant based diets and health, and in direct opposition to the activity of the processed foods industries. "Elephant in the room" applies more aptly than any where else I can think of. So I believe the intentions at the advent of processed foods were not conspiratorial. But I also believe it has gradually shifted toward covering up facts as they have become more and more clear, and yes, that can be called conspiratorial if you like.

My opinion of Lustig's book is based to this point on the linked Youtube video where he's talking about this topic.

I may have more to say after I read it, but for now it appears to overlap the topic of "The Pleasure Trap" substantially, and adds the topic of conspiracy The Pleasure Trap does not really get into.

I'm going to take this opportunity to promote The Pleasure Trap again, because I truly believe it is one of the two or three best books on health one can read. I will also say, based solely on Lustig's comments in the Youtube video, The Pleasure Trap is also the better book if one only wants to get to the critical and relevant points as quickly as possible. It's a tour de force basic primer on what blocks our understanding of the forces and conditions that prevent the creation of health in our own lives. I can't recommend it highly enough.

This Is (Almost) All You Need To Know

This is nothing less than the demystification and simplification of the relationship between diet and health, elegantly explained by dietitian and nutritionist Jeff Novick.

https://youtu.be/0CdwWliv7Hg

Jeff's bio:
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Bio.html

Get This Book!

The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan For Health and Longevity by John Mackey.

https://www.amazon.com/Whole-Foods-Diet-Lifesaving-Longevity/dp/1478944919

John Robbins says about this book "it wouldn't surprise me if this book becomes the definitive guide to optimum health and wellness, it's that clear."

I have posted a few blogs with the title "Tipping Point", as I've sensed a ground swell of changing attitudes about nutrition, the foods we eat, and the immediate and very real impact of foods on our health. If john Robbins thinks this book will play a significant role in that tipping point it's good enough for me.

We boomers grew up in a time where medical doctors would say "eat what you want, it doesn't make any difference". That was 50 years ago, but many of them are still saying it!

What's the deal with that? They're not completely fu**ing stupid are they? Well, no, they are thoroughly educated (and highly magnified, tip of the hat to H.M. Wogglebug, T.E.). They know what they've been taught, and what they've been taught is yet another example of the part myth, part reality meme "better living through science" that has informed our epoch thoroughly.

We wanted to believe we could go into space, squirt goo from a plastic tube as food, take a multi vitamin, live and work in an environment we are not evolutionarily adapted to, and all would be fine.

And back on earth we could watch TV for hours a day while eating depleted (but fortified!) food-like substances from boxes and bags.

As we see all around us, it's not working out so well.

This book may be the best summation to date of the actual facts about the creation of health. Read it and prosper.

What the Health - A Controversial Film

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Upton Sinclair

The reviews of What the Health on Netflix and debunking videos on Youtube make it clear we are a culture that has been influenced by "studies" conflicted by ties to the meat and dairy industries. But don’t get me wrong, I applaud the paleo diet, it is way better than the standard American diet (any whole food diet that removes refined and processed foods would be), but does it prevent and reverse heart disease? Nope. Type 2 diabetes? Partially (it does not address the cause of insulin resistance, a topic beyond this post). Autoimmune disorders? Nope.

And it becomes clear why this is important in the larger context when we consider that drugs do not heal these conditions either, and it’s not because the drugs “just aren’t good enough yet”. The body heals itself when we “just get out of it’s way”. Given sufficiently conducive conditions the body is a self-maintaining self-healing organism. Some of the damage we’ve unintentionally self-inflicted over the years cannot be undone, but most of it can, enough for radical transformations of health, vitality, and happiness. People who experience this first hand are typically amazed by the speed and depths of transformation, asking “why didn’t anyone tell me about this?”.

We are by and large happy to accept the “bacon is good” studies that make the headlines as they confirm long held pre-existing cultural biases. We consequently do not know about the mountain of research showing animal products are not good for us, but a whole foods plant based diet is optimal for health and happiness. The weight of the evidence is the critical issue here, and it is overwhelmingly on the side of plant based nutrition.

Why do we, the general public, not know this? It’s pretty simple on one level...multi-billion dollar industries have no vested interest in promoting this fact to media or lobbying it to congress. And they do have vested interest in opposing in every way possible science that is detrimental to their bottom line.

A few decades ago there were thousands of studies showing that smoking was bad for health, and a couple hundred studies (with ties to the tobacco industry) showing that it was benign, or maybe even good in certain respects. It wasn’t until the Surgeon General's warning appeared on tobacco products that the balance was finally tipped, and the public stopped smoking in large numbers.

It is worth asking -- why was the government slow to respond to the mountain of evidence showing smoking was clearly harmful to health? There is a one word answer -- revenue. The government does not “make money”, it only collects it from the individuals and businesses within its jurisdiction. Revenues from large businesses are not always visible, but they are there nonetheless. And of course governments have a vested interest in protecting revenues.

Tobacco is one monolithic industry, but this situation is vastly more complex, with huge multi-national industries deriving trillions from “disease management” (rather than disease prevention), along with the industries that “feed” these disease epidemics -- agribusiness, packaged foods (grocery), and the fast food outlets we see everywhere we look in our cities and along our highways.

There is also a deeper psychological/cultural issue: most people never really thought of smoking as good for health, at best they thought it was benign but pleasurable. But we have been brought up to think animal products are not only good for us, but necessary for robust health. Animal protein was "high quality" protein, and plant protein was substandard. The news, based on science, is leaking out gradually that the reverse is actually true. Many (if not most) cannot believe it, and even shocked by the mere suggestion. This also adds to the complexity of an overall shift toward a health promoting approach to nutrition.

(For a complete discussion of the history of nutrition science and cultural biases toward nutrition I recommend the book "Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition" by Colin Campbell PhD, arguably the most important nutrition scientist of our time.)

The system is sick, and there are trillions of annual dollars vested in its continuation and propagation.  We might reasonably conclude from this a system-wide health promoting approach may be a long time coming. Meanwhile, those of us who have gained direct experience of healing in self and others can chose a better approach, and provide quiet example of our own successes.

Meanwhile the film does advance facts without really supporting them in the film. The vast majority of criticism I've seen dismisses WTH out of hand on this issue, but most also do not realize there’s a page on the film’s website with links to hundreds of studies supporting the film’s contentions, ready to explore to one's own satisfaction. And if you really want to get into it you will quickly discover this list of studies is only the tip of a very large iceberg.

http://www.whatthehealthfilm.com/facts

The film is emotionally biased, it’s true, but I’m not sure how it could not be -- more than 50% of the developed world is sick to one degree or another, and yet there continues to be little recognition that poor diet is the proximate cause.

And if that were not enough reason for emotional bias, animal agriculture also has huge destructive impact to the earth's ecology, also increasingly documented by science. All told these are critical issues for the individual and for global societies, while the science showing a better way becomes more and more clear by the year. Meanwhile that science continues to be actively suppressed and kept from us, the public, quite successfully, judging by the critical comment What the Health has elicited. So yes, of course there is impatience and emotional bias, this is one of the more critical issues of our time.