Plant-based Advocacy Piece

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Plant-based Advocacy Piece

Postby Langeranger » Tue Aug 27, 2019 11:15 am

STANDARD AMERICAN DIET HARMFUL TO HEALTH May 16, 2015

Well of course. Why the exclamation mark? Who doesn't know that? Seems like it's linked to almost every ailment known to man or woman. Not really true of course, but the steady media flow of information on diet and health does sorta create that impression. On the other hand, it is true that many of the ailments that sicken and eventually kill people are the result of years of shoving lousy, toxic food into their bodies. If the bad food was bad enough, we'd turn green immediately, hug the commode a while, wise-up and get off that horse. Doesn't typically work that way though. No, our bodies can take the punishment for years, often decades, before the chest pains begin, or the scale reveals we've put on fifty to a hundred pounds since the high school prom, the doc tells us our blood sugar is pre-diabetic, our blood pressure is high or a colonoscopy has discovered a polyp that's too far along to simply be snipped off.

So here's the way it works. For the chest pain, the cardiologist will likely prescribe a medication or two and perhaps say something about improving our diet. For our weight gain the doc may say nothing, or maybe tell us to cut down on fatty, and sugary foods while we screw around for months, that become years, trying one miracle diet after another. For our elevated blood sugar we might be told to cut down on fats, sugar, highly refined white flour products, i.e, lose some weight, and come back in six months. Six months later our blood sugar is even higher, so we're prescribed a medication. We gain more weight, get more medicine and eventually start shootin' insulin. Blood pressure: you swear you've heard this song before. Take this medicine I'm gonna give you, and get a little exercise. For the nasty polyp, well it's probably too high to go after it the "hard" way (if ya know what I mean), so they'll go after it the" harder' way. Won't be a big incision, and, lucky you, your gut can be resected so you won't require a new exhaust pipe. In a few weeks your life will return to normal. Ah, and here's the rub. You'll even be able to enjoy all those wonderful foods you've come to enjoy, and no one along the way will utter a peep about the overwhelming likelihood that if you keep eating the way you've been eating, it'll almost surely be Deja vu city before you know it. It's the food!

Bears repeating. It's the food! You've probably heard the clever expression, "Killing Ourselves With Our Knives and Forks." And being a bright, educated person, you know that this consciousness-raising aphorism isn't cautioning against stab wounds.

So here's the way it ought to work. The cardiologist should tell us s/he can, and will, give us something to make the pain go away, but, while that'll take the heat off, it won't get to the root of the problem. It won't cure what ails. Then the doc could spend a few, maybe several, minutes telling us that, for some time now, there has been clinical research establishing beyond doubt, that heart disease can not only be arrested, but can be reversed if one is willing to start eating a diet shown to achieve such success. Then if s/he is a really dedicated and generous doc, we would be given a complimentary copy of Caldwell Esselstyn's Arresting and Reversing Heart Disease, and enthusiastically urged to read it, and come back in a month to discuss it, and how to proceed with eradicating our heart problem.

If weight is the issue only the book title changes. Any one of John McDougall's books will do, but since everything's up to date in Dallas (and probably where you live too), might as well make it The Starch Solution, McDougall's latest entry.

Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes will not only tell us all about insulin resistance, intracellular mitochondria, and stuff like that, but more importantly, how to defeat the problem by eating right.

Maintaining blood pressure in the Goldilocks range and avoiding cancerous polyps in the colon are routine benefits of McDougall's dietary recommendations. BTW, breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancers are also linked to the Western diet, and protected against, by proper diet. So, The Starch Solution will do the trick. Truth is, the way of eating recommended in any of these books will probably yield identical benefits because they differ in only small ways.

One of my sisters tells the story of carrying her copy of T. Colin Campbell's book, The China Study to a doctor's appointment a few years ago. She wanted something to read while she waited to be seen. The doctor noticed the book and surprised her when he said, "that book changed my life." This doctor probably has no reservations about telling his patients about how to get beyond treating symptoms while ignoring the thing - the food - that created the problem to begin with. Guess you're wondering when I'm going to, once again, chant the familiar mantra. Well, here it is. LOW-FAT, WHOLE-FOOD, PLANT-BASED. It's so simple, so easy, so wholesome. Ditch the animal-based foods, don't eat critter flesh. Don't drink the fluids meant to nourish those critters' babies. Don't use cooking oils. That's what any of the books I've mentioned will tell you to do. What you'll be left with is a non-toxic array of whole-grains, fruits and vegetables of every color imaginable, healthful starches (think brown rice, barley, all kinds of potatoes, winter squash, whole-wheat pasta, beans and peas. You'll be better for it. The animals will be better for it, the planet will be better for it. It's so plain to see, I marvel that those of us who do it this way remain members of such a small club. Lot's of seats left at the table. Join up and I'll teach you the secret handshake.

BIG BOX CARRIES A BIG STICK (Maybe)

This sounds encouraging. Dateline New York:"Wal-Mart, the nation's largest food retailer is urging its thousands of U.S. suppliers to curb the use of antibiotics in farm animals and improve treatment of them. That means asking meat producers, egg suppliers and others to use antibiotics only for disease prevention or treatment, not to fatten their animals, a common industry practice." Stay tuned.

AND THE QUOTE
“Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.”

Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals


Good eatin', Don
Langeranger
 
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