EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: This blog is not a substitute for professional
advice. Make sure you check with your doctor before beginning any new health regimen.
(Besides, if you keep your records of test results, it’s always great to see
the “Before” and “After” differences.) I
hope you can find a GOOD doctor -- one that keeps up-to-date with “cutting edge,”
latest research. If your doctor belittles what you say, and/or doesn’t listen to
you, you may be in need of finding a doctor who understands. My husband and I have a great doctor who
listens. I found him by searching the
internet and making an appointment for both of us, then listening to what he
had to say and observing if he was really listening to us. You will know when
you have found the right doctor. Suzanne
Somers, author of 24 books on health and medicine, named a “health pioneer” (by
Oprah Winfrey), “crazy smart” (by Dr. Mehmet Oz), and, personally, my hero for her relentless work in bringing
the truth to the public about bioidentical hormones, and other health issues,
says the following: “At present, our medical schools are teaching fifty-year-old
medicine. Every disease and every condition has a pill attached to it. If you
look around at our senior generation, you see for yourselves that they are not
doing very well on all the pills they have been given over the years. It’s a
cruel hoax: they trusted and they believed that medicine knew best. We get confused because we have been raised
to believe doctors are supposed to know everything. That’s a lot of pressure
for your doctor …. Doctors are good people we hire to take care of our bodies.
But they are not in charge of our
bodies…that is our responsibility…. Empower yourself with information about how
your body works: it will allow you to discuss your health intelligently with
your doctor.” (from Author Interview, “I’m Too Young for This!”, Life Extension,
p.59)
So, here goes, my opinions and humble
response to the question –
“Due to my husband’s health problems, we have decided to become vegans.
I’m the one who does the cooking in the family. I am, however, at a loss for
how to begin. What do I buy? What do I
not buy? How do I plan meals around a vegan regimen of eating? How do I prepare
the dishes, and how do I make the dishes inviting and delicious? And would you
please share some recipes with me that I can begin with?”
1.
First
of all, relax.
The human body is a true miracle. Recent science has discovered that, armed
with the proper nutrients (and none of the “improper” ones, ) the body has an
amazing ability to repair itself, and it is pretty good about reversing a lot
of long term damage that was formerly believed to be permanent. Mother Earth’s Bounty is at your feet! You will find, as many vegans attest, that
your taste buds begin to wake up. (My husband used to say to me, “Wow! I used
to hate butternut squash, any squash!
But, this tastes so good!” Actually he gave me the credit for being such
a good cook, when it was really Mother Earth that provided all the flavors.
They had always been there – it was just that his taste buds were waking up.)
It’s important to keep trying vegetables and fruits that you thought you didn’t
like, because you may find that you’ve changed your mind. Becoming a vegan brings
about a change of paradigm, a positive change. You begin to look at the world
differently. It takes a little bit of
effort in the beginning, and then it just becomes part of your identity once a
little bit of time passes. One thing I know for sure: you are doing something
wonderful for someone you love, and for yourself. You are not only extending
quantity of life (It has been estimated that a vegan lifestyle can extend a
life thirteen plus years), you are extending quality of life. It’s the ultimate act of love you can
give. For me, the actual number of years that I live is not important, but it
is rather the quality of those years that is most important to me. If medical
science can extend my life by ten years with pills and machines, but I spend
those years in terrible discomfort, I gain nothing. But if being a vegan makes
last ten years of my life much more livable, much more comfortable, that is
important to me. T. Colin Campbell says that, wholistically considered, in some
cases, illness may be as much as 98% determined by diet.
“There is also evidence from human subjects,
which you can read in depth in The China
Study, that supports the idea that the foods we eat and the nutrition they
provide is far more important in determining cancer than our genetic
backgrounds. Population studies begun forty to fifty years ago show that when
people migrate from one country to another, they acquire the cancer rate of the
country to which they move, despite the fact that their genes remain the same.
This strongly indicates that at least 80 percent to 90 percent – and probably
closer to 97 percent to 98 percent – of all cancers are related to diet and
lifestyle, not to genes.” (p. 129, Whole,
T. Colin Campbell)
You haven’t said exactly what health problems
your husband has, but I can probably guess what problems exist, because they
are the same problems that exist with anyone who eats the Standard American Diet
(appropriately abbreviated SAD – and most
of what “standard” Americans eat is truly sad). His problems probably stem
from one or more of four major effects of eating animal products. (Animal
products include animal flesh: mammals, birds, fish – in essence, any living
thing that has a face or could be somebody’s mother; animal products: anything
extracted from or coming from the body of the aforementioned animals: lactation
fluid of cows and other mammals, ova from birds and other animals, honey or
pollen stolen from bees, etc.) 50% of Americans have heart disease at an
advanced enough stage for it to be diagnosed. By this time, an “event” has
usually triggered a trip to the hospital or to the doctor’s office, and the
heart disease is more advanced. We know
that the number of people suffering from heart disease is much higher than 50%. Autopsies done on children who have died in
car accidents, show that, in recent years, heart disease is detectable in small
children. Your husband may or may not have diabetes, or may suffer from what
doctors label as “pre-diabetic” syndrome, insulin resistance, which leads to
diabetes type 2. This means that his body is not utilizing (i.e. it is resisting)
the insulin that is produced and the glucose in his bloodstream is climbing
uncontrollably. Pharmaceuticals add
(synthetic) insulin, but the root of the problem keeps causing the same
situation, meaning you are no healthier, you have probably just added several
side effects, for which more pills with more side effects are prescribed.
William Davis, M.D. in his book Wheat Belly, warns against the diet
prescribed by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) for sufferers of
diabetes. “Years ago, I used the ADA diet in diabetic patients. Following the carbohydrate intake advice of
the ADA, I watched patients gain weight, experiencing deteriorating blood
glucose control and increased need for medication and develop diabetic complications
such as kidney disease and neuropathy.” He is telling us not to trust an
American health-related institution! Dr.
Davis is very brave. He is risking the
big-pharma - medical - insurance cartel going after his license. I may be
wrong, but I would guess that Davis is not a vegan (yet!), but he does devote a
few words to us, in reference to a gluten-free diet. “Vegetarians will,
admittedly have a bit tougher job, particularly strict vegetarians and vegans
who avoid eggs, dairy, and fish. But it can be done. Strict vegetarians need to
rely more heavily on nuts, nut meals, seeds, nut and seed butters, and oils;
avocadoes and olives; and may have a bit more leeway with
carbohydrate-containing beans, lentils, chickpeas, wild rice, chia seed, sweet
potatoes and yams. If nongenetically modified soy products can be obtained,
then tofu, and the fermented forms of
soy, tempeh, and natto can provide another rich source of protein.” (I had to
look up “natto” because I have never eaten it. I understand it’s pretty nasty
smelling and tasting, but is supposed to be very healthy.) He also does not
mention the radically changed nutrient composition of legumes and seeds that
have been sprouted. (Soaked for a few hours.) (For informations on sprouting, see Steve
Meyerowitz’s books, including: Sprouts,
The Miracle Food, Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook,
and Sprouts
The Miracle Food, as well as Sprout Garden, by Mark M. Braunstein.) If one were to do a little “medical equation,”
it might look like this: high blood pressure + insulin resistance + abdominal
obesity + cholesterol abnormalities + tendency towards increased clotting =
metabolic syndrome, or Syndrome X. Actually, the guidelines from the National Heart, Lung, and
Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the American Heart Association (AHA) state any
three of the following constitute Syndrome X:
·
Abdominal obesity:
a waist circumference of 102 cm (40 in) or more in men and 88 cm (35 inches) or
more in women. For Asian Americans, the cutoff values are ≥90 cm (35 in) in men
or ≥80 cm (32 in) in women
·
HDL cholesterol 40mg/dl or lower in men and
50mg/dl or lower in women.
·
Blood pressure of 130/85 or more.
Dr. Davis has not blamed meat for diabetes,
but, many other health experts have. T Colin Campbell, in speaking of the
rapidity of effects of a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet, says, “The speed at which
most nutritional benefits appear when switching to a WFPB diet is jaw-dropping.
Diabetics must be monitored from the very first day they adopt the diet, so
their meds can be reduced as the diet takes effect. Otherwise they’re in real danger of having
their blood sugar drop low enough to send them into hypoglycemic shock.” (p.
17, Whole, by T. Colin
Campbell, kindle version) Another doctor who speaks of this is Dr. Gabriel
Cousens who in the DVD, Simply Raw:
Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, carefully monitors the participants, and
lowers and removes a multitude of
prescription medications. He also has a book about curing (yes “curing”)
diabetes. In my opinion, anyone with
diabetes needs to get this book. (There Is a Cure for Diabetes, Revised
Edition: The 21-Day+ Holistic Recovery Program by Gabriel Cousens M.D.,
Sandra Rose Michael PhD DNM and Brian R. Clement PhD NMD (Apr 9, 2013) I read
the earlier edition a few years ago, cover-to-cover, not because I had
diabetes, but because I wanted to prevent ever having it. It’s a heart-breaking
illness that steals your personality – your thoughts, your memory, -- your
health, and eventually your life. ) Search Amazon for the plethora of Dr.
Cousens’ books. (Conscious Eating, Rainbow-Green Live Food Cuisine,
etc.) They are all treasures.
Or, your husband may have been diagnosed with
“the C-word”. The statistics are
staggering:
One in three woman, and one in two men will
get cancer in their lifetime.
(From: http://www.forecancerresearch.org/cancerfacts.aspx)
Is there a pill that everyone can take that
will cure all of this, make everything bad go away? Sorry, the bad news is : NO.
Now the good news: I cannot say this any
better than T. Colin Campbell, in his new book, Whole. He asks the reader to imagine that the Whole Food
Plant-Based way of eating (WFPB) were a pill:
“Just how healthy is the WFPB diet? Let’s
pretend that all its effects could be achieved through a drug. Imagine a big
pharmaceutical company holding a press conference to unveil a new pill called Eunutria. They unveil a list of
scientifically proven effects of Eunutria that includes the following:
·
Prevents
95 percent of all cancers, including those “caused” by environmental toxins
·
Prevents
nearly all heart attacks and strokes
·
Reverses
even severe heart disease
·
Prevents
and reverses Type 2 diabetes so quickly and profoundly that after three days on
this drug, it’s dangerous for users to continue to use insulin
“What about side effects, you ask? Of course
there are side effects. They include:
·
Gets you
to your ideal weight in a healthy and sustainable fashion
·
Eliminates
most migraines, acne, colds and flu, chronic pain, and intestinal distress
·
Improves
energy
·
Cures
erectile dysfunction (that makes the pill a blockbuster success all by itself!)
“Those are just the side effects for
individuals taking the pill. There are
also environmental effects:
·
Slows
and possibly reverses global warming
·
Reduces
groundwater contamination
·
Ends the
need for deforestation
·
Shuts
down the factory farms
·
Reduces
malnutrition and dislocation among the world’s poorest citizens”
Unfortunately for the pill-poppers, there
isn’t a pill like Eunutria that will eliminate all or most of the health
problems we human beings have.
Fortunately, this can actually be
accomplished with a Whole Food Plant Based eating regimen. Just recently, Tom
Hanks appeared on a talk show, confessed that he had been diagnosed with Type 2
diabetes, and was told by his doctor that he didn’t have to be diabetic. All he
would have to do was to change his eating habits, add a little regular exercise
and get down to a lower weight. When Tom Hanks was asked what he was going to
do, he said that he guessed he was going to have diabetes! (You can’t fool me, Tom Hanks. You are too
smart for that! That was funny, BUT, you have set a bad example for the rest.
You lost weight for Philadelphia and Castaway. You’ve done it before and you
will do it again. By the way, you look suspiciously thinner as of late! Have
you adopted a vegan diet? Hmmm.)
2.
Know
your motivation. Remind yourself every day WHY you are doing this. Read
the statistics on the longevity of a vegan. Read the results of real,
non-biased studies on the beneficial
health effects of a Whole Food Plant Based Diet. (Remember, the companies that
want to sell you expensive pills that only mask the symptoms and never cure the
disease will only fund and publish the research that serves their profit
margin. Can you imagine the profit loss
that a cure for cancer would cause to Big-Pharma, the foundations,
hospitals, etc. that deal with cancer? Another thing I always keep in mind is
that the pharmaceuticals are huge advertising investors in the media, as well
as in lobbying in Congress. Television, radio, internet, newspapers, and other
forms of media must not anger their major investors by preventing research
which adversely affects the profit margin of these major investors. So, be
careful, and do not believe everything you hear or read. Also, there is no
benefit for the pharmaceuticals in researching a natural substance, because you
can’t patent Nature. If their goal is to increase profit, why would they ever
research something natural?)
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, in his book Eat to Live, states:
“Remember, long-term vegans (strict vegetarians who consume no dairy or other
foods of animal origin) almost never get heart attacks. If you have heart
disease or a strong family history of heart disease, you should consider
avoiding all animal-based products. To
quote a respected authority, William Castelli, M.D. director of the famed
Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts:
‘We tend to scoff at vegetarians, but they’re doing much better than we are.
Vegans have cholesterol levels so low, they almost never get heart
attacks. Their average blood cholesterol
is about 125 and we’ve never seen anyone in the Framingham study have a heart
attack with a level below 150.’
“The research shows that those who avoid meat and dairy have lower rates of
heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. The data is
conclusive: vegetarians live longer in America, probably a lot longer.”
(From Eat
to Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, pp. 91-92, Revised edition, 2011,
Little, Brown and Co.)
On a YouTube lecture by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I heard him say that vegans that eat
nuts and seeds live even longer than vegans who don’t.
3.
Begin
with a simple approach. Mother Nature is magnificent!
Everything we need to be healthy is provided on
plants and trees by Mother Earth. It is all natural, colorful, alive and none
of it is made in a laboratory! It is all grown naturally.
I have heard it said many times that our DNA
structure is a 99.7% match with that of the chimpanzee’s DNA structure.
Chimpanzees and gorillas are vegans. They eat leaves and flowers and the fruits
of plants. They are healthy and muscular and they never eat meat. Elephants and
hippos are also vegans.
They have
magnificent muscles and strength. So, don’t worry about knowing all the answers
to the questions immediately. Many years ago Frances Moore Lappe wrote a book
entitled
Diet for a Small Planet.
The book warned vegans and vegetarians that they needed to structure a
diet that combined the eight essential amino acids (the essential building
blocks of protein that the body cannot produce on its own) in the same meal.
Because I am a 36-year, almost 37-year vegan I remember the old days of making
sure that I had eaten a grain and a legume in each meal. Later, Frances Moore
Lappe published an updated edition of her book, stating that the body stores
amino acids for years ( I believe it was five years.) and as long as you keep
eating foods with those essential amino acids in them, the body will pull from
its own stores when needed. So, if you buy that book, make sure you get a
recent edition. The gorillas, and the chimpanzees, the elephants and the hippos
cannot read books, and yet, eating from Mother Nature’s Bounty, they are
perfectly healthy. How can you start simply? When I am asked, “What can I
read,” “How can I get started? I am a bit overwhelmed with all of the
information out there and I don’t know where to begin with cooking a vegan
diet. I am sure that you are no stranger to vegetables, even if you recognize
them because you have passed them by so many times in the store. Think
vegetables, fruits. Begin by preparing a rich, flavorful salad at
every meal. Make those greens, deep
green, and leafy! Include as many colors as you can in your salad: green,
purple, red, yellow, orange, etc. – each color has its own special contribution
of nutrients. Dr. Joel Fuhrman says that salad should be the main course of the
meal. Regardless, start figuring out how many vegetables you can eat raw. You
are eating living food.
It is alive with
enzymes that replenish your body’s supply. “
FACT: Enzyme production in
adults drops 13% for every 10 years we age. For example, a 70-year-old has
only 25% of the enzymes present in a 20-year-old, resulting in failing
digestive system that absorbs too few nutrients. Without enzymes, breakdowns
start to occur. Our body becomes overwhelmed. We age, not just because another
year goes by, but because we no longer have the key enzyme controllers that
keep us vital.”
From:
(http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/enzyme-supplementation#axzz2hjKtCi23)
Live food, eaten raw or heated at 105 degrees F. or below contains living
enzymes. If food is heated beyond that temperature, the enzymes are destroyed.
Enzymes are responsible for a myriad of functions in the body. A lot of vegans
strive to eat at least half of their food raw, and the other half cooked. Some
achieve 75-25, and there are some who achieve
100% raw. Even if you cannot conceive of ever
going 100% raw, promise yourself that you will always incorporate a variety of
raw food in every meal. When you are ready to go beyond a rich and luscious
salad, start searching for raw foods cookbooks which teach you how to make
eye-pleasing, mouth-watering raw dishes. At this point, you will long for a high-speed
Vitamix blender.
It makes superior green
smoothies, and soups, and does not extract the fiber from the fruits and
veggies, the way a juicer does. When you add just enough fruit, and maybe a
little stevia along with greens and other veggies, it will look green, will nourish
you ,
but also will taste fruity. If you
add blueberries to the mix, it will look purple, it will be “green”, and it
will still taste yummy.
It’s a great way
to start the day with lots of nutrients. The book
Green Smoothie Revolution
and the book
Green for Life, both by
Victoria Boutenko, will give you many recipes and ideas, as well as a basic
knowledge of why raw foods are so vital. Then, you will probably begin to wish
for a food dehydrator – more about that later. As far as keeping the cooking
process simple, my approach is to avoid frying foods.
For cooked foods, bake instead.
The key to “spiffing up” dishes is to learn
to make some of your favorite sauces, vegan style of course. My husband loves
Sriracha sauce, so I flavor a small amount of eggless mayonnaise with a
teaspoon of sriracha to put on burgers, breaded cutlets, and in sandwiches.
Vary your homemade salad dressing for your salads.
Eat to Live has some great recipes
for some different salad dressings. Serve seitan cutlets or chickpea cutlets
with mushroom gravy (
Vegan Vittles). Becoming a confident
vegan cook is as easy as learning a new recipe once or twice a week, building
up a pantry of supplies and eventually acquiring a few appliances that you may
not already have, such as a food processor, a high-speed blender (Vitamix), a
dehydrator (Excelsior is the best), etc.
4.
Beware of
vegan junk food, vegan processed food. T. Colin Campbell, and Joel Fuhrman,
among others, warn of the danger of fractionated elements in food. When you consume an extracted part of a whole
food, the body does not use it the way it would if it were whole, and with its
integral parts. Fructose that has been separated from its source operates very
differently in the body than its whole counterpart contained in a piece of
fruit. Processed vegan food is still processed food.
5.
Do
not listen to “external static” about the vegan diet. There has been so
much incorrect hype over the years about the “dangers” of a vegan diet, that it
has become comforting for people who don’t want to go to the trouble of
changing their eating habits to think that they don’t have to change the way
they eat. You may also hear comments such as “I used to be a vegan, but my
health deteriorated so much, my doctor told me I had to stop.” (This person ate
only canned tofu party cocktail franks.) Or, perhaps you might hear, “I tried
to be a vegan once, but I really felt bad, so I stopped.” What no one told this
person, is the uncomfortable feelings that were initially experienced were the
result of the detoxification period that might come before feeling fabulous
rather than from the vegan food. You may
immediately feel wonderful from a vegan diet, but there is a small chance that
if you are a heavy flesh eater, your body will need to rid itself of toxins.
Promise yourself the determination to get past a detox period, if it happens. If you want to combine a change in diet and
lifestyle with education and a spa-like stay, and can afford it, check into
Gabriel Cousens, MD, and the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center. (http://www.treeoflife.nu/)
If his courses are even one tenth as wonderful as his books, they must be
miraculous. The purpose of his center, as mentioned on his website is “The Tree
of Life was founded by Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D.(H) to support and inspire
holistic lifestyle through education and experience. The center's spiritual
guidance, lifestyle education, and medical programs are complemented with
panoramic mountain views and 100% organic, live-food that have drawn guests
from over 100 countries since 1995.”) He is also featured in a DVD about the
miraculous health changes that come about as a result of a raw diet, entitled Simply
Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days (2009) I bought it with a companion
DVD entitled, Raw For Life: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle,
which are both available on Amazon.com. Do not fool yourself into thinking that
these DVDs are only about getting rid of diabetes. Diabetes is just one of the things a living
food diet can CURE.
6.
Prepare
yourself for confrontations about your diet. Give an extremely brief, illusive
answer to “Why are you a vegan?” when asked this question at the dinner table.
People will feel very uncomfortable with a sincere, complete answer. For some
reason, talking about this brings up actual anger by others at the dinner
table, and will accomplish nothing – or worse. This is a forbidden topic that
is culturally taboo. Deep down, people feel guilty for killing animals, and
this guilt gets a bit twisted and surfaces in them as the thought that you
think you are superior, which is not true. If you think about it, why would we
hide “processing plants” (a.k.a. slaughterhouses) out of sight, instead of
making them a visible part of our civilization if there wasn’t something wrong
about what we do behind those walls? Why
does it feel so much better to take school children on field trips to farms
where they can see their food being cultivated and harvested, instead of to
slaughterhouses where their “protein” is “processed”?
One of the most common comments I hear about soy from people is: “Oh, you
shouldn’t eat soy. It’s dangerous.” All of this falderal is based on a single
study which showed how “ominous” soy is. (We must question who funded the
research and whom it might benefit!) It’s interesting that word gets around
about a scary research result, but the other thousands of research results are
left undiscovered. What I do understand
from several of my nutrition mentors is that it is best to stay as close as
possible to the original source, and fermented is even better. This means tofu,
tempeh, and natto. There are a lot of warnings to stay away from soy protein
isolate. It’s used as a filler in many
processed foods – vegan and otherwise.) “This is a concentrated dose of
isolated soy protein that has mega amounts of IGF-1, which is highly unhealthy
and a tumor and cancer promoter.” (p. 124, My Beef With Meat, Rip
Esselstyn.) Yesterday, I opened the
latest edition of Life Extension magazine. In an article I skimmed very
quickly, the subtitle, “Soy May Reduce Breast Cancer Risk,” stood out. I
quote,” The results of these studies have now been released and while ignored
by the mainstream media, the startling findings indicate that breast cancer
risk can be nearly cut in half if women consume more soy…. One recent study showed
that postmenopausal women who ate a Western style diet, high in meats and
sweets, had nearly twice the risk of developing estrogen receptor positive
breast cancer, compared with women who ate traditional Asian diet high in soy
and vegetables…..Isoflavones derived from soy have shown promise in providing
natural protection against multiple types of cancer… and many practitioners of
integrative medicine …now believe that consumption of soy and isoflavones can
reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and
osteoporosis….Because animal studies have shown that a diet high in soy and
genistein [a soy isoflavone] can protect against breast, colon and skin
cancers, it seemed reasonable to think that soy could also help prevent human
cancers, and in particular breast cancer.”
This section of the article was followed by the subtitle “Meat Increases
Breast Cancer Risk”. (For all of the footnotes citing the specific research,
please see the article, “Enjoy Estrogen’s Multiple Benefits” Life
Extension, November 2013, p. 42 – 53) Another common question is, “Where
do you get your protein?” As Joel Fuhrman M.D. says, protein is everywhere in
food! Romaine lettuce has protein. Dr. Fuhrman and team tried to put together a
plant-based diet that was deficient in protein – and they couldn’t do it! I love this quote by John Robbins which
assuages the fear of insufficient protein that has become ingrained in American
society.. (Read any and all of his books
that you can get your hands on.) “Human mother's milk provides 5 percent of
its calories as protein. Nature seems to be telling us that little
babies, whose bodies are growing the fastest they will ever grow in their
lives, and whose protein needs are maximum, are best served when 5 percent of
their food calories come as protein. How hard is it to get 5 percent of
your calories from protein? Not hard at all,....If we ate nothing but wheat,
(16 percent protein), or oatmeal (15 percent) , or even pumpkin (12 percent
protein), we would easily be getting more than enough protein. In fact,
if we ate nothing but the common potato (11 percent protein) we would still be
getting enough protein. There have been circumstances when people have
been forced to satisfy their entire nutritional needs with potatoes and water
alone. Individuals who have lived for lengthy periods of time under those
conditions showed no signs whatsoever of protein deficiency. This fact
does not mean potatoes are a particularly high source of protein. They are
not. But what it does show is the contrast between how low our protein needs
really are, and how exaggerated are the beliefs most of us have come to accept
about them.” ---John Robbins.
T. Colin Campbell suggests a carbohydrate-protein-fat mix of 80%-10%-10%. Too much protein can tax the kidneys and age
the body. At 62, I can remember, years ago, the concern Americans had for the
Ethiopian starvation/drought crisis. The “medical media” painted it as “protein
malnutrition.” I still remember the word they used for protein malnutrition – “kwashikor.”
Sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it? It turned out that they were truly malnourished,
but it was simply a lack of calories – starvation --not protein malnutrition.
T. Colin Campbell also writes of this misunderstanding in his book, Whole.
7.
If you do
the cooking for yourself and a new, perhaps less motivated vegan, make sure you
make lots of “comfort food,” vegan style of course, so that there is never a
feeling of deprivation. You can do that by starting with three vegan
cookbooks with simple recipes for down-home comfort food, vegan style. When
asked which cookbooks to buy, I always recommend three to start:
--Vegan Vittles: Down-Home Cooking for
Everyone by Jo Stepaniak (Feb 28, 2007) I actually have this one, but also
use the earlier edition : Vegan Vittles: Recipes Inspired
by the Critters of Farm Sanctuary by Joanne Stepaniak and Suzanne
Havala (Jan 1996) This fabulous book has my favorite recipes for things like
Mushroom Gravy, Eggless Mayonnaise,
Vegan Sour Cream and many more. It answers all the blank spots of what to
substitute for dairy and other animal-based recipe ingredients. For example, if
you miss meatloaf, try the “Neatloaf” recipe.
--Cooking
with PETA: Great Vegetarian Recipes for a Compassionate Kitchen by People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Like
Vegan Vittles, Cooking with PETA has the answer to comfort food, vegan style.
--Veganomicon,
by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (To me, this book is what Betty Crocker was to flesh-eaters.) It
is the standard for great, easy-to-follow recipes, and a number of extremely
helpful tips, such as “Eggplant: To Salt or Not to Salt?” and “The Key to Great
Guacamole”
One thing I did for my husband was to always include an element of the meal
that looked like an protein – Chickpea Cutlets,
Seitan patty with Mushroom Gravy, etc. He thinks that my seitan “T-Bone
Stayks” are the greatest! He cuts out the
T-Bones from cedar planks for me with a saw.
8.
Understand
that most standard recipes are easily veganized. With the three cookbooks
mentioned above, it is easy to veganize any recipe. If you are dubious about doing
this yourself, and you want to go beyond simple, comfort food to elegant,
impressive vegan conversions of recipes,
you may want to buy Veganize This!:
From Surf & Turf to Ice-Cream Pie--200 Animal-Free Recipes for People Who
Love to Eat by Shagrin, Jenn,
who does the veganizing for you! Is there a recipe that you think you might
miss now that you are a vegan? Do a Google Search for “Vegan” in front of the
name of the recipe. Almost always you will find a recipe. There are multitudes
of creative vegans out there in the ether(net) who have veganized almost every
dish ever imagined!
9.
Make it a
priority to gradually begin to inform yourself about the science of the vegan
lifestyle and its health benefits over a carnivorous lifestyle. (You will
begin to see that the deception of the mainstream media is a “thin veneer” that
can be easily peeled back. Nowadays, there a so many books on the market that
speak the truth. Look, and you will find.
My latest reads in the past few months
have been:
My
Beef with Meat: The Healthiest Argument for Eating a Plant-Strong Diet,
by Rip Esselstyn, 2013 (with recipes) Rip tells it like it is, in plain
language that you can use to explain why you are a vegan.
Eat
to Live, by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (with recipes)
Super
Immunity: The Essential Guide for Boosting Your Body’s Defenses to Live Longer,
Stronger, and Disease-Free, by Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (with recipes)
Whole, by T. Colin Campbell (with
recipes) (Campbell is author of
The China Study, and coauthor of
The
China Study Cookbook)
Prevent
and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven
Nutrition-Based Cure,
by
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. M.D. (with recipes) (Rip’s Dad!)
There are thousands of blogs and websites about the vegan lifestyle.
They are brimming with delicious vegan
recipes.
No
More Bull, by Howard F. Lyman, with Glen Merzer and Joanna Samdrow
Merzer (with recipes) Mr. Lyman was sued along with Oprah Winfrey by the “beef
overlords” for letting it slip that they were feeding cows to cows.)
Post
Punk Kitchen is a website based on a cable television show which aired
between 2003 and 2005, cohosted by the authors of
Veganomicon.
http://www.theppk.com/ (They have lots of good recipes.)
Make sure you look up David Wolfe’s website,
www.davidwolfe.com
as well as his
www.LongevityWarehouse.com
and Longevity Now Conferences. His programs, websites, videos, etc. are brimming
with cutting edge information, recipes, products, books, etc. (I love his book
Superfoods.
Beyond that, just do a Google Search for “Vegan Blogs”, or “Vegan Websites”.
Before you travel, check out
Happy Cow
(
www.happycow.net ) or one of the other
websites that list and rate vegan/vegan-friendly restaurants around the world.
Don’t forget to read up on the amazing nutritive value of sprouts with many
delicious recipes, by Steve Meyerowitz, and Mark M. Brownstein.
For daily inspiration, read,
Vegan’s Daily Companion, by Colleen
Patrick-Goudreau (author of
The Joy of Vegan Baking and
The Vegan
Table.
What about some more names of
vegan cookbooks?
I promise I will write down every vegan cookbook on my shelf (in the U.S., now,
and later in Mexico) and put it in my blog soon, with comments.
10.
Be
compassionate with friends, acquaintances, and family who are not vegans, but
also begin to identify with those from “a different, vegan crowd.” (No, I’m
not telling you to dump all your present friends and family. I’m just saying that it is much more
comfortable to share your food experiences with someone who understands the
vegan lifestyle. This can be easily done by internet. It is comfortable to be
able to talk/write about your vegan lifestyle with other vegans. There are
multitudes of websites and blogs. Become
familiar with some and follow them. Most blogs will give you an option to be a
“follower” and every time a new posting is published on the blog, you will
receive an email notice. Most cities and towns have organizations, conferences,
and ‘fests” dedicated to the vegan lifestyle.And, for how to handle questions
and comments from non-vegans, read, Vegan Freak, by Bob and Jenna
Torres.
11.
Every
day, remind yourself of the benefits of the relatively small effort it takes to
stay with a vegan diet. Although there is no pill that will take away all
your health concerns, there is an eating regimen that will.
12.
Beware of
“nonvegan wolves in vegan sheep’s clothing.” Did you know that there are
even ingredients that legally may be omitted from the ingredients label on the
product? Also, some ingredients have confusing names. “Natural flavors” may be
animal ingredients.
Anything with the
word “casein” (or derivatives) has a fractionated part of milk in it. One
ingredient which is actually extracted from the anal gland of beavers and
muskrats and is used to make food creamier is called castoreum. (One article I
read called it “beaver butt juice!”) If you see any one of these words:
carmine, cochineal, carminic acid, E120, in your ingredients, you have crushed
female purple beetles in your food! (Yummy!) It supposedly takes 70,000 beetles
to make one pound of this red dye that is used in foods such as red applesauce,
and in other products, such as cosmetics and shampoos. ( From
The Vegan Wolf
– “Ingredients to Avoid”
http://www.veganwolf.com/animal_ingredients.htm
) Vegan Wolf is a great source for information.
13.
Recipes – there are some recipes already on the
blog. And, I promise to put more! Please
sign in and email this blog with requests for recipes, and if you sign up to be a "follower" you will be notified of new posts as they appear on the blog. I will be happy to share my recipes with you, and would love to hear comments,
as well as answer any questions you may have.
14.
A few
last items –
·
B12:
It is said that centuries ago, mankind got their Vitamin B12 (responsible for
many vital neural functions and health) from dirty plants that were not washed
or not properly washed. Today we are
very concerned with hygiene and we wash off all of the dirt. So, to remedy
that, vegans have to take a B12 supplement. (My doctor recently alerted me to
the fact that methylcobalamin is superior to cyanocobalamin, so I have switched
to the methyl- form of B-12.) Or, if you are one who hates supplements, add the
cheesy flavor of Red Star Nutritional yeast, that is fortified with B12.
·
Read up
on oils. There are healthier oils and not-so-healthy oils in the store. Dr.
Fuhrman warns about using a lot of extracted oil in your food. Understand that
he is not saying that you shouldn’t have any fats in your food. He’s just
saying try not to eat a lot of the extracted form. When you see his recipes in
the second half of his book, you will see that he has incorporated whole
sources of fats. For example, he uses raw cashews ground up in a food processor
in salad dressings.
Read up on the
smoke point in the
oils you do use when cooking. The smoke point is the temperature at which the
oil begins to “come apart,” or degrade, and causes serious threats to your
health.
Some oils have a higher smoke
point, and can withstand hotter temperatures without turning into “bad” oils
with dangerous
elements. Avocado oil has
a smoke point of 520 degrees F. Olive oil has a lower smoke point. Canola oil
has a high smoke point, but I would recommend researching the hazards of Canola
oil. I’m amazed that many health food sources recommend it, when its reputation
and history is not that “squeaky clean”. In the November/ December 2012 issue
of
Well
Being Journal, (Originally published, In
Healthy Ways Newsletter,
Vol. 9 No. 2, “Canola Oil: Is It Healthy?”
http://www.coconutresearchcenter.com/hwnl_9-2.htm
) Bruce Fife, N.D. tells the history of Canola oil, which is a hybridized,
genetically modified form of rapeseed oil, which has been reduced to 1 or 2
percent erucic acid. (It is illegal to sell oil with an erucic acid content
above 2% in the U.S. There is no such thing as a Canola plant. (Canola is an
acronym for “Canadian oil low acid”) Rapeseed plants (in the mustard family)
were fed to cattle during WWII, and the cattle developed serious heart problems
and went blind! I am not sure if I like the idea of consuming an oil that at a
higher percentage would destroy my heart. Wouldn’t it happen at a slower pace
with a smaller percentage? In his writings, Bruce Fife says that erucic acid is
associated with cardiac fibrosis,
a
thickening of the heart wall that leads to valve dysfunction and heart failure.
It produces free radicals and causes rigidity in blood cell membranes. I’m not
sure that I agree with the idea that a little bit of poison is acceptable.
Bruce Fife’s article says that the negative effects of erucic acid are
observable in canola oil with as little as 2% erucic acid. He also states that
many of the so-called “benefits of Canola oil are destroyed at lower cooking
temperatures, even though the smoke point of Canola oil is higher than most
oils. For example, it becomes mutagenic at lower temperatures just like other
oils. It is purported to be high in Omega 3’s, but Omega 3’s are “very delicate
and highly sensitive to heat”
·
Something to think about for later. As you
settle in to a vegan lifestyle, you begin to feel better. It is more than just a physical feeling, because
you are giving your body the best kinds of nutrients; a vegan lifestyle
surpasses a healthy lifestyle, and becomes a compassionate lifestyle; adopting
a vegan lifestyle gives you a feeling that you are doing the right thing for
the planet, and for other innocent creatures that occupy this planet with us. "Animals
are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities,
but precious beings in God's sight. ... Christians whose eyes are fixed on the
awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness
of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification
with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected,
undefended, innocent suffering." —Rev. Andrew Linzey
A little more than a
year ago, my husband and I got a puppy. She, too, is a vegan. I make all of her
food, kibble and soft food, and I supplement her food with all necessary
nutrients. She is the third vegan dog I have raised in my life. The first two
far surpassed their longevity projections.
If you become interested in providing vegan
nourishment for your dog(s), you may want to check out my blog
www.vegangreatdane.blogspot.com
–it explains what veganism is all about for
dogs and provides recipes and links to other
sites.
·
Because you are a vegan, by your lifestyle alone,
you have already contributed a great deal to the planet, society and posterity. Your carbon footprint is tiny compared to
flesh-eaters. I remember reading that in a year, a meat-eater eats food
equivalent to agricultural use of 4 or 5 acres of land, a vegetarian,
equivalent to 1/2 acre, and a vegan equivalent to 1/4 acre.
·
You can share the following with a vegan-curious
friend:
·
If you are afraid to go “all in” at once, that’s
okay. . . . go slowly. Start with a vegan meal one day per week for several
months, or a year. Then go to two days
per week, then three, until gradually, you’re there. It’s truly painless. . . .
“If you reduce your
meat consumption by only 20% (six meatless days a month) the energy saved will
be equivalent to switching from driving a sedan car to a hybrid vehicle.” –
quoted from a Daiya Pizza box – Turtle Island
Foods
Congratulations on
your healthy, compassionate choice. You make a difference, in many, many ways,
for yourself and for the world.
