Category: Motivational

https://youtu.be/yFgGFDahdv0

I cannot sleep. I am reading a N.Y. Times story about babies dying of malnutrition in oil-rich Venezuela.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/americas/venezuela-children-starving.html

The stories frustrate me because the parents/caregivers are feeding them crap. At these ages (up to 3 years old) children should be breastfed, fat & sassy. The extreme poverty in Venezuela has affected the health of some mothers rendering them incapable of producing sufcicient amounts of milk, I get that, but I see the families dependent upon government to provide processed garbage food when traditional (unprocessed) high starch diets based on beans, rice, potatoes (supplemented w/ garden grown greens) would keep them healthier… along with a re-education about the nutritional superiority of breast milk for infants.

When I read that hospitals blame a shortage of (inferior) baby formula, and troops must keep crowds from stealing (inferior) processed carbs from bakeries, I know there is a lack of knowledge. There may also be a lingering relationship to the 1970s popularity of baby formula highly (and falsely) promoted as “superior” infant nutrition by American food corporations.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6/#the-baby-killer-blew-the-lid-off-the-formula-industry-in-1974-1

I’ve always suspected that the reason a plant-based diet has recently garnered wider acceptance is because governments are beginning to realize that a meat based diet is not sustainable on a worldwide basis. As nations like India & China have acquired wealth (and more so due to the social impact of multimedia) everyone seems to want to bathe in the excess of gasoline vehicles & rich western diets. On a large scale such opulence will destroy the Earth, as it already IS destroying the health of Western society.

Ironically, it is a return to the simplicity of our ancient ancestors – a life dominated by unprocessed food, intermittent fasting & a good degree of manual labor – that will make us strong.

In “food deserts” in the US (low-income areas that are dominated by fast food, with rarely a fresh green to be found) we are immersed in a sub-society of its own sort of opulence… the foodborne disease of Western excess. In poverty our people are dying as young adults from overnutrition. It seems most modern ethnic food has deteriorated and is now dominated by processed foods (animal fat, oil, flour, salt & sugar). It is reflected in our waistlines and in our ailing health on a cultural scale. Even meat can be viewed as (inferior) processed food because the animals eat the plant-based nutrients that we need, and we eat them. But it is not our genes, it is not our heritage, it is not our history! We once knew how to thrive.

Here’s an interesting read on the subject:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2013nl/feb/travis.htm

Okay… I’m going to crawl back under the covers and get some sleep. I’ll work on solving the world’s problems tomorrow. 😢

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5181059/Father-two-CURED-cancer-going-vegan.html

• Rob Mooberry, now 43, was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer in 2012
• He’d had a healthy diet and exercised when he was hospitalized with a perforated colon
• The Las Vegas bartender underwent surgery, chemo and radiation therapy, and was downgraded to stage 3A
• But he decided to take a break before his next bout to ‘detox’ with a raw vegan diet similar to Tom Brady’s alkaline diet
• By the time of his next scan in early 2013, his cancer had reduced 80%
• He declined further treatment and is now celebrating five years cancer-free

This is a reader’s post at Cathy Fisher’s STRAIGHT UP FOOD blog.

I decided to add whole grains back into my diet after coming across Dr. McDougall’s website. What he said immediately made so much sense: that regularly consuming high-fat, high-calorie plant foods (and overly processed foods) would stall weight loss. So I ditched my daily handful of nuts and seeds, olive oil and avocado.

Then a miracle happened: After two and a half years of being vegan, I started losing weight. In four months I went from 123 to 110 pounds. I couldn’t believe how much of a difference it made to ditch the high-fat plant foods from my diet.

Now my lifestyle is a simple, whole-foods, low-fat vegan one. I eat mostly whole-grains (quinoa, brown rice), baked sweet potato, veggies, fruits, and lots of beans and lentils. I prepare a breakfast of oatmeal cooked in water with fresh fruit. I only steam, bake, grill or boil veggies, or I eat them raw. I love beans; I make them in every form I can think of, including hummus with garbanzo beans, but with no tahini at all (I just add a little extra water and it is as creamy as it would be with the high-fat tahini).

I am so happy to just have a clean, simple plate of low-fat food with no added oil. It took me almost three years to get here, but it was worth it! I will surely stick with this diet. It just gives me so much energy, and for the first time in my life I love the way I feel and look.

http://www.straightupfood.com/blog/2014/11/17/the-key-to-my-weight-loss/”

You can buy Cathy’s cookbook (Straight Up Food) on Amazon, but lots of her recipes are available online for free (click here).

Trade-offs:

Excellent documentary discussing the health, environmental, political & corporate factors of a plant-based lifestyles. I would just add one more issue – the harm of consuming high quantities of plant-based processed foods… refined sugars, refined grains, refined fats (oils), refined salts, fake meats, etc.