Are You a Follower or a Thinker? - Part One: You Are What You Eat!

"I know of nothing else in medicine that can come close to what a plant-based diet can do. In theory, if everyone were to adopt this, I really believe we can cut health care costs by seventy to eighty percent. That's amazing. And it all comes from understanding nutrition, applying nutrition, and just watching the results." - T. Colin Campbell, PhD

When you get hungry, do you think about what would taste good to you or what your body needs?  Is your body asking for flavor or nutrition?  Most people spend lots of time and money on exercise, clothes, toiletries and cosmetics to make themselves look good, but they completely ignore what they put into their bodies and how it detracts from how they look and feel!  Does that make sense?  Should socially trained flavor preferences be more important than how we look and feel, how long we live, and the quality of life we experience? 

I have discussed this with many people including myself over the years, and I have made many changes during that time including focusing on vegetables, but I really didn't get the entire picture until recently.  The most important thing is dietary focus, where most of your nutrition is coming from.  For most Americans it's meat, dairy, sugar, wheat and corn and most of it is heavily processed.  This food will make you sick in many ways short term and long term.  It lacks the nutritional value that gives your body what it needs to stay healthy and look good.

When you eat junk food, it takes as much as 4 times the calories to fill you up as eating a big salad, and you can still feel hungry after filling up because the food is lacking in nutritional value so your body still signals that it wants more food.  Does it make sense to eat calories without nutrition if the main purpose of eating is to give your body what it needs to function correctly?

The psychology of eating poorly is simple.  Most processed foods are full of salt, sugar and fat which have addictive properties that override the fear that the food will make you sick because they cause the release of chemicals in your brain called endorphins that reduce pain and create a feeling of well being.  The damage done by these foods happens slowly over a very long time so it doesn’t create a sense of immediate threat.  Most people don’t even think about the connection to immediate symptoms either because they have been trained to pop a pill for every symptom, not to question if the symptom can be avoided.  When you get heartburn or bloating, do you reach for a pill?  Do you ever consider that what you just ate might not be good for you?  Do you ever think about the implications towards long term illness?

From birth, we are trained to like the foods that are consumed by our families and societies. We often develop preferences for foods that we may not start out liking just because we eat them frequently.  One of the interesting things about changing ones diet is that foods you thought tasted good end up tasting awful after you detox by stopping eating them for an extended period of time.  I used to enjoy soda, candy and cakes like most people.  Now overly sweet foods taste toxic to me which is how our bodies naturally react to poisonous foods.  There is now a ton of science showing how more than a small amount of sugar per day is toxic and causes diseases like diabetes and suppresses your immune system preventing your body from being able to fight bad bacteria and other diseases.

We also eat the way we do because of social norms.  People want to feel like they are part of the group so when the group eats unhealthy foods, they join in.  It takes a strong will to completely change ones diet and most people find it even harder when their family and friends don't want to change.  It's a lot easier to avoid bad foods when they aren't staring at you every time you open the fridge.  Another good example of the difficulty of change is when you are not eating sugar and every restaurant has many sugar filled drinks including alcohol, but very little without sugar, sometimes only water, it makes the choice one requiring great resolve when you are used to flavored drinks. 

Another reason we eat the way we do is a combination of national policies, economic incentive, our medical establishment  and incessant marketing campaigns that make us reflexively think of the foods they want us to buy.  Did you know that for over a century, our government’s main focus for dietary recommendations have come from pressure by food industry lobbies and the reason bad foods are cheap is because of government subsidies paid for by taxpayers at the behest of food lobbies? 


When we were hunter gatherers, our main food source was plants which was occasionally supplemented with meat.  Cows milk was not part of our diet in nature, it was for calves.  However, our national focus is on meat and dairy because those industries have leverage over Washington.  Our digestive systems function at their peaks when eating alkaline based plant foods.  Meat, dairy, sugar, wheat, corn and coffee, which make up the majority of our modern diet, are all acidic foods in relation to our body PH (see alkaline foods link below).  Our bodies are not designed to produce the quantity of acid or digestive enzymes necessary to digest large amounts of these foods so the body malfunctions when forced to do so.  Immediate effects can include heartburn, bloating, lethargy, etc.

Some doctors believe dairy actually harms your bones through this blood acidosis reaction and we know that pollutants are concentrated in milk products because of the food chain, but we are told that “milk does a body good” because it is very profitable for a lot of people.  One study showed a possible correlation between the protein found in dairy and increased growth of cancerous tumors.  When animals were fed 20% dairy protein, Casein, their tumors grew, but they reversed when casein was reduced to no more than 5%.  The average American eats close to 2 pounds of dairy daily according to the national dairy council.  That's way too much if you want to be healthy!  The cost of dairy is too high when it is a focus of your diet.


One of the best examples of food chain poisoning is in Eskimos.  Pollutants become concentrated at the top of the food chain.  Mercury enters water sources from industrial discharges and is absorbed by bacteria, algae and other small sea life.  Fish eat the smaller sea life and seals and whales eat the fish.  Then Eskimos eat the whales and seals. Pollution has continued to increase since a study in 1970 found as much as 376 ppb of mercury in Eskimos.  The FDA considers over 2 ppb in water unacceptable and this is in their blood!

Tradition is another factor.  When people were colonizing America, they found that dried meat, cheese, rice, corn, sugar, wheat and canned foods lasted a long time so it helped them to reach their destinations.  However, we now live in a world with grocery stores in every direction and do not need to focus on preserved foods.  The older and more processed food is, the less nutritious it becomes, and it continues to degrade over time.  There was a TV show based on tribal people visiting America.  When they were invited to Thanksgiving dinner with a mid-western family, the host opened a can of yams and they asked what it was.  She said “try it.”  They took a piece and shared it.  Then they said the word for sweet potato in their language and asked each other “why are they eating dead food?”  You don’t need a degree in nutrition to understand the nutritional benefits of live food verses dead food if you are self-aware and pay attention to how you feel after eating.

There are also issues coming to light like the harmful chemicals released into food by cans when the food is acidic like tomatoes and the toxic chemicals released into food and drinks by many plastic containers.

If you understood that the small risks from eating the way average Americans do will definitely add up to create a life threatening disease later on, would you still eat that way?  If you knew that this illness will make your life miserable or kill you years before your potential, would you keep eating those foods?  Did you know that most of our modern illnesses in America are directly related to our diets?  If you knew that you had a 50/50 chance of dying by driving your car too fast around a corner, you would slow down.  Why do people continue to eat poorly when it leads to so many agonizing early deaths?

Why have people grown to expect and accept that old age will be unhealthful and painful?  The world is filled with examples of cultures like the Japanese who thrive from a diet of fresh fruits, vegetable and fish that has lead to the longest life expectancy on earth.  I saw a documentary about Okinawa where it's common to live over 100 years. It featured  a 90 year old man who fished in a wet suit off a small boat with a net.  He would dive in catch fish in his net, climb back into his boat dragging them aboard and then do it again until he had enough for his family of 60.  He didn't need to fish.  They could easily afford it.  He felt alive because he was still fishing.  A woman who was 103 was still dancing and bragging about her 78 year old boy toy.  They are great examples of the life you can live by eating healthfully.

When you go to a doctor do they treat your symptoms or the underlying illness?  When you have an illness and your doctor makes money from your visits, your prescriptions, your lab tests and your surgeries through a system of kickbacks, perks and fees, they are a business and you are their customer.  Does this system create a financial incentive to cover up symptoms rather than curing illness?  Isn’t this a conflict of interest?  Everyone knows a repeat customer is a business’ best friend.  If they cure the illness, you don’t need to come back as often.  If they treat symptoms, you have to keep going back frequently and they make more money.  This is a basic principle of  “for-profit” medicine. 

There will always be some doctors who are in it to care for people, but many people become doctors for the money these days, and many simply haven’t been educated about natural alternatives to health care because schools don’t focus on it if they teach it at all.  Today, a lot of funding for medical schools comes from big pharma and they don’t like natural medicine because you can’t patent it to become the exclusive profiteer from it.  It’s the nature of the business. The big conglomerates now own the food manufacturers and big pharma so they love it when you buy their foods and get sick so you can also buy their drugs.

Diabetes, heart disease, gout, ulcers, heartburn, diverticulitis, acne, obesity, headaches, sleep disorders, joint problems, lack of emotional control, lack of energy, and many other diseases including cancer are directly related to, enhanced by or caused by a bad diet.  If you could avoid the horrors of these illnesses and daily symptoms simply by changing your diet, would you do it?  Are you strong enough and responsible enough to do it?  I, like most people, thought I wasn’t able to make this change.  I was wrong, and I finally did it by deciding that my health was more important than a few minutes of indulgence every day.

Raw plant based diets have been shown to reverse these diseases without medication.  Raw organic foods have as much as a thousand times the nutritional value of  their corporate food mill counterparts (see chart below).  Mega farms feed low nutritional value fertilizers to their plants that simply focus on growing fast and big and beautiful.  Just like people who eat bad food, the plants are actually malnourished and therefore provide you with less nourishment. 


Does it make more sense to continue slowly committing suicide with nutritionally deficient foods and taking pills that may sooth symptoms, but cause serious side effects including death, or would you be better off eating in a way that cures the illnesses while permanently removing the symptoms and the only side effects are losing excess weight, gaining more energy, feeling younger and living longer?

Have you ever watched a loved one dying from these diseases?  It is not something I would wish on anyone.  I hope all of you reading this never have to experience them.  That’s why I am sharing this information with you.  I have nothing to gain other than the knowledge that I tried to help my fellow man by keeping them from following the same road that has doomed so many before us.  Think about how high our national healthcare costs have risen.  One way we can reduce that cost is preventative medicine.  Eating well is the foundation of prevention.

If you were making a big purchase like a new car or a home, you would do a cost-benefit analysis.  Why do most people avoid any cost benefit analysis of the food they eat?

You now have a choice that most people aren’t aware exists: continue living to eat, or learn to eat to live.

You don’t have to completely give up unhealthy foods, but keeping them as the focus of your diet is a long painful death sentence.  I focus on healthy foods at home, but occasionally allow myself a treat when out with friends or family or just want something.  At least 95% of what I eat is healthy now and most of it is alkaline foods. That's what I mean by focus.  It’s a choice.  A choice based on decades of observations and self-education.  I still experiment frequently.

I recently made waffles and was amazed how poorly I felt afterwards compared to juicing for breakfast.  Normally, I start my day with a pint of water that has one fresh squeezed lemon with pulp squeezed into it, nature's ultra-Gatorade.  It oxidizes my blood energizing my body and rehydrates me from the dehydration that occurs overnight.  After 30 years of coffee, I found that I get much better results with lemon water, followed by fresh juicing.  I love combinations like apple, carrot, pear.  I throw in a scoop of All One vitamin powder which also has a good dose of protein to balance the carbs for good blood sugar levels.  Food like the waffles can actually take so much energy to digest, they take away from the natural energy boost of sleeping.  Juicing amplifies it instead of detracting from it.

I eat at least one big salad every day.  I have a system that makes it easy even eating for one.  I cut up leafy vegetables like green lettuce, spinach and cabbage and throw them in a salad spinner filled with filtered water.  I spin them wet and let them sit a few minutes before drying them to rehydrate them so they last a couple days in a large plastic container.  I chop red bell peppers, carrots, and celery and put them in a plastic container so they can be scooped separately.  I sprout lentils myself (see below for instructions) and put the sprout in a container in the fridge, and pop open a can of organic kidney beans and organic garbanzo beans which share a container as well.  When I compose a salad, I add things that don't maintain well after chopping like tomatoes and avocado.  I make my own dressings from olive oil and balsamic vinegar adding lots of fresh garlic (as much as one head per bottle) and herbs.  Sometimes I add a tablespoon of Dijon mustard (and  honey sometimes) for a change of pace.  I don't buy dressings because most have sugar and bad fats in them.  Olive oil and avocado are good fats that can even help you lose weight and have other healthful properties.

I use virgin coconut oil (hydrogenated coconut oil is bad for you - processing destroys the good in it) for non-savory cooking like diced sweet potato hash browns with diced banana added at the last minute.  Virgin coconut oil is brain food and can help restore memory.  I make chocolate sauce with ground cocoa, virgin coconut oil and agave nectar, a non-glycemic sweetener.  Great with an occasional scoop of vanilla ice cream or a banana.  Dark chocolate with almond butter sweetened with agave nectar is yummy.  Quinoa, a marvelous whole grain with all of the essential amino acids can be made savory with garlic and any spice you want or make it plain and then mix in almond butter and agave nectar for a sweet cereal like experience.  Be creative and the old idea that eating healthy doesn't taste good will be just another urban legend.

I have taken responsibility for my health by looking at how food and medicine have effected it and by changing my behaviors. Are you strong enough to change your behavior to improve and lengthen your life?  Will you continue to follow lemmings off a cliff or start thinking about your food in this proactive way and make the changes you need to live healthfully?  It’s your choice. 

I made the choice and my rewards have been many: I feel great and no longer suffer from any of the digestive ailments that plagued me from bloating to heartburn; everyone I see says I look great and I see it to when I look in the mirror; I have tons more energy than I had when I was consuming sugar and caffeine every day and I no longer experience the energy roller-coaster that most people ride during the day including not getting tired at inappropriate times; that new energy also makes me want to exercise instead of finding excuses not to which further increases the benefits of good nutrition; I sleep much better; even though I have a broken back, I no longer experience constant pain from it that was being enhanced by caffeine and sugar; and best of all, I no longer have to worry about becoming crippled and disease ridden as I get older because the diet prevents most diseases and the degradation of my physical systems.  Life is too good now to ever consider going back to eating the way I was trained to eat.

A few additional recommendations based on my research and experience:

1) Whole soy beans are one of the best sources of protein and calcium.  However, processed soy products should be avoided.  They are high in estrogen so they are especially bad for men.  Use almond milk instead of soy milk.

2) I do not group fish with other meats because fish oil is very good for you.  Most people have heard about the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids that are contained in fish.  Sushi is the best way to get maximum benefits from fish because cooking any food reduces the nutrients in it.  Fish oil supplements can be good, but some are high in toxins so know your sources well.

3) Wheat is absolutely the worst thing other than sugar for weight gain and disease so I would avoid it as much as possible.  If you can't bear the idea of no bread, you can often find gluten-free products as substitutions although they don't have the light fluffy texture you are used to.  I have gone without bread for months now which I couldn't have imagined doing before this started.  Sometimes you just have to take the plunge to improve life.  The health benefits of avoiding it far outweigh the taste.

4) All fats are not created equal.  Olive oil and virgin coconut oil are very good for you and help you lose weight.  The fats in Avocado work to your benefit as well.

5) Make sure to include high protein vegetables, legumes and grains like quinoa in your diet.  Having multiple protein sources is key to getting the variety our bodies need.  Soy beans, lentils (which are easy to sprout for use in salads raw), broccoli, spinach, almonds are all high in protein and calcium as well as other nutrients.

6) Use brown rice instead of white.  Brown Basmati rice is not tough or chewy like regular brown rice.  It's higher in nutrients and less processed.

7) Fresh juicing is the best energy drink you can have.  The energy drink industry pollutes your body with stress inducing chemicals that cause you to crash after the pick-me-up and damage your organs over time.  A good diet including fresh juicing gives you energy all day and has no negative side effects.  If you can't juice where you are, carry some fruit with you to eat.

8) Focus on RAW foods and you will maximize the health benefits and nutritional value of the food.  Raw vegetables, fruits, fish and nuts are the greatest gift you can give yourself.  When you eat raw, you generally don't need any supplements because the food is still loaded with nutrition.

9) Exercise!  Whatever exercise you are comfortable with doing.  Change your habits to include activity throughout the day.  Don't look for the closest parking spot.  Learn to walk and breath deeply.  If you undertake a RAW diet, you will find your improved energy level makes exercise easier an makes you lkess likely to look for excuses not to do it.

10) If you use salt, use Sea Salt and use it sparingly.

11) Avoid artificial sweeteners.  If you need a low cal sweetener, use pure Stevia extract .  Beware of lactose added versions.  A really healthy non-glycemic sweetener is agave nectar.  Raw honey has good properties including being an anti-bacterial, which is why it is good for a soar throat.

12) Learn to love garlic.  Garlic has amazing health properties including improving your cardiovascular system and should be consumed liberally every day.  It will even keep you from need bug spray as it is a natural deterrent to mosquitoes and other bugs.

13) If you eat meat, buy products that are not processed like ground meats which can contain "pink slime", an ammonia treated filler, and coloring to make it look fresh and keep away from anything involving hormones and other additives. Free range also allows animals to live in relative peace compared to the grotesque treatment in factory meat farms. 

14) Avoid farmed fish.  As well as not having the same flavor of wild fish due to the unnatural diets they are fed, we do not yet know the dangers associated with fish raised that way.  I have never tasted farmed Salmon that could hold a candle to wild salmon.  We do know the pollution from farms is hurting our oceans.  Farmed shellfish like oysters are raised in natural settings so they are not a problem.

15)  Make your own sprouts (requires a large bowl - pint sized for a half cup of lentils and a small holed colander for rinsing/draining).  I make lentil sprouts every week, and it's very easy.  I place a half cup of dry lentils in a large bowl and add 2-3 cups of filtered water.  After 8-12 hours, drain the lentils and rinse them thoroughly at least a couple times then drain and put back in the bowl for another 8-12 hours (no standing water in the bowl now - just the residual water from rinsing) then repeat the rinse procedure again.  Repeat rinse procedure until your sprouts are about an inch long, then you can transfer them to a sealed container and refrigerate them.  It usually takes 3 rinses for me, so 2 days to sprout them.   I add a handful to every salad.  Here's a link to making other types of sprouts as well as sprouting supplies.

"Research shows that sprouts are a veritable fountain of youth. Sprouts abound with antioxidants, they are full of protein, chlorophyll, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Broccoli sprouts have been found to contain 50 times as much of the antioxidant sulfurophane as mature broccoli. Wheat Grass juice is the closest substance to hemoglobin, and is therefore a phenomenal blood purifier and liver de-toxifier. Sprouts contain enzymes, giving your body a much needed rest as they digest themselves - invigorating you while requiring no help from your body to process them. New research indicates that peanut sprouts reduce harmful cholesterol and that sunflower, buckwheat and grain sprouts dramatically improve the quality of life for diabetics. The list goes on and on."

A Few of the Many References Available on this Topic:

Saving America Via Nutrition

NEW BOOK: How corporations figured out the optimal amounts of sugar, salt and fat to make their food literally addictive.  SALT SUGAR FAT  How the Food Giants Hooked Us

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/books/salt-sugar-fat-by-michael-moss.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

DOCUMENTARY: A highly regarded documentary about our food system and our relationship to food and medicine put together by doctors who have spent their lives fighting these illnesses: Forks Over Knives:  http://www.forksoverknives.com/

DOCUMENTARY: Two regular people who take responsibility for their health and find happiness and restored vitality in the process.  Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead!  http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

Are you addicted to food?

Alkaline foods are what our bodies are natural adept at digesting.  A listing of Alkaline and Acidic foods:  http://thealkalinefoods.com/

Start your day with water and lemon for healthy energy!  Clean water and fresh squeezed lemon is one of the most well tested energy boosters around. 

The Challenge of Going Vegan

Vegetarian Living

Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians  

Half price for All One vitamins online.

The Mayo Clinic's recommendations for hypertension start with a diet focused on plants: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/high-blood-pressure/DS00100/DSECTION=lifestyle-and-home-remedies 

Mayo Clinic's top cholesterol reducing foods: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cholesterol/CL00002

Vegetables that are high in calcium:  http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/12-vegetables-high-in-calcium.html

High Protein foods listing:  http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/foods-highest-in-protein.php 

Supersize Me - the toxic effects of fast food - Full movie for free on Youtube

All red meat is bad for you, new study says 120,000 people in the study and the more you ate the more likely you would die of an eating related disease.

Study: One Sugary Drink Per Day Raises Risk of Heart Disease for Men by 20%

Tiny Proportion Of Americans Practice Seven Heart Healthy Habits

Background about the author: I am a seeker, a person who is constantly looking for truth and answers to life’s obstacles and mysteries.  Self-awareness is the key to changing ones life for the better and I have embraced it for 30 years.

I have studied the human condition from the molecular level to the societal level including the history of American medicine.  I have a strong background in all of the natural and social sciences with degrees in psychology and sociology. 

I firmly believe in sharing what I learn because knowledge is wasted when not shared, and we are all in this together, regardless of race, religion or politics.

I was raised to be a hypochondriac by a hypochondriac and have spent my adult life discovering ways not to be sick after realizing that you cannot fully enjoy life when you are sick.  I chose to stop being a hypochondriac and have become a person who does not fear illness because I prevent it through natural health care.  Before I took control of my life, I lost at least two months of every year to illness and spent most of my time dealing with allergies and symptoms created by my lifestyle.  Since changing, I have enjoyed many improvements in life: I haven’t needed a doctor in over a decade, I lose no more than a couple days a year to illness, and I am no longer plagued by allergies, symptoms, or fear of illness.