Posts Tagged ‘getting healthy’
Saturday, August 24th, 2013
John Tanner uses a novel method to teach others a lesson that nearly cost him his life
John Tanner Gives Away Vegan Nutrition Books In a Quest To Save Lives
John Tanner almost died on October 11, 2009. The 52 year old, cleared by his doctor as healthy, was running near his home, as he had done every morning for five years. Abruptly, without warning, he went into full cardiac arrest. With quick help from his neighbors, firemen, and medical professionals, John beat the 3% survival odds. In fact, in a couple of weeks, his cardiologist told him he could go back to his life “the way it was.”
John questioned this comforting directive, reasoning that his life “the way it was” had caused the heart attack and did not promise a long or healthy future. He began asking people what they knew about the causes of heart disease, and a friend suggested (more…)
Tags: cardiac arrest, cardiovascular disease, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Forks Over Knives, getting healthy, John Tanner, making a difference now, nusci.org, Plant-based nutrition, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Health | 2 Comments »
Sunday, August 18th, 2013
Black pepper is an inexpensive, common spice with a long list of health benefits
Black Pepper Sprinkles Unexpected Health Benefits and Pungent Taste
Sometimes you seek health by expensive, exotic means; you may fail to see the benefits right in front of you in everyday, low cost foods that you take for granted. Such is the case with black pepper.
This common spice has long been a personal favorite. I rarely eat lunch or dinner without enjoying the mildly spicy, distinct taste and enticing aroma of freshly ground black pepper. Finally, I stopped and asked myself “What are the benefits of this food I eat multiple times a day?,” heading to medical journals to see who else had asked this question and what they found out.
Black pepper, called “the king of spices,” is one of the most popular seasonings in countries around the world. The peppercorns are dried fruits of a tropical vine that will not grow in more temperate climates. People have prized black pepper for thousands of years, giving it a prominent role in traditional medicine and trade as well as in cooking. For example, traditional healers used black pepper to aid digestion, soothe stomach problems, and treat sore throat, colds, asthma, itching, pain, and breathing and heart problems.
HEALTH BENEFITS OF BLACK PEPPER
Recent research validates powerful health benefits of this everyday spice. While black pepper contains (more…)
Tags: antioxidant, antioxidants, black pepper, cancer, cardiovascular disease, getting healthy, king of spices, nutrition facts, Perfect Formula Diet, piperine, Plant-based nutrition, spice, whole foods
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | Comments Off on Five Reasons to Make Black Pepper a Favorite Spice
Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
This ironic sign embodies the reductionist world view. This supermarket is giving away free Lipitor, and advertising this bounty on a sign right next to a promotion for a sale on meat, chicken, and processed junk food. Yet no one realizes the connection between the two signs
Why Whole Is the Must-Read Nutrition Book of Our Century
If you read only one book for the entire rest of your life, Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition, should be it. T Colin Campbell, PhD, the book’s pioneering author, shatters the current ways of thinking about nutrition with a compelling blueprint for a revolutionary alternative.
Here are three reasons to put aside whatever else you are working on, go out or online and get hold of Whole now, and read this groundbreaking work.
WHOLE WILL TRANSFORM YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF NUTRITION
At its core, Whole aims to revolutionize your understanding of (more…)
Tags: Forks Over Knives, getting healthy, making a difference now, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, reductionism, T. Colin Campbell, Whole, whole foods plant-based diet, wholism
Posted in Plant-based nutrition, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Three Reasons To Read Whole Now
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
The highlight of the UCSD
Integrative Oncology Conference for me was listening and speaking to Dr. T Colin Campbell, author of the masterpiece The China Study
The UCSD Center for Integrative Medicine Treats and Prevents Cancer By Helping Your Body to Heal Itself
You may think of cancer as a discrete mass of cells with a life of its own. Every kind of cancer is labeled with the part of the body it first targeted. Yet your whole body is key to preventing and healing cancer, regardless of the type. To a great extent, all cancers begin in your mind, when you tell yourself to eat risky foods and spend the evening stressing out while sitting on the sofa. With the right knowledge and motivation, you can just as easily make healing lifestyle choices.
The University of California San Diego (UCSD) Center for Integrative Medicine weaves together open-minded conventional medicine with evidence-based approaches that go beyond drugs and surgery. I was privileged to attend the Center’s April 2013 Conference on Integrative Oncology, which brought together a range of perspectives on taming cancer using a whole body approach to strengthen self-healing.
The China Study‘s brilliant author, T Colin Campbell, PhD, was a keynote speaker. Dr. Campbell reviewed the highlights of research over decades that develops (more…)
Tags: antioxidants, Bhava Ram, cancer, Dr. Gordon Saxe, Dr. Sheila Patel, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, getting healthy, intgrative oncology, Lauray MacElhern, nutrition and cancer, Plant-based nutrition, recovery from stage 4 cancer, The China Study, UCSD Center for Integrative Medicine, whole foods plant-based diet, yoga
Posted in Health | Comments Off on Cancer Is a Whole Body Disease
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013
Robb and Amy enjoy a delicious, hearty dinner a few months after adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet
Robb Trexler Loves His Whole Foods, Plant-Based Diet
Most people I’ve known who have moved from a standard American diet to a whole foods, plant-based diet have taken some time to make the transition. For me, it took about four years. While a slow transition works for many, Robb Trexler and his lovely wife Amy show that transforming food choices can happen rapidly, with permanent success.
Robb, a 64 year old nurse, Marine Corp veteran, and Clinical Data Analyst for the Open Heart Program at Scripps Memorial Hospital, is a San Diego friend I love to spend time with. He lives enthusiastically, being sweetly devoted to his wife and family, not to mention his favorite teams. He switched to a vegan diet with (more…)
Tags: Amy Trexler, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, getting healthy, lose weight, making a difference now, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, Robb Trexler, San Diego Veg Week, weight loss, whole foods, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Health | Comments Off on Going Vegan In One Week, No Problem
Monday, April 1st, 2013
The Jazzy Vegetarian makes preparing a plant-based meal fun and easy
The Jazzy Vegetarian Brings Health With Music and Food
Laura Theodore started asking for acting and singing lessons at age 3, when she made herself the star of home movies that were supposed to have her baby sister as the focus. Laura got her first acting job when she was 11, and had performed in 40 plays and 5 television shows by age 16. Her acting was interrupted by idyllic summers on an island in Lake Erie between the US and Canada, where she learned to love nature and fresh-grown fruits and vegetables.
Laura, now popularly known as the Jazzy Vegetarian, shared with me her story of how she’s developed her cookbooks, PBS television series, and weekly radio show to get everyone to try their hand at healthy, compassionate cooking. Her journey started with frequent childhood stomach aches that became intolerable by the time she started her professional career in New York. “I grew up eating a typical American diet with lots of meat. During rehearsals as a kid, we would be given fast food dinners. I got terrible stomach pains after, but never (more…)
Tags: getting healthy, Jazzy Vegetarian, Laura Theodore, Plant-based nutrition, weight loss, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Recipes | Comments Off on Recipes That Sing a Plant-Based Song
Sunday, March 17th, 2013
You know your lungs are vital for breathing. Think of them also as a point of exchange between you and your environment. What are you bringing into your body?
Give a Wide Berth to These Four Enemies of Air Quality
Your lungs are an entryway to your body, a site where you literally take in your environment. Millions of tiny air sacs in your lungs have walls only one cell thick. The oxygen necessary to life diffuses into your blood across this cell layer, and carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism, diffuses out to be eliminated from your body. This exquisite design is fundamental to life, and blocking it for only a few minutes will result in death.
Modern indoor and outdoor air pollutants are intruders hijacking this process, leading to premature death, disability, and damage that crosses generations. Microscopic pollutant particles and gases can cross the one cell layer of your air exchange sacs and enter your blood, from there carried throughout your body to cause widespread damage.
Other particles remain lodged deep in your lungs, provoking serious respiratory inflammation and harming your ability to get the oxygen needed for survival. Your lungs are structured to function in clean air, so don’t (more…)
Tags: air pollutants, air quality, barbecue, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, environmental degradation, fragrance, getting healthy, grilling, PAH, particulate matter, Plant-based nutrition, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, secondhand smoke, traffic exhaust, whole foods plant-based diet
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Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
You no longer need to wonder whether the chicken or the egg came first. They are interchangeable. An egg is a disassembled baby bird just waiting to form into a miraculous being.
It’s Not Just the Cholesterol That Scrambles Your Health
One of my most stomach-churning childhood experiences was cracking an egg for cooking and finding a partially formed chick fetus inside. I screamed in horror and threw it in the trash. No one else was in the kitchen with me. I learned at that point that it’s pointless to ask “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
In fact, chickens and eggs are interchangeable. An egg is a disassembled chick, since everything needed to form the baby bird is inside the egg. The shell forms (more…)
Tags: cardiovascular disease, cholesterol, diabetes, eggs, getting healthy, lose weight, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, salmonella, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Plant-based nutrition | Comments Off on Seven Dangers of Eating Eggs
Sunday, December 16th, 2012
Your choices significantly determine whether you will go over the health cliff that fills so many lives with pain and limitations
The Health Cliff Is Way More Treacherous Than Any Fiscal Politics
The drama of the “fiscal cliff” is riveting the country. Even when a political deal stops the threat of abrupt tax hikes and deep spending cuts, more battles over finances are sure to rock Congress for years to come, so the core issues will remain hot long after January 1, 2013.
While the fiscal issues are major news, the media spends little time focusing on the health cliff, which is a looming catastrophe for most Americans. You have the choice to make this most personal drama play out (more…)
Tags: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, fiscal cliff, Forks Over Knives, getting healthy, health cliff, Perfect Formula Diet, Plant-based nutrition, reverse chronic disease, The China Study, Vegucated, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Health | Comments Off on How To Avoid Your Own Personal Health Cliff
Saturday, December 1st, 2012
Your liver is a vital organ that is essential for health – and for survival. Drinking to excess can injure and eventually destroy your liver.
Wine and Cheese May Be a Particularly Toxic Combination
Drinking too much over a period of years is even more deadly than smoking. Alcohol can damage your brain, liver, digestive system, and other body systems. A recent study found that death rates were twice as high for alcohol-dependent men and almost five times as high for alcohol-dependent women, compared to the general population. Some studies have found small amounts of alcoholic drinks to be protective of heart health, although this may be due to beneficial phytochemicals in the plants the drinks were made from.
You should consult your physician to determine the amount of alcohol (if any) it’s best to set your limits at. The information in this article is educational and not intended to tell you whether you should drink or (if you do) how much; only a licensed health care professional who is familiar with your health history can do that.
Whatever your choice on consuming alcohol, you should know that that animal foods, such as meat and cheese, may boost the normal dangers of drinking by accelerating (more…)
Tags: alcohol, antioxidants, getting healthy, liver disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, nutrition facts, Plant-based nutrition, vegetables, whole foods, whole foods plant-based diet
Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
