This savory vegan dinner pie is a masterpiece of flavor. Angela cooked it for us during her visit, see recipe below
Enjoy No-oil Vegan Pesto, Spicy, Savory Peanut Sauce, and Savory Vegan Dinner Pie
When my daughter Angela came to visit me, we wanted to spend (more…)
Wendy hiking in Madagascar
Wendy Werneth Has Fun Sampling Vegan Eats Around the World
Have you ever anxiously wondered, when planning a trip, how you would find plant-based meals to stay full, energized, and happy? I found Wendy Werneth’s free ebook, 9 Steps for Easy Vegan Travel, so useful that I contacted her to learn more about her journeys. Here’s what Wendy told me when I asked her (more…)
The Forks Over Knives Plan provides clear, practical guidance on how to achieve an enjoyable transition to a whole foods, plant based lifestyle
The Forks Over Knives Plan Keeps You On Track For Success
What if you are dissatisfied with your health? Maybe you are overweight, low in energy, plagued with headaches or sinusitis or chronic pain, on multiple drugs, or spending way too much money on the medical profession.
Then you find out your suffering and expense aren’t necessary. Hope glimmers for a real change. Maybe you saw the movie Forks Over Knives, or observed a friend regain her health on a whole foods, plant based diet, or read a science-based book on plant-based nutrition.
Here’s your problem. You are not sure how to get from where you are to where you want to be. The change may seem daunting and the food unfamiliar. You see others reshaping their meals overnight, while you are (more…)
Carnivorous plants are so strange that they can trigger fear. But person-eating plants are the stuff of low-budget science fiction, not reality
Why Do Some Plants Consume Insects?
Here’s a situation I’ve run into many times. Me giving a presentation: “Plants are the base of the food chain on planet earth. Do plants eat animals, or do animals eat plants?”
Someone in audience: “What about the plants that eat insects?”
Okay, let’s figure out this question. What about these carnivorous plants? Do they upset the foundation of the food chain idea? And what lesson do they hold on whether you should eat meat?
SURPRISING FACTS ON CARNIVOROUS PLANTS
Plants need both energy and nutrients to survive and grow. All plants, carnivorous or not, get their energy from the sun. Using the process of photosynthesis in leaves, they convert sunlight into energy that is stored in chemical bonds. This energy is used both by plants for their own processes and by animals (which cannot directly harvest sunlight for energy and must rely on plants, either directly or indirectly).
Nutrients needed to build plant cells are mainly (more…)
John Pierre, a well-known health coach and trainer, shares the secrets he’s learned over the years to get you healthy
Do Good Deeds When You Are Done
John Pierre, the nutrition and fitness consultant who works with celebrities, the military, corporations, seniors, and children, challenges one-dimensional views of health in his book The Pillars of Health. He describes four categories of daily choices to cultivate to achieve lifelong well-being, fun, and a deep sense of satisfaction and purpose. Even more, this book is suffused with compassion and caring for readers. You will feel like John Pierre is your personal coach, cheering you on to make better choices without demanding perfection.
The essential pillars of health are nutrition, mind, motion, and compassion. Take away any one of these foundations, and support for your health is wobbly. Take away two or more, and you may end up coping with pain, illness, and disability.
The author’s solutions are infused with playfulness, delight, and delicious taste. John Pierre gives you hundreds of specific, practical steps, complete with photos, stories, and recipe ideas, to strengthen each of the pillars of health, rebuilding them from the ground up if you need to. You will find out about nourishing foods, creative (more…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
Tribe of Heart film makers James LaVeck and Jenny Stein
Tribe of Heart Film Makers James LaVeck and Jenny Stein Show a Peaceable Kingdom That Includes Us All
In a profound scene from the film Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home, fifth-generation beef farmer Harold Brown describes his transformation when the cow Snickers ran up to him and thumped his head against Harold’s chest. In that moment, Harold felt (more…)
Whole grains are lovely as they grow. You can clearly see in this picture that the grains of wheat are seeds that form in a cluster on a grassy plant.
A Seed by Any Other Name is Still a Seed
Real world studies of what people eat show, over and over again, that if you consume whole grains you will be healthier and thinner. Yet outlandish statements in the popular media, and even “nutrition” books, may keep you from enjoying and benefitting from these most basic of all foods. When you know the facts, you won’t deprive yourself.
Whole grains are seeds. You might hear silly statements such as “Whole grains are not healthy, but quinoa is because it’s a seed.” If you hear anything like this, you know whoever is telling you knows zero about plants or nutrition, and you can boost your health by tuning out.
Another mundane myth is that people did not start to eat whole grains until these plants were domesticated about 10,000 years ago. Why would people have gone to all the trouble of deliberately cultivating a plant that they never ate before? Were our ancestors that misguided? The truth is that people ate wild grain seeds long before they started to plant them. In some parts of the world, wild grains still (more…)
