Fruit sampling is a farmers market favorite for kids and their parents as well
Fears of Fruit Flood Ill-Informed Diets
Controversy swirls around the question of whether people who are overweight should eat fruit. On the one hand, this food is regarded as the embodiment of health, unprocessed and rich in vitamins, antioxidants, fiber, and other beneficial substances. But then there is the myth that (more…)
Never Too Late To Go Vegan is an inspiring book with an inspired title
A Truer Book Title Has Not Been Written
The over-50 crowd now has their own book on ditching animal foods. Never Too Late to Go Vegan is a comprehensive guide to adopting and staying on a plant-based diet for this age group.
The book covers all the “whys” of making this change, as well as what to eat, how to cook it, and how to stay the course while dealing with some social and logistical challenges that vegans may run into. Lists of tips cover everything from how to make the transition to a plant-based diet to taming stress to places to learn more. Stories from the three coauthors, Patti Breitman, Carol Adams, and Ginny Messina, bring the lessons alive, as do many other entertaining and inspiring stories from others who went vegan in the second half of life.
I was happy to have a chance to talk with Patti Breitman, who is now a neighbor. Coincidentally, when I lived in Marin County in the 1990s, I regularly attended potlucks held by Patti’s organization Marin Vegetarian Education Group. These gatherings were an important force leading to my own (more…)
More and more people are choosing veggie burgers over animal foods, for better health, superior taste, and kindness to animals and the planet
Three Simple Tips to Find the Best Ones
Veggies “meats” are plant-based versions of chicken, fish, burgers, and other animal foods. These foods are soaring in popularity, as more and more people are cutting way back on how much meat they eat, but are looking for convenient substitutes for their usual menu items.
The healthfulness of veggie meats depends on two things. The first is your point of view. Are you comparing these foods to (more…)
This cold-fighting soup is nourishing, delicious, and easy to prepare
This Soup Recipe Is Thick With Lightly Cooked Vegetables
In winter you may find yourself near people who are coughing and sniffling. You don’t want to be next. Or maybe you’re already fighting a nasty cold yourself or, even worse, in bed with achy flu. Is there a soup that can enhance your odds against the viruses that cause such misery, that may boost to your own immune system and quell symptoms if you’re infected?
Lucky for you, research indicates a yes answer. You might have heard the urban legend that chicken soup is the best soup for a cold. Scientists actually did a study on this. Their data indicated it was actually (more…)
Your health is the prize when you successfully step through the stages of change
How To Keep Going Until You Reach Your Goals
You likely already know a whole foods, plant-based diet is the healthiest and most compassionate way to eat, but perhaps you haven’t managed to make the transition despite good intentions. How can you commit to a diet built on vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices, with only a drop of processed foods – and make it work for you? A transformation in eating may appear (more…)
Dave Simon’s book is full of shocking information on the economic damage caused by meat and dairy
Dave Simon’s Meatonomics Shows Compelling Economic Reasons to Go Plant-Based
You may be familiar with three major motives to ditch animal foods: your own health, the health of the planet, and animal suffering. To these, Dave Simon – author, lawyer, and animal advocate – adds a fourth powerful argument. His book Meatonomics builds an economic basis to move toward a plant-based diet by showing the high monetary cost to taxpayers of meat, fish, and dairy.
Meatonomics is clearly written, original, and compelling. As vegan choices become more popular and accepted, while the US economy languishes in a frail economic recovery with a dysfunctional government in Washington, Meatonomics is well-timed to ride the wave of plant-based awareness and show a $414 billion dollar hidden drain on economic activity.
If the true cost of animal foods were charged at the grocery store, the price of (more…)
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…)
Just as small patches of snow melt in spring, chronic illness can vanish with a whole foods, plant-based diet
Doctors Terry Mason and Baxter Montgomery Are Bright Hopes in a Failing Health Care System
The June 23, 2013 conference Healthy Taste of the South Bay, gave two top physicians the chance to share compelling visions for transforming the health of thousands of ill patients, not to mention the model that the medical system uses to approach chronic disease.
DR. MASON’S VISION
Dr. Terry Mason, CEO of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System, leads the third largest public healthcare system in the country. He is also a practicing urologist and one of the clinical stars of the documentary Forks Over Knives.
Dr. Mason’s vision is the Center for Total Health at Oak Forest, which would be a multipurpose health center using an evidence-based wellness-care delivery system to treat chronic illness and bring health to an underserved population. The physical foundation of his vision is (more…)
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…)
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…)
