I can see how confusing it is when you get thrown all sorts of gargle at you. Everyone has ideas about how to get this mineral or vitamins or how to combine foods to get the best phytonutrient absorption. For Pete’s sake, just relax!

Here are what I think are the most basic of health principles.

1. The closer the food is to it’s original form the more healthy it is for you. When you eat whole foods you give your body the maximum nourishment available. Even eating more raw food will help you reap the total benefits of the food you eat. Heat can often times kill or deactivate enzymes in our food.

The bottom line is: when you are adequately nourished you will consume less and maintain a healthier weight. So make your meals from scratch and stop eating out of a can or a box!

2. Artificial sweeteners etc. do not stop you from losing weight. Studies show that artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain. When you eat garbage like diet pops you are assaulting your digestive system and that affects how your metabolism works. You will gain weight and could cause damage to your body. There have been studies that show that when rodents are exposed to artificial sweeteners they develop tumours and have babies with birth defects.

You can read the article and view the comments on my artificial sweeteners article for starters.

3. Try to eat less sugar (even natural sources of sugars (not including fruit)). Sugar suppresses your immune system and makes you more likely to get sick. It also affects your mood in a negative way. You’ll be happier without that box of chocolate chip cookies. Trust me.

Cut out all forms of sugar for a week or two and you’ll be able to eliminate the craving. If you choose to do that just be aware that there is sugar in all  sorts of items you wouldn’t automatically think of…like bread for instance.

4. Watch your portion sizes. Meat is one of the items that is often over eaten. I am quite serious when I say that meat will kill you. You would be better off switching to plant sources of protein. These help fight disease instead of encouraging it’s growth and will help keep your digestive system more regular and healthy. Try to incorporate more vegetables into your diet. These are your disease fighters! Plus they keep you regular and that is a major component to good health.

5. Make better choices by reading labels. Let’s say you really want a salty treat. Potato chips are out. See my post on MSG. You can substitute with some tortilla chips (I choose one that uses organic corn because I try to avoid GMO when I can) and some homemade or organic store bought salsa or guacamole. I really try to advocate for making your own food but certified organic can be almost as good since they can not use chemical preservative etc. When it’s organic it has to be food! You can’t have organic chemicals.

Just find a better alternative to your craving. An organic dark chocolate bar instead of a Snickers, a cup of fruit juice instead of pop.

6. Get some fresh air and sunshine. This will make you happier and therefore healthier.

7. Try to use less chemicals in your home.  I have been cleaning with lemon juice, baking soda, vinegar and cream of tartar for over a month now and it works just as well. If you clean with vinegar though, make sure you air out the room before you have company over. The smell does linger a bit. But it’s still better than that stinging Windex smell to me.

But most importantly, just enjoy your food. Don’t get frustrated that you don’t know which salad to eat. Just take it one day at a time.

I have certainly been neglecting this blog. I have been so busy with my kids and with maintaining my other blog that I have let this one kind of slide.

I have written about the importance of fresh air and sunshine so many times already but it really can’t be said enough. Getting some sunshine and fresh air makes us feel happier and healthier. I find it helps keep me motivated to do all of those boring tasks that we have neglected all winter long. Maybe that’s why spring cleaning is so universal. Maybe we just all want to get those windows cleaned, not just so that we can see outside properly but because we finally have the energy to do so.

I also wanted to talk about having fun. If you force yourself to do things that are “good for you” but that you really loathe you will counteract any benefit that that activity would bring.

Now, enjoying a greasy burger isn’t going to stop you from killing over from a heart attack but eating salads that you hate for lunch every day won’t help make you happy and therefore healthy.

So, yeah, make changes to your life but make changes that you can live with. Do activities you enjoy instead of slaving away on a treadmill.

I think the biggest secret to being healthy is being happy. When we are happy we take better care of our bodies and we get more exercise, socialize more and get more sunshine.

Do whatever keeps you motivated and enjoy your life. The rest should all fall into place.

We always hear people saying that they don’t eat healthy but at least they’ll die happy. Well, it does take a transition period to get used to healthier food but we haven’t looked back and neither will you if you take that plunge.

You’ll feel so much better that you’ll shudder at the thought of bacon!

My Tiffin arrived today. It is pretty spiffy. It looks smaller than you’d expect but when you compact everything together it has all the space Kevin will need for his lunch. My big challenge now though is that Kev wants me to make him a lunch kit that has a compartment for his stainless steel water bottle, his Tiffin and a special space for fruit and cutlery. Any ideas?

This is Kevin’s lunch for tomorrow. He is having left over Chinese stir fry from the Vegetarian Low GI book. He is also having homemade vegan pudding as well as olives, veggie crackers and some cheese.

We were trying to cut cheese out of our diet but then I found out that Kevin was losing weight from all his Martial Arts training as well as his regular work outs. I became worried that he wasn’t getting enough calories and started putting cheese back in his diet for the extra fat.

On Monday I was at Superstore and in their book rack (which I hardly ever look at) they had a copy of Thrive Fitness. It’s the newest book by Brendan Brazier. I own two of his other books and couldn’t resist snatching this one up too. I really like his philosophy on food, exercise and reducing dietary stress. His new book covers how to eat for optimum weight loss, muscle gain and overall wellness. He even talks about the ability to reduce the likelihood of disease or cancer even through diet.

A fantastic book for that is The China Study by Colin T. Campbell. It’s an absolutely fabulous book for anyone who wants to know how to combat diseases and cancers.

I have talked about this book many a times on this blog but I really can’t say enough wonderful things about it!

I borrowed a cookbook called Vegan Express from the library a couple of days ago. I wanted to share some of the foreword written by Neal Bernard, MD. He is the President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

He states that by simply reducing the amount of meat and eggs we consume we ill only slightly reduce our cholesterol, blood pressure and body weight.

He states that collectively, Americans are more out of shape than any other American generation.

“Numerous scientific studies have shown that the healthiest diet of all is one that is low in fat and is completely comprised of plant foods. Vegetarians have healthier hearts, healthier skin, lower blood pressure, less risk of diabetes, fewer kidney stones and gallstones, and forty percent less cancer risk.”

He also says that vegan diets are even better and that vegetarians are about ten percent slimmer than non-vegetarians.

I know for myself that I lost thirty pounds just from giving up meat. I am having a hard time losing the rest of the baby weight but I think that exercise and giving up cheese will probably fix that. LOL.

Despite all of the evidence showing how dramatically a change in diet can affect your health and lenghten your life span it is unfortunate that doctors and dieticians don’t encourage these low to no cholesterol diets to their overweight and diseased patients.

I suppose there is no profit for large corporations in eating healthy…

 

Side note:  I saw some type Pharmaceutical companies wrong. They spelled it like this: Pharmapsodical. I wonder if they were trying to say pharma.pseudo.cal. That would be funny. Ha ha ha.

As much as the New Year is about setting new goals for ourselves it is a time for reflection.

When I sit back and think about the goals I had for myself for 2008 I realize why so many people don’t bother with resolutions.

In 2008 I wanted to eat healthy, lose weight and run the yearly marathon in my city. I did none of those things. I cheated on my vegan diet, I didn’t lose weight and I didn’t run any races at all. To be fair I found myself pregnant in February and up until that point I was working very hard and was on the right track for meeting ALL of my goals.

My goals for this year are pretty much the same. I want to eat vegan, exercise daily, lose weight, make better consumer choices (better for my budget, my health and the environment), and run that marathon.

I have also added some parenting goals. Like actively being part in my children’s education. All three are too young for school (my eldest is only three and a half) but I figure that they are never too young to be taught at home especially since they will be unschooled at home anyways.

I want to spend more time working on the alphabet with them and reading to them. I want to take them on nature walks (where they can collect nature samples, paste flowers into their Nature Journal and take pictures of the things that are either alive or too big to fit in the box) and I want to take them to different educational venues like the Space and Science Centre, local protests, the library, the museum, ethnic restaurants and such.

I want to limit their movie viewing time and increase the amount of free-play they get. I want to increase the time they get every week for making art (using watercolour and acrylic paint, wax and pencil crayons, sidewalk chalk, bathtub crayons etc.), singing songs and playing with musical instruments.

I know they will only truly grasp a new concept when they are ready to and therefore is no sense in torturing them to listen to a “lesson” on grammar. But just because their schooling is unstructured and unconstrained doesn’t mean that I can be lazy about it. The earlier that I allow them to follow their natural thought processes, the earlier I will be able to see some results. Children, even toddlers, are much more capable than we give them credit for so long as we allow them to take risks and learn from the outcomes. I don’t know why people insist on doing everything for their children. Even if you know their tower of blocks will fall over don’t interfere. They don’t know that it will fall over and when it does they’ll have learned something!

I am also trying to allow them to share stories and ask questions more and more often. This is very hard when I am busy and would rather say, “That’s nice sweety. Now please go away.”

 

So far in the year I have failed pretty miserably at most of my goals. I have had cheese and junk food. I have not excersized every day and I have forgotten to bring my cloth bags with me to the grocery store (which we were so proficient a remembering until the last month or so)! But I am going to keep trying and when my husband gets back to work tomorrow it should help us get out of our lazy holiday slump and back into our healthy routines! *Knock on wood.* Ha ha ha.

How important is a healthy digestive system? VERY!

Digestion is more that just creating waste from the food we eat. It starts right in our mouths where saliva helps to break our food down. When I was in high school our teacher told us to put an unsalted soda cracker on our tongues. We were told to just let it sit there; not chew it. The saliva in your mouth will begin to soften it and break it down. It will actually make the cracker start to taste sweet as the breaking down process releases sugars from the cracker.

The food then travels down from the mouth to the stomach (I am going to skip some of the obvious details) and in the stomach is mashed by the textured lining of your stomach and further broken down by our stomach acid.

When the stomach is done its work the “food” will move down into the intestines where most of the absorption process takes place. The success of this phase is crucial because it is here that the nutrients and vitamins that your body needs are expelled from your food.

So, just as important as the foods you eat is your body’s ability to get what it needs from your food. You need to make sure that your intestines have ample time to absorb the nutrients from your waste before it is passed out. You also don’t want to the waste to pass through too slowly.

What can you do to help your body digest better?

Fiber! Fiber keeps everything moving at the right pace. When you have adequate fiber in your diet, the food, and its toxins (from processing, pesticides, whatever) are moved out of the body instead of remaining within. This means you aren’t going to have toxins building up in your colon or toxins being re-absorbed back into the body. And the type of fiber you consume makes a difference too.

Psyllium fiber is great at making you more regular but it has no nutritional merit. If overdone, it can move food along too quickly and result in your feeling full but being nutritionally deficient.

Dietary fiber from salad, veggies etc. is really your best bet. Eating a diet with plenty of vegetables will ensure that your digestion runs at peak efficiency.

Meat is bad for your colon, stomach and just about every part of the digestion process. Our stomach acid doesn’t appear to be designed to handle meat. The actual meat-eaters (wild cats etc.) have a very short intestine (because meat is rather toxic and prolonged time in the intestine is unhealthy) and very acidic stomach acid. So meat will slow up your digestion, allowing more time for your body to become acidic and for your intestine to reabsorb garbage.

Well, science is now realizing that cancer can’t grown in an alkaline environment. So eating alkalizing foods are a great way to fight disease. Alkaline foods are veggies! Foods that cause your body to become acidic are processed foods and meat.

The ability of your body to absorb nutrients and vitamins and minerals is why the kinds of vitamins you take is important. I don’t believe in the synthetic vitamins you buy at the grocery store. These unnatural chemicals are harder for the body to assimilate into your body and they are harder to break down because they are recognized as foreign, or non-food. This is why artificial sweeteners are calorie free. The body doesn’t recognize them as food, which they aren’t, and doesn’t absorb them. At least that is what is supposed to happen. There have been studies that show that we don’t flush all of these chemical substances out which means that some of these chemicals are still floating around in our bodies doing God knows what kind of damage.

You want to buy a natural vitamin that is sourced from natural products. These will be recognized by the body and more readily absorbed.

So take care of your digestive system and pretty much everything else will fall into place naturally. Being “irregular” means there is something operating under par. I don’t believe that band-aid solutions, like eating bran cereals, are the answers. When you have problems with regularity, or are having stools that are too hard or way too soft, you need to adjust your overall diet.

Having an unhealthy digestion process will affect you if more ways than just nutrition. Poor digestions has other symptoms like dull hair, fatigue, overall malaise, trouble concentrating, bloating, constipation etc.

It’s very important that we eat well to be well!

Tomorrow is World Vegetarian day.

 

There are many reasons that men, women and children decide to cut animal flesh out of their diets. These are the main ones:

 

1. Animal cruelty issues –factory farm operations (where most of your meat comes from) is often cramped, cruel and rampant with disease

 

2. Environmental issues –animal farming takes up way more resources than farming plant based stuff. By the time you factor in all the resources that go into feeding a cow and how much that cow actually feeds you, it ends up being a net loss of energy overall. It’s much better for the environment if we eat plants, which give much more energy per acre than a cow. Plus, less cattle production means less soil contamination in our veggies too. There are also large areas of trees that are being cleared to make more space for livestock productions. Eat an asparagus, save a tree!

 

3. Health issues –there are very few vegetarians that don’t notice a dramatic change in their health after giving up meat (and even more so when they give up eggs and dairy too). These include more vibrant hair, smoother skin, better eyesight, better hormone balance, better blood pressure, higher energy levels and better weight management. This has also helped some of our top athletes compete better too.

 

4. Financial issues –I think we all agree that meat and milk are bloody expensive. My grocery budget has remained the same since we stopped eating meat but having no meat or dairy in my grocery cart has allowed me to invest my dime into foods that are extra healthy for me, like extra fruits and veggies, organic produce, hemp protein powder, pure fruit juice and other yummy goodies like that.

 

5. Culinary reasons –I have always loved cooking! And when we went vegetarian and later vegan I had to rethink the way that I viewed vegetables on my plate. Instead of being the garnish beside my chicken breast they have become my main masterpiece! There is a whole new world of food and flavors out there to be discovered, especially in ethnic cuisines.

 

I implore you to give vegetarianism a chance. The earth, your body, the animals, your wallet and your taste buds will thank you!

There is an insurmountable hill of evidence emerging about the damage that animal products wreak on our health. But where do you go from there? How do you make the transition from eating animals and their products to living a healthier life?

Most people are used to the veggies on their plates being the garnish, not the main course. People who are newly adopting a vegetarian lifestyle often fall into the trap of eating too many carbs. They base their diets on spaghetti and veggie pizza. While it is good to have carbs in your diet it is also crucial to keep them in balance. There must be vegetables and sources of calcium and protein. You should think about what you are planning on making and buying and make sure that you are striking a balance in our grocery cart. However, this doesn’t mean counting the amount of calcium or protein you are eating everyday. Just relax, experiment with your recipes, eat a variety of foods and you’ll likely cover all your bases.

The greatest news about going to a vegan diet (no meat (includes all fish and chickens and beef and everything else that has a heart), no eggs, no milk, no dairy, no gelatin etc.) will be that you will never have to worry about calories again! Not only that, but the foods you eat will help to rev your metabolism, increasing the amount of energy you burn. So you can eat like a pig (as long as you eat wholesome foods) and maintain a healthy weight! What diet plan can promise that and actually deliver? And if you think that makes for skinny and weak males, think again. Vegan bodybuilder Bill Pearl is a four time Mr. Universe winner!

But the big question is what do you eat? Well, some good vegan cookbooks are a great place to start. There are lots of websites that offer good ideas for meals. I like www.vegweb.com and www.chooseveg.com/. But there are many to choose from. You can just Google Vegan recipes if you want.

My favorite vegan cookbook is called The Complete Vegan Kitchen (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Vegan-Kitchen-Introduction-Recipes/dp/1401603475/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219690370&sr=8-1). It’s great for when you want some “normal” recipes and everything is made from scratch, which means no preservatives and artificial garbage. There is even a recipe in there for homemade BBQ sauce.

I also like that low GI cookbook I mentioned in an earlier post. Many of those recipes are geared to people who enjoy ethnic food so if you are less adventurous with new flavours you may not get as much out of it as I have. It’s only about half vegan (the rest is vegetarian) but you can make substitutions as you see fit.

Many of your favorite dishes can easily made vegan. You can make a lasagna and top it with bread crumbs instead. You can make a variety of recipes like Sheperd’s Pie by using Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) or soy ground hamburger instead. I even found a great recipe for breakfast sausage in that first cookbook that is scrumptious!

What about eating out? Well, you may want to avoid your favorite steak house but there are many, many options. Even in Redneck Alberta we have vegan restaurants and many vegetarian friendly options.

Check out a local Vegetarian association and they can provide you with a list of vegan restaurants. More and more restaurants are carrying vegan friendly options these days. Just about any restaurant will accommodate your special diet if you ask them to. For example, you can ask that they replace the chicken on your pasta with mushrooms or you can ask for marinara sauce instead of meat sauce.

And if you don’t like to bother people to make special orders for you can go to ethnic restaurants. There is no shortage of options on authentic Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, East Indian menus.

Fast food is uber easy if you are in need of something on the go. The following restaurants have veggie burgers, just ask that they not add cheese: A&W, Burger King, KFC and Harveys. Taco Bell has some delicious bean burritos. Order the seven layer without sour cream and cheese and voila! And any sub place will have a veggie sub.

Even us sweet tooths can be satisfied with vegan friendly baking. We have been brain-washed into thinking you need eggs to bind recipes but that’s not true. I use ground flax seeds or bananas as binders instead. The best homemade cake and homemade pancakes I have EVER had are vegan ones I found on vegweb.com.

There are no more excuses now. Stop making yourself fat and sick and start living to your full potential.

 

Here is a little glossary for those unfamiliar with animal product substitutes:

Tofu: Is made from soy beans. It comes in a variety of firmnesses, flavours and is used for many different reasons. You can buy it as soy milk and soygurt. You can use it as a meat substitute in stir-fries etc., you can use it to make icings and spread and you can scramble it into “eggs.” The possibilities are limitless and since tofu absorbs the flavour of whatever it’s combined with it is a very versatile, low-fat, high protein food.

Tempeh: This is made from soy as well, it’s a different texture and you can buy them in burger forms and combined with grains. I like cutting them into strips and making veggie chicken strips. You fry them in a pan or a wok with homemade BBQ sauce or some hot sauce. Fun! I even have a recipe for oven onion rings and french fries that make a good “junk food” kind of meal.

Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP): This is also soy based. It’s dehydrated chunks of soy protein. These are easy to use as you just need to add some boiling hot water to it and then it fluff up, ready to be used in dishes like veggies tacos etc. You can add seasoning to them as they are very bland and a little soy sauce if you want them to have the characteristic brown colour of meat. You can also buy veggie ground at the grocery store. It’s a similar idea.

Seitan: Is a non-soy meat replacer. It is made from wheat gluten. It is very fun to use in meat dishes, like Chorizo sausages for breakfast. Yumm!

Brewer’s/Nutritional Yeast: A yeast (I don’t believe it will ferment or give rise to anything) that is yellow in colour and kind of tastes/smells like cheese. You can use it to make vegan cheese sauces etc. It’s a good part of your diet because it provides you with some Vitamin B12. You need very little of this Vitamin and your body can store it for up to three years so it’s a good idea to eat some every once in a while.

We all hear that we should reference the sacred Canada Food Guide when we are confused about food portions etc. But, there are many flaws with the Canada Food Guide. It has improved over the years to include legumes and so on and that is a positive thing for everyone’s health but the emphasis on the Milk and Meat groups is still deeply ingrained as is the perception of the healthfulness of these products thanks to very effective brain-washing in our youth.

For example, I was reading my Fit Kids book from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada this morning. The book is only four years old and even there it states that children do not need vitamins or supplements unless they aren’t drinking milk. Those not drinking milk (vegans/lactose intolerant people) are encouraged to take a calcium supplement for the formation of strong bones. What a load of bull!

Experts are saying that those who don’t drink milk have stronger bones than those who do (see the video and read the book mentioned in my last entry for more information). This is because the high fat/protein composition of the milk (plus any added protein and fat from meat consumption) leeches milk from the bones and dumps it in the urine. In fact, those who were at risk of osteoporosis and were recommended a higher milk consumption actually disposed of more calcium in their urine and ended up with weaker bones than those who drank less milk. The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world are countries with high milk consumption. And conversely, the countries that don’t drink milk, like Japan and Thailand, have virtually no incidences of osteoporosis (unless someone starts drinking milk)! This means that a vegan child, for example, wouldn’t need to be on calcium supplements. If they are eating foods rich in calcium, like almods or green veggies ie.kale, they will absorb and retain their calcium. Besides many soy milks and rice milks etc. are calcium fortified these days.

It is shameful that our government and health authorities are still touting the “benefits” of milk when the research is pointing the opposite way. Not only is milk not beneficial, it’s actually detrimental.

Same with meat. Even the food guide puts a high emphasis on meat consumption. The research that is dribbling from the pipe on an almost daily basis (some of it started over fifty years ago) keeps pointing to the inadequacy of our digestive system for breaking down meat and dairy foods. It is literally killing us and people still think it’s healthy!

In the video I posted in the last entry, the presenting Doctor compares the digestive system of carnivores and herbivores and draws the conclusion that our digestive systems are NOT well equiped to handle meat. We are indeed herbivores. You can thrive on a vegan diet but you will die from a meat-based diet.

And the indication that one will waste away or become willowy on a vegan diet is not based in fact either. Consider these burly and strong vegan athletes:

Brendan Brazier: multi-time Iron Man Triathlon winner

Carl Lewis: “Olympian of the Century” -Olympic medalist in track

Chris Evert: Tennis champion

Bill Pearl: Professional bodybuilder and four time “Mr. Universe”

Ed Templeton: Professional skateboarder

Keith Holmes: Boxing champion

Desmond Howard: Heisman trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP

Raja Bell, Salim Stoudamire and Robert Parish: NBA

Edwin Moses: Olympic gold medals (2) for hurdles

Ricky Williams: Ultimate fighting champ

Scott Jurek: Ultra-marathon runner

But back to the Food Guide. It’s not all garbage. If you look at the portion sizes recommended by the Food Guide you can easily see the flaw in our western diets. If you add the maximum servings of grains and fruit and vegetables it adds up to 22 servings of wholesome, vegan food. The meat and milk portions add up to seven servings. There is a definite indication there as to the importance of veggies and fruits and carbs.

The fruits and veggies are the foods that help you fight disease and cancer. They are your antioxidants and your vitamins and minerals.

But consider that meat is pointless. Meat doesn’t make us stronger, meat doesn’t make us healthier and it doesn’t do anything for our health except provide us with fat and protein and alter our hormones and trigger disease and cancer. So why eat it?

The real fuel for our bodies is carbohydrates (the grain group). And it’s completely possible to obtain the amount of protein necessary for a healthy body from a plant based diet. So why not cut out the fat and start fueling our bodies with what it’s supposed to use. The Doctor in the video has a great analogy. If you don’t put the right gas in your car you can’t expect great performance but if you start putting the right gas in your tank you’ll start to see better outcomes from your car.

So fuel up with some healthy plant foods and you’ll rediscover your youth through increased energy and vitality. You’ll live longer and with less aches and pains! You’ll also have a healthier body weight and enjoy a better quality of life.

I have always been amazed by the people’s inability to connect the dots. I have just finished reading The China Study and I have found so much interesting information in there. I had heard of much of these results before but never in that much depth or accompanied with such an analysis.

The last quarter of the book focuses on the politics of health/nutrition. The author states that there is billions of dollars spent on research, most is spent to doing research enabling the creation of drugs, and only a sliver of that is spent on nutrition and prevention. Even the nutrition and prevention budgets of many organisations are actually thinly veiled as drug research budgets.

But what does that mean? Well, it means that these organisations, which are almost always heavily funded by the meat industry, dairy industry, sugar industry and other “bad” food industries, are not wanting to find out that there is a link between diet and food. They want to tell you to keep buying hamburgers but to buy supplements or drugs. If you don’t believe this you need to read the book. The author cites many examples where scientists, influenced by food industries, have made claims such as low cholesterol being bad for you, and how you NEED high cholesterol. There was a top health professional that encouraged people to eat hamburgers saying that they are good for you. Lately the dairy industry has been undergoing trouble for claiming that milk can help you to lose weight. This is not true and they are taking flak for it. Industries will take any bit of research out of context and bang it like a cheap drum. This is bad science and it’s confusing to the consumer.

Even yesterday my husband told me that on the news he was told that being obese can be healthy! Did I miss something? I thought that being obese increased your risk of hundreds of health problems and reduced your lifespan by years.

The point is that these industries fund research that ends up improperly done or improperly analysed to obtain the claims that are beneficial to them. They even establish committees to spy on research being done that may damage their profit margins so that they may strive to discredit them.

I know it sounds awful, but, they are businesses and as such they are deeply worried about their profit margins. That’s why when reports come out saying that milk doesn’t make your bones stronger but ACTUALLY leaches calcium from your bones, these industries have some major damage control to do!

But let us take a moment and focus on diet here. Did you know that heart disease, which affects and kills so many people in Canada and the U.S. is rare in other countries? In fact, the countries that have the most cancers, heart disease, osteoporosis, Type I and II Diabetes etc. are all countries where meat and milk consumption is high!

Can we blame it on genetics? I mean we ALL have genes. But we don’t all get breast cancer. So what causes one person to get cancer and the other to be healthy?

Did you know that if someone moves from a low risk area (ie. China) to a high risk area (ie. U.S.) that they adopt the high risk for those diseases? Why would someone who is so unlikely to get heart disease in one area all of a sudden become at a high risk of developing it? Could it be because as immigrants come to the land of affluence they adopt our diet?

So if we can clearly see that diet has an impact, why is the government so reluctant to alter our servings of dairy and meat in our food guides? After all, we, as a culture, have been over-eating meat for decades and our rates of disease are skyrocketing. Do they not see a connection?

Even more startling is the differences in our own people. For example, vegans and vegetarians are at a reduced risk of pretty much all diseases and cancers. Plus they are expected to live longer too.

So why do people still think it’s healthy to eat meat and dairy?

There have even been studies showing that cognitive function is improved with a vegan diet. This means a much lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s too! There have been experiments done in schools with many ADD-type children where they have noticed a significant improvement in mood and cognitive function by reducing the meat and dairy out of their lunches. So if your child gets diagnosed with ADD/ADHD you could try a healthy, whole-foods vegan diet for a while and see how it shapes up. It certainly would be much better than putting them on drugs.

But back to the main issue here. The data shows over and over and over again that areas/groups that eat less meat and dairy have much less disease and cancer. So maybe it’s time people started re-evaluating their perspective on diet. Don’t expect to see anything coming from the government acknowledging this anytime soon. They are in bed with those who profit from your sickness. Your meat and dairy and Coca Cola industries as well as your pharmaceutical companies.

Do you see how much big corporations have to lose by having you become healthy? There is much more profit for them in your sickness. But you don’t have to let them win. You can cut back the meat and dairy in your diet (ideally to nothing) and enjoy the benefits of a longer more vital life. This is much better than spending your last years of your prematurely shortened life in pain from your most recent stroke.

And if you are too macho to give us cow’s flesh then consider this: there are many top athletes that are vegan. They are triathlon winners, and boxers, and football players, and heavy weight champions. They are strong, healthy and reach their peak later than omnivores. Think of what you could do with a healthy body weight and all this extra energy!

If you want to watch a video that sumarizes most of this book’s dietary information you can check out this video: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4330900066502406356&hl=en-CA