Sunday, May 31, 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Although most people believe that hypertension is a natural consequence of aging, hypertension is actually the consequence from years of consuming a diet rich in saturated animal products, oils, refined sugars, processed foods, and salt.
These foods play a major role in promoting diseased arteries. High blood pressure is not a disease, but a symptom of these diseased arteries. As cholesterol containing plaques begin to line the walls of the arteries, the arteries begin to narrow, stiffen, and lose their elasticity which causes a rise in pressure. Medications artificially treat the symptoms which gives the patient a false sense of security while their disease progresses. By switching to a whole foods plant based diet, you will be giving your body a chance to heal the arteries, and reverse the disease.
For more information, click on the following links:
(1) Die Sooner With Good Looking Numbers
(2) Who has Heart Disease? Everyone!
(3) How do the Majority of Heart Attacks Occur?
(4) Heart Attack Proof Your Holidays
(5) Heart Attack Proof Yourself in Three Weeks
(7) Atherosclerosis Begins in Early Childhood
(8) Could Erectile Dysfunction Save Your Life?
(9) Bypass, Anigoplasty Procedures not Effective
(10) Heart Disease Starts in Childhood
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Monday, April 06, 2015
Depression, anxiety, feelings of overwhelm and general stress
Depression, anxiety, feelings of overwhelm and general stress are modern-day epidemics. Yet when people go to see a doctor or psychologist about their mental health, they are hardly ever asked what they eat. According to this fascinating study, that's a huge mistake. Researchers at Arizona State University have found that a diet free of all flesh foods (including fish) and eggs, significantly decreases depression and anxiety, and reduces perceived stress, in just 2 weeks!
The researchers administered two validated psychological questionnaires, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS) to 39 healthy adults to assess their mental health at the start of the study, and then randomly assigned them to one of three diet groups:
- A control group, which maintained regular intake of flesh foods;
- A fish group, which eliminated meat, poultry and eggs but consumed 3-4 servings per week of seafood; and
- A vegetarian group which eliminated all meat. poultry, eggs and seafood.
After 2 weeks, the researchers found that the group assigned to the vegetarian diet improved significantly on both the DASS and POMS scales, while the fish group experienced no significant improvement.
The researchers were particularly interested in participants' blood levels of 3 fatty acids (components of fat) that affect mental health: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA), EPA and DHA, which are both long-chain omega 3 fats, are touted for their ability to decrease anxiety and depression.
Yet while the fish-eating group experienced significant increases in their EPA and DHA intakes (see chart below), their mood states were not improved. On the other hand the vegetarian group significantly reduced their EPA and DHA intakes, but their mood improved substantially.
The researchers speculated that one explanation for this unexpected result was that the AA intake of the fish eaters was essentially the same as that of the control group, while the vegetarian group reduced their intake of AA to virtually zero (no great surprise, since AA is not found in plant foods).
AA gives rise to inflammatory prostaglandins, hormone-like substances which are associated with anxiety and depression.
In another study which used a cross-sectional design (i.e. assessing the mood state of people on their habitual diets, at one point in time), the same team of researchers also found that vegetarians reported significantly less negative emotion than omnivores.
Study subjects with the highest intake of EPA, DHA and AA had the worst mental health, while those with the highest intake of the plant-derived short-chain omega 3 fat, alpha-linolenic acid, and the omega 6 fat linoleic acid, experienced better mood.
These 2 studies validate my extensive clinical experience, which is that people who adopt a healthy plant-based diet feel dramatically better within a very short period of making their dietary changes. Considering that anti-depressants may take several weeks to take effect, have a poor efficacy rate overall, and come with some very nasty side effects (including an increased risk of suicide in the first couple of weeks of taking them), dietary change should be the first treatment option explored for all people experiencing anxiety, depression, and elevated stress levels.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Why it’s so damn hard to live healthfully – and how to make it MUCH easier (Part 2)
Why it's so damn hard to live healthfully – and how to make it MUCH easier (Part 2)
In last week's article I gave you my top 5 reasons why living healthfully is so damn hard, and they're pretty compelling ones. I hope no one has slashed their wrists in despair while waiting for me to share my antidotes for neutralising each of these health-poisoners, and making it MUCH easier to stay on track ;-).Reason # 1: Our society is deeply sick, and those who are supposed to keep us well are sick themselves.
Antidote # 1: Seek out healthy role models, including health advisors.
When you live in a society that frames it as normal to have to take your kids to the doctor every second week; normal for people to be put on mind-altering prescription drugs and told they have a 'biochemical imbalance' when they're experiencing distress from life challenges; normal for the 30-plus years after mid-life to be dogged by physical disability and cognitive decline; and normal for junk food companies to sponsor sporting events, you have to take powerful counter-action.I have an ever-expanding collection of role models who inspire me to put my health, and my family's health, at the centre of every decision I make. They remind me that I am in control of my life, and it's a responsibilty I take seriously.
I also enjoy reaping the rewards of exercising that responsibility wisely: I'm stronger, fitter, and have more energy and stamina now, in my 40s, than I had in my teens and early 20s, when I didn't prioritise my health. As a result I pack a lot more living into every day! My role models include:
Dr Joel Fuhrman, who turned 61 on 2 December 2014, but shows no signs of retiring from his busy medical practice, prolific article- and book-writing, and public appearances including regular guests spots on the Dr Oz show.
Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, who turned 81 just a few days after Dr Fuhrman on 12 December 2014, and is still taking care of many of the patients whose advanced heart disease he reversed with dietary therapy, as well as speaking at conferences around the world.
Professor T. Colin Campbell, who is also now in his 80s and still active in writing and teaching plant-based nutrition courses.
Dr Pam Popper, who spent the first few decades of her life paying absolutely no attention to her health, then had an epiphany in her late 30s, and went on to establish The Wellness Forum, an organisation devoted to educating both children and adults in how to eat for optimal health.
Dr Pamela Peeke, one of my newest role models, who has conducted pioneering research into food addiction and obesity, and is still running marathons and triathlons in her 60s.
Allan Stewart, who graduated from Southern Cross University with a Master of Clinical Science - Complementary Medicine at the age of 97, having earned his law degree 6 years earlier, in just 4 1/2 years rather than the usual 6.
Dr Ellsworth Wareham, a pioneering heart surgeon who retired at age 95, and at 100, still has the vigour to tend his garden and 2-storey house by himself.
Oh, one more: Leonard Cohen, who turned 81 on 21 September 2015 (what is it about me and 80 year old men???), still writing and performing wonderful music, and flaunting on-stage energy and stamina that would put most people 40 years younger to shame.
What I look for in a role model is a passion for contributing to others through their gifts, a 'life is not a dress rehearsal' attitude, and a healthy disrespect for conventional ideas of aging!
Many of my role models double as health advisors. What I look for in a heath advisor is someone who 'walks their talk' and is a living advertisement for the effectiveness of what they do. If your doctor, personal trainer, naturopath or any other health advisor doesn't inspire you with their health and vitality, find one who does.
Action step: write down the names of people who inspire you to be your best self! Read their books or biographies about them, 'friend' them on Facebook (assuming they're still alive ;-) ), and reflect on the elements of their stories that most uplift you.
Reason # 2: We are constantly bombarded by messages that unhealthy foods are much more fun than healthy ones, and that eating them will make us feel better about ourselves.
Antidote # 2: Learn to prepare healthy foods in delicious ways, and train yourself to notice and talk back to the subliminal messages in food advertisements.
One of the aspects of my practice that brings me the greatest joy is running my 6-week cooking course, Healthy Eating - for Life! I get such a kick out of seeing the expressions of surprised delight, and hearing the 'oohs' and 'aahs' as my class participants taste their recipe samples.Many of them tell me they simply had no idea that food that's good for you could taste so great! The notion that eating for health requires enormous self-discipline and self-sacrifice is just plain WRONG.
Personally, I love food; always have. I learned to cook before I hit my teens, guided by the Margaret Fulton Encyclopedia of Food & Cookery that my Dad bought me in hopes that I would develop the love of cooking that my Mum had completely lost by the time I came along:).
After I started studying nutrition, I realised I'd picked up some very dangerous habits from the venerable Mrs Fulton, so I committed to learning how to prepare wholesome foods in ways that maximised their nutritional value... without compromising on taste. The Healthy Eating - for Life! course and DVD set are the ultimate outcomes of this grand mission.
As for junk food ads, it's one of my family's favourite games - on the rare occasions we watch commercial TV - to develop anti-ads for the junk food ads we see. My 14-year old, extremely media-savvy son has a particular talent for putting a sarcastic spin on ads. Here's one of my favourites:
"Betcha can't eat just one! Yep, that's because we employed an entire team of food technologists and psychologists to make this snack food more addictive than crack."I also get a giggle out of the many wonderful anti-ads sending up nutritionally bereft food and beverages, like these:
And if you don't mind a little bad language, this magnificent anti-ad really sums up what I'm trying to get across to you:
Action step: acquire some healthy recipes that you enjoy (of course, I'd love to see you in my next cooking course :) ), and start noticing the hidden messages in ads.
Reason # 3: Trying to live healthfully feels like being a salmon swimming upstream.
Antidote # 3: Create your own tribe - surround yourself with people who are also committed to living healthy lives rather than joining the lemming-march off the nearest cliff.
Did you know that obesity is contagious? Using the subjects recruited for the famed Framingham Heart Study, researchers from Harvard University showed that the more obese social contacts you have, the more likely you are to become obese. Alison Hill, the study's lead author, commented"We find that having four obese friends doubled people's chance of becoming obese compared to people with no obese friends,"while another researcher involved in the study, David Rand, noted that the more obese people you have contact with in any social capacity, the more likely you are to become obese.
Further research clarified the mechanism behind this intriguing finding: it's the habits that are transmitted person-to-person, in a very similar manner to the transmission of infectious disease.
So if your friends are in the habit of catching up over coffee and cake, or having pizza-and-beer nights, you're likely to develop those habits too. If, on the other hand, your friends decide to meet up at a gym class, or go for a run together along the beach, it's highly likely you'll pick up these good habits.
Habits - not information, beliefs or your dietary philosophy - over time, determine your body weight and health status.
So does this mean you should dump all your overweight friends? Not at all! Our social ties are hugely important to us, and shouldn't be broken unless the relationship is directly toxic to us.
But it makes sense to cultivate social connections with people who are on the same track as you - and that may include overweight or unhealthy friends who are determined to clean up their acts!
I encourage participants in my group intensive The LEAN Program, and my monthly membership program Get LEAN, Stay LEAN, to find a 'buddy' from amongst the other participants, and stay in touch outside of the course. Why? Because hooking up with at least one other person who shares your goals, and making yourself accountable to them, skyrockets your chances of success.
An example: one of my clients, whom I'll call Rochelle, struggled for several years with opposition from her husband and extended family to the dietary habits she adopted in order to overcome her migraines. As a happy coincidence, the same diet I put her on to control her migraines also helped her lose weight and keep it off - something she'd always struggled with.
So it was a no-brainer for her to stick with her healthy lifestyle program... except that her family and friends just didn't 'get it' that if Rochelle strayed off her diet, she would be in bed with a migraine for the next couple of days! She felt like she was under siege, always having to defend her choices.
Finally, she met a woman at the gym who understood what it was like to be constantly battling your weight, and how liberating it was to finally find the answer so you didn't have to struggle anymore. They started hanging out together outside of the gym, and Rochelle felt vastly strengthened in her commitment to maintain the healthy behaviours that were working so well for her.
Action step: make a 'healthy behaviour date' with a friend who's committed to healthy living - you could go for a walk together, have a cooking day where you make wholesome recipes together and divide up the spoils to take home, or watch a documentary such as Forks Over Knives, Food Inc or Food Matters together.
Reason # 4: Your brain is hard-wired to repeat the same behaviours, over and over again.
Antidote # 4: Learn EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) to literally rewire your brain and reprogram your behaviour.
I'll never forget working with Amy at an introductory talk I gave on EFT. Amy had what I can only describe as a pathological aversion to eating salad, owing to some traumatic childhood experiences involving, among other things, fungusy-smelling raw mushrooms and mushy alfalfa sprouts!I used EFT to work on these childhood memories for about 20 minutes. A few days later, Amy wrote me:
I use EFT extensively with my clients (and myself!) to root out old, bad habits and replace them with new, health-supporting habits. Why rely on that extremely unreliable ally, willpower, when you can get your entire mind - the conscious and the unconscious parts - on your side instead?
Reason # 5: You have limiting beliefs that hold you back from being all you can be.
Antidote #5: EFT works brilliantly for overcoming these beliefs, too!
You may not realise it, but you are almost certainly holding many unconscious beliefs such as "I don't deserve to have what I want - including a healthy body," "Losing weight will make me feel unsafe," and "There's no point making the effort to get healthy because I'll only fall back into old ways after a while."I spend a LOT of time with my clients ferreting out their self-defeating beliefs and then tapping them to kingdom come, with EFT. The breakthroughs that flow from this are truly amazing.
Why it’s so damn hard to live healthfully – and how to make it MUCH easier (Part 1)
Why it's so damn hard to live healthfully – and how to make it MUCH easier (Part 1)
Looking back on over 20 years of clinical practice as a naturopath and 17 as a counsellor, there's one fact that really jumps out at me: CHANGE IS HARD!!!!!!Even when my clients and program participants know they need to change – they understand how their habits of eating, exercising (or not), thinking, feeling and relating to others are causing most or all of their health and personal problems; they see the sense in the changes I recommend they make in order to be healthy and happy; they're intellectually committed to making those changes – even after all of that, the vast majority of people still find it enormously difficult to change their behaviour.
The primary reason I undertook training as a counsellor, after 4 years at naturopathic college and 2 years in practice, was to try to understand why people find it so hard to change, and what I could do to help them.
It took more than a 2-year Graduate Diploma of Counselling to figure that one out, but I think I've got it covered now. So here are my top 5 reasons why living healthfully is so damn hard, and what you can do to turn that around.
Reason # 1: Our society is deeply sick, and those who are supposed to keep us well are sick themselves.
Does that sound extreme? Look around you. Every time I go to the supermarket, I see morbidly obese people pushing shopping trolleys full of processed food up to the check-out. Then I watch them painfully hobble into the pharmacy to get their prescriptions filled – prescriptions for diabetes pills, high blood pressure pills, cholesterol-lowering pills, erectile dysfunction pills, anti-depressant pills and every other pill under the sun – most or all of which would be become completely unnecessary if they changed what they ate.
It's a macabre merry-go-round: eat the food that makes you sick; go to the doctor whose prescription essentially acts as a permission slip to continue your unhealthy behaviour; keep eating the food that makes you sick; get even sicker and return to the doctor…
To the food and pharmaceutical industries (which are disturbingly closely intertwined), these unfortunate people are simply profit-centres, to be exploited all through their lives until there's no more profit to be wrung from them.
And who prescribed those pills? Doctors, who themselves are very likely to be overweight and unhealthy – in a survey of Australian GPs, 44% reported suffering from chronic health problems while another survey found that 55% are inactive, compared to 38% of the general population.
Having received the most minimal education in nutrition and self-care while at medical school, doctors simply don't know how to take care of their own health. No wonder less than 50% of people surveyed rated their GP's recommendations about healthy eating and physical activity as useful.
But doctors aren't the only unhealthy role models. When I go to seminars pitched at naturopaths, I'm always struck by how many overweight, unhealthy-looking practitioners I see there. Often even the speakers are overweight.
My husband is floored by how many of the personal trainers at the YMCA where he works out, are, not to put too fine a point on it, fat. Talk about the blind leading the blind!
Reason # 2: We are constantly bombarded by messages that unhealthy foods are much more fun than healthy ones, and that eating them will make us feel better about ourselves.
What do you see when you turn on your TV, leaf through a magazine, or drive down the highway? A constant barrage of ads for junk food that subliminally persuade you that consuming this particular food or beverage will solve all our problems and make you happy.In the spirit of Crazy People, the 1990 comedy in which Dudley Moore plays a disenchanted ad executive who is committed to a psychiatric hospital for designing a series of 'truth in advertising' slogans such as the deeply memorable "Jaguar — For men who'd like hand-jobs from beautiful women they hardly know" and "Volvo — they're boxy but they're good", I'd like to offer you a few translations of the 'real' messages hidden in junk food ads:
"Ferrero Rocher: It's a pretty half-arsed substitute for actually feeling loved by another human being, but at least you can buy it anywhere."
"Coke – it's the drink for socially awkward people who are desperate and deluded enough to think that consuming an overpriced beverage will help them look cool and make friends."
"Magnum: Haven't had really good sex for a really long time? Eat our ice creams and you'll forget about that for a little while. (Eat enough of them for long enough and you'll probably never have really good sex again.)"
The reality is, as I explain in The LEAN Program, my 6-week intensive expressly designed to help you overcome food cravings, emotional eating and food addiction, that our brain's response to constant overstimulation by the excessive amounts of sugar, salt and fat in these 'fun foods' actually results in a diminished capacity to experience pleasure.
There simply is no substitute for the healthy 'highs' our neurochemistry is set up for: physical activity (especially novel forms of it), love and connections with others, and of course, good sex :). Everything we try to do to bypass our fundamental needs for these 3 things, ends up thwarting our capacity to feel good.
Reason # 3: Trying to live healthfully feels like being a salmon swimming upstream.
One of the main concerns I hear from my clients, after I've explained what's caused their health problems and how to fix them, is "But how I am going to eat this way when my husband, my kids, my colleagues and practically everybody else in my life won't makes the change with me?"And boy, do I sympathise with them! I dropped meat from my diet when I was 15 years old, and for the next 15 years I had to contend with a barrage of bad jokes, snide remarks, opposition and criticism from my family and even many of my friends.
It did my head in. Why were they so bothered by my personal choices?
It took me years to figure it out, and the answer came to me through reading books on social psychology: Humans, because of our evolutionary history in which survival itself was contingent on belonging to a tight-knit group, are very finely attuned to the norms of our social groups. Conforming with what others are doing brings a sense of security. Non-conformity – either our own or others – makes us feel deeply uncomfortable and insecure.
Ever been on a train at peak hour, when suddenly a drunk or mentally ill person boards, and starts talking to other passengers? You understand intuitively that the social norm when on a crowded train is to stay in your own space, avoid eye contact with others, and only speak to them if you absolutely must, for example because they're sitting on your handbag strap.
Now watch everybody in the carriage squirm as the drunk lurches up to one of them and starts to chat. They all feel uncomfortable, even though they're not the ones who are flouting social norms – it's the drunk who is.
That's exactly what happens when you decide to embrace healthful living in a sick society. You make other people feel uncomfortable, and they try everything they know to make you stop your non-conformist behaviour and fit back in with 'normal' again.
Reason # 4: Your brain is hard-wired to repeat the same behaviours, over and over again.
Eric Kandel, who won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how our neurons (brain cells) store memories, found that repetition of a behaviour for just 1 hour causes the number of synaptic connections between neurons – which is the basis for long-term memory – to more than double.What this means is that if you have been waking up in the morning for the last 20 years and having a coffee and a cigarette before you do anything else, there is literally a pathway in your brain that compels you to have a coffee and a cigarette when your first wake up.
Even when you're completely committed, on an intellectual level, to waking up and going for a brisk walk instead, followed by a healthy breakfast, trying to fight against this programmed behaviour feels like arm-wrestling with Arnold Schwarzenegger!
Reason # 5: You have limiting beliefs that hold you back from being all you can be.
Many people believe that it's their fear of failure that holds them back from embracing healthful living. "What if I don't reach my weight loss target? I'll feel like a total failure." "What if I sign up for the City to Surf and I can't complete it? I'll be such a loser."Fear of failure is a barrier to making change, but in my experience, fear of success is an even bigger barrier. Fear of success? Who would be afraid to get what they want? Lots of people, actually.
So many of my clients feel unworthy of success because of beliefs they developed in early childhood. When we've been working together long enough that they know they can trust me with their darkest thoughts, they'll confess that being sick and ill is actually more comfortable for them than feeling healthy, vital, empowered and strong.
They've lived with their self-limiting beliefs – 'I'm not good enough', 'My needs aren't as important as other people's', 'I don't deserve to have what I really want' – for so long that breaking free of those beliefs and claiming their birthright of health and happiness feels incredibly daunting.
So there they are, my top 5 reasons why embracing healthy living is so difficult. I've spent the last 20 years figuring out ways to overcome each of them, first road-testing them in my own life, and then honing them with my clients.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Bollywood’s Biggest Star Goes Vegan and Makes Billions of People Reexamine Their Diet
India is an enormous country, we’re talking 1.25 billion people enormous, so when one of their biggest stars decides to adopt a plant-based diet, it’s going to get some attention.
Which is exactly what happened when Bollywood star Aamir Khan announced that he was taking his diet to the next level and going vegan. Inspired to make the shift for health reasons after his wife, Kiran Rao, showed him a video of common ailments that can be avoided by dietary changes, Khan, who wasn’t even vegetarian, went cold Tofurky and dropped animal products all in one go.
Which is exactly what happened when Bollywood star Aamir Khan announced that he was taking his diet to the next level and going vegan. Inspired to make the shift for health reasons after his wife, Kiran Rao, showed him a video of common ailments that can be avoided by dietary changes, Khan, who wasn’t even vegetarian, went cold Tofurky and dropped animal products all in one go.
His decision has been met with surprise in
the media, with many articles expressing wonder at the fact that being
vegan means actually, you know, being vegan.
Once a serious meat eater, the press can’t believe that along with
eschewing meat Khan is also removing dairy products such as ghee and
paneer. While he has admitted that he misses yogurt, he feels that vegans have the upper hand on health over those who include animal products on their plates.
The media has also expressed concern that
Khan’s choice to go plant-based will guide his son toward the diet,
even though he has stated that it is ultimately up to his son to decide
what he eats. This has also led some to question whether or not Khan was
going to try and coerce his fans to adopt it as well!
While no plans have been announced for Khan
to embed subliminal messages into his films or compel moviegoers to
look deeply into his eyes as he hypnotizes them into choosing veganism yet, it appears that his immediate plans are just to try and be healthy and not fill his body with animal products.
Repeat after me…I love kale…I love kale
That’s not to say the response has been all
shock and trepidation. His choice has garnered a positive response as
well, with producers of Master Chef 4 approaching him
to judge the finale of their all vegetarian season this year. Positive,
negative or in-between, Khan’s dietary decisions have opened a dialogue
in the country about plant-based diets and what they mean. Any way you
dice that, the exposure is a great thing.
For someone as high profile as Khan to make
the transition to plant-based eating, it’s inevitable that a lot of
attention will be paid to his choice. Celebrities change up their diets
all the time, sometimes sticking with the choice for the long haul and sometimes not so much
(though, considering that Aamir Khan has the nickname of “Mr.
Perfectionist,” we have high hopes). There is one certainty, however,
and it’s that veganism gets lots of exposure when a high profile
individual adopts it.
Whether or not you consider yourself a
celebophile, it’s always a good thing when a person who people look upon
favorably chooses a vegan diet. People naturally like to emulate those
who they admire, and with the type of following that many celebrities
have, that influence can be a positive thing – if the person in
question is making “good” choices. Plant-based diets have been
recommended by health professionals for their benefit to human health as well as by the UN
for its low environmental impact. If seeing a guy that you dug in “Dil
Chahta Hai” is what inspires you to give it a try, that’s awesome.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Plant-based Dietary Intervention in the Corporate Setting Improves Productivity
Research published in the March/April issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion
finds that a low-fat, plant-based dietary intervention in the corporate
setting improves productivity and alleviates symptoms of anxiety and
depression.
The 18-week study took place in 10 corporate sites of a major U.S. insurance company and included 292 employees, all with a BMI of at least 25 kg/m2 and/or a previous diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Participants were assigned to either a control or a dietary intervention group, which featured weekly instruction in how to follow a low-fat, high-fiber vegan diet.
Participants in the vegan group experienced significantly less work and nonwork related impairment because of health, with significantly reduced feelings of depression, anxiety, and fatigue. The vegan intervention group also reported significant gains in emotional well-being and in daily functioning because of physical health and general health, compared to the control group.
Previous research shows a plant-based diet can improve overall mood even outside the workplace simply by adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet.
Agarwal U, Mishra S, Xu J, Levin S, Gonzales J, Barnard ND. A multicenter randomized controlled trial of a nutrition intervention program in a multiethnic adult population in the corporate setting reduces anxiety and improves quality of life: The GEICO Study. Am J Health Promot. 2015; 4:245-254.
White BA, Horwath CC, Conner TS. Many apples a day keep the blues away – daily experiences of negative and positive affect and food consumption in young adults. Br J Health Psychol. Published ahead of print January 24, 2013.
The 18-week study took place in 10 corporate sites of a major U.S. insurance company and included 292 employees, all with a BMI of at least 25 kg/m2 and/or a previous diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Participants were assigned to either a control or a dietary intervention group, which featured weekly instruction in how to follow a low-fat, high-fiber vegan diet.
Participants in the vegan group experienced significantly less work and nonwork related impairment because of health, with significantly reduced feelings of depression, anxiety, and fatigue. The vegan intervention group also reported significant gains in emotional well-being and in daily functioning because of physical health and general health, compared to the control group.
Previous research shows a plant-based diet can improve overall mood even outside the workplace simply by adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet.
Agarwal U, Mishra S, Xu J, Levin S, Gonzales J, Barnard ND. A multicenter randomized controlled trial of a nutrition intervention program in a multiethnic adult population in the corporate setting reduces anxiety and improves quality of life: The GEICO Study. Am J Health Promot. 2015; 4:245-254.
White BA, Horwath CC, Conner TS. Many apples a day keep the blues away – daily experiences of negative and positive affect and food consumption in young adults. Br J Health Psychol. Published ahead of print January 24, 2013.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Why the man who brought us the glycemic index wants us to go vegan
In 1981, a plain-speaking, unassuming scientist at the University of Toronto published with his colleagues a meticulous list that ranked foods according to the effect they had on blood sugar. The goal was to better understand the role of carbohydrates in managing diabetes. But the effect was more far-reaching than perhaps he ever would have imagined.
Dr. David Jenkins’s glycemic index revolutionised the diet industry. His isn’t a household name, but the diets his research inspired certainly are: Atkins, The Zone, South Beach, Sugar Busters and the G.I. Diet, to name a few. Along with laying the scientific groundwork for wildly popular lower-carb diets, Jenkins’s work on international committees has influenced dietary guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and national diabetes associations around the world. His research demonstrated the statin-like cholesterol-lowering power of what he coined the “Portfolio Diet” and he helped create the President’s Choice Blue Menu line of healthier food products in the hopes of reaching even more consumers.
It’s fair to say Jenkins has had a profound influence on how and what we eat. And now he wants us to radically rethink our diets once again.
This time, though, he may meet a little more resistance: If it were up to Jenkins, he would have us all give up meat, fish and dairy and embrace veganism. And not just for our individual health.
Earlier this year, Jenkins – a Canada Research Chair in nutrition, metabolism and vascular biology, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences, faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto, and scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital – became the first Canadian recipient of the Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health. In a celebratory public conversation about his research, he shared with the crowd that he follows a vegan diet.
A properly planned plant-based diet – one that avoids all animal products, including meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy – is incredibly good for your health.
Studies have shown plant-based eaters are thinner and have lower cholesterol and blood-pressure levels, a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and lower cancer rates – especially colorectal cancer.
Foods such as beans and lentils, nuts, whole grains, fruits and vegetables offer a wealth of nutrients, fibre and phytochemicals that have favourable health effects. And vegan diets are usually higher in fibre, magnesium, folate, vitamins C and E, iron and phytochemicals, while tending to be lower in calories, saturated fat and cholesterol.
But the individual health benefits are just the beginning. Though he’s well aware of the nutritional advantages, it was environmental and humanitarian concerns that pushed Jenkins to drop meat, eggs, fish and dairy from his diet.
FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
“Human health must be linked to planetary health, and how we feed ourselves has a major impact on the planet,” says Jenkins, now 72. It’s the positive impact of plant-based eating on the environment, as well as animal welfare, that appeals.
In Canada, more than 700 million animals – 20 times more than our human population – are killed each year for food, a large majority in intensive livestock organisations, or factory farms. The production of large volumes of meat, poultry, eggs and milk – as quickly and as cheaply as possible – is done at a major cost to the environment.
Intensive animal agriculture is one of the leading sources of greenhouse-gas emissions and uses more water than any other human activity. (In Canada it’s the single largest consumer of water, according to the 2012 report from the World Society for the Protection of Animals.) Concentrated livestock operations can be major water polluters. Factory farms, as a whole, generate far more manure than can be properly disposed of. Nitrates, phosphates, bacteria and viruses present in manure can seep into groundwater and pollute surface water, killing marine life and threatening public health.
According to Tony Weis, associate professor in the department of geography at the University of Western Ontario and author of The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock, increasing livestock production is a major force in the loss of biodiversity (the number of different species within an ecosystem), the pollution of waterways and climate change.
Within the past 50 years, increased affluence, urbanisation and population growth have increased worldwide demand for meat. Our appetite is voracious: It’s predicted that by 2050, meat production will nearly double from what it is today.
“This enormous shift [in per capita meat consumption], what I have called the ‘meatification’ of diets, greatly expands the land, water and resources needed for agriculture and the ensuing pollution burden,” Weis says.
When it comes to advocating for a shift to a vegan diet, Jenkins is hardly alone. In its 2010 Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production report, the United Nations urged a global move to a meat– and dairy-free diet in an effort to curb the environmental impacts of large-scale animal agriculture. And last week the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee announced it will recommend that Americans eat more plant-based foods and less meat, for better individual health and to protect the environment.
FOR ANIMAL WELFARE
Animal-welfare considerations factor in Jenkins’s commitment to veganism, too. Animals raised in intensive livestock operations are crammed together in pens, small cages or on feedlots, with minimal or no access to sunlight, fresh air, open pastures or exercise. Many of us are unaware of the industrial methods – from farm to slaughterhouse – that put steak, chicken, pork, eggs and milk on our table.
The 2008 report of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (a project with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) notes that animals raised for human consumption endure stress and pain at some point in their lives even in the best of conditions, and much more in intensive confinement facilities.
“Our children and future generations will be horrified that collectively we paid no attention to these issues,” Jenkins contends.
That someone such as Jenkins is advocating for a shift to a plant-based diet is significant: Shortly after receiving the Bloomberg Manulife Prize, he was invested into the Order of Canada for his contributions as a nutrition scientist committed to helping Canadians make informed food choices.
For years, we’ve been making dietary decisions based on the calories, fat, fibre or vitamins and minerals foods contain. But, with mounting concerns over freshwater supply, loss of biodiversity and climate change, it’s time to make the shift away from animal foods and toward a plant-based diet.
As Jenkins says, “It’s easier to follow a healthy diet if you have more reasons to do so.”
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Carnism
The following piece is the acceptance speech given by Dr. Melanie Joy on October 9, 2013 at the House of Commons in London, where she was presented with the Institute of Jainology’s prestigious Ahimsa Award for her international work on nonviolence. Dr. Joy is the eighth recipient of the award. Former recipients include the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.
I want to first thank the Institute of Jainology for honoring me, and the cause for which I work, with this award. And I would also like to thank them for their efforts to help create a world in which one day ahimsa will no longer be worthy of such recognition, because nonviolence will simply be the norm.
This award is a step in that direction. For it is often those with the greatest vulnerability to violence who are the most exploited and the least protected, and whose victimization remains invisible. Recognizing my efforts to illuminate the violence inherent in animal agriculture, and the violence in the consciousness that enables this practice, is a powerful statement legitimizing farmed animals as vulnerable others, as victims who are therefore deserving of protection from harm.
I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful to be receiving the Ahimsa Award, but this award does not belong to me alone. The platform on which I stand has been constructed by the tireless animal advocates and activists, the unsung heroes, whose courage and commitment to speak the truth in the face of overwhelming social denial – to demand compassion and justice for all beings – is perhaps the greatest example of ahimsa I know. And in particular I stand here because of the efforts of my team at Carnism Awareness and Action Network, all volunteers whose dedication frankly humbles me. So I accept this award on behalf of those whose work has made mine possible. And I accept this award on behalf of the pigs and chickens and cows and fish and sheep and rabbits and ducks and everyone else who has been or will be an invisible victim of agricultural violence.
Thank you.
And now I’d like to share with you how I came to be here today, the story of how my search for truth and my discovery of love helped teach me the meaning of ahimsa.
*******
From the moment I was weaned, I was taught to both seek and deny the truth. I was taught to apply the Golden Rule – to consider how I would feel were I on the receiving end of my actions – but also to systematically violate others. I was taught to keep an open mind and a caring heart, but also to block my awareness and shut down my empathy. I was taught to practice compassion, but to participate in cruelty. I was taught to love, and I was taught to kill.
And so I learned to be a psychological acrobat, walking the tightrope between denial and truth, juggling facts and fictions in an elaborate – and deadly – act I didn’t even know I was performing. And it was my journey across that precarious mental highwire that led me to where I stand today.
My first memory of what I would later realize was my acrobatic training was from when I was just two years old, and we adopted a puppy who my parents named Fritz. Fritz became my first friend, my best friend. And Fritz and I were inseparable; he would bound by my side across the open expanse of the local golf course, under an impossibly vast, cloud-swept sky; he lay contently at my feet as I chronicled my adventures in my private journal, nestled in our secret fort in the woods; he good-naturedly pulled me across the little frozen pond between the trees that I had declared my personal skating rink; he aided and abetted me when I smuggled my unwanted dinner from my mouth to my napkin and then to him, at his station under the table, my partner in crime.
And Fritz and I understood each other. When he stepped on a shard of glass and sliced his paw, I cringed in pain. When he caught wind of his Christmas bone and wagged his tail so hard it pulled his backside along with it, my heart swelled with joy. When I lay feverish and aching he held vigil by my bedside. And when he died, at the age of 13 of cancer, I wept with grief for the loss of my brother.
I am the person I am today in part because of my relationship – my connection – to the dog with whom I grew up. Indeed, the relationships we form with others, human and nonhuman, shape our hearts and minds in profound and powerful ways, for better or worse. They wound us and they heal us. They teach us how to be givers, takers, leaders, users, performers, abusers, nurturers. My connection with Fritz helped teach me how to love.
My connection with Fritz taught me to identify with others. When we identify with another, we see something of ourselves in them, and something of them in ourselves, even if the only thing we identify with is the desire not to suffer. My connection with Fritz taught me to empathize with others. When we empathize with another, we look at the world thorough the their eyes, so when we make choices that impact them we ask ourselves, what would he or she ask us to do? Indeed, empathy is central to our psychological wellbeing, and to the wellbeing of our planet. It is the antidote to all forms of violence – from judgment to hatred, from domestic abuse to genocide – as it is the seed from which compassion blooms.
My connection with my dog taught me to be a compassionate witness, to look deeply into the truth of another’s experience, and into the truth of my own experience – even when the truth broke my heart. After Fritz was diagnosed with cancer and his dash to greet me after school was replaced by a hobble, his once overactive tail swaying limply and his once bright eyes clouded in pain, I still wanted nothing more than to keep him alive, even if just for another week. But I loved him. And my relationship with him had helped teach me that to love someone is to truly see them, and that loving another means making choices that are in their best interest. Love and denial cannot coexist.
And so my relationship with Fritz taught me to honor the truth.
But my relationship with Fritz also taught me to deny the truth. It taught me how to play my role in the circus of the absurd, teetering atop that perilous tightrope.
Somehow, throughout all those magical childhood years – years of wonder and adventure and best friendship, of sprinting across panoramic meadows, plunging in towering snow banks, burrowing in fragile, sweet-smelling leaf piles – somehow despite the powerful connection I shared with my dog, there was a deep disconnection within me. Beside my awareness and empathy there resided a numbness of mind and heart. Truth and denial lay side by side, uneasy bedfellows.
Indeed, for the first half of my life, I never thought about how bizarre it was that I could pet my dog with one hand, while I ate a pork chop with the other, a pork chop that had once been an animal who was at least as intelligent and sensitive and conscious as my dog and who – like all of us – had a life that mattered to her. The internal disconnection that caused me to unwittingly support extensive – and completely unnecessary – animal suffering was as powerful as the connection that caused me to love my dog enough to break my own heart to end his suffering. But I simply juggled these contradictions like the acrobat that I was, sleepwalking along the fine line of truth and denial.
*******
It wasn’t until a decade after the death of my beloved dog that I woke up. I first awoke to find myself hospitalized, after having eaten what turned out to be my very last piece of meat – a hamburger that had been contaminated with the foodborne bacteria, campylobacter. And then I awoke to the truth. I awoke to the truth about what is perhaps the most entrenched and brutal industry in human history, an industry that permeates virtually every aspect of human and nonhuman existence and whose very survival depends on denial.
The truth is that nonhuman animals are intelligent, sentient beings. Pigs, for instance, are as intelligent as three-year-old humans; and scientists have demonstrated that fish and certain crustaceans have pain receptors, such that some food manufacturers no longer sell live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that boiling them alive is inhumane.
The truth is that approximately 95% of the meat, eggs, and dairy that make it to our plates comes from animals who lived and died in abject misery. (And the other 5%, from so-called organic or humane farms is, I assure you, far from cruelty-free.) For instance, baby animals are routinely castrated and have their horns and beaks cut off without any painkiller whatsoever. They are born and raised in crowded, filthy, dark environments where their existence is one of torment and terror. The females may be hooked up to so-called rape racks, where they are forcibly impregnated, over and over, only to have their offspring taken from them just hours after birth. (There are few sounds as haunting as the wailing of a cow on a dairy farm, as her baby is carried off.). And when it comes time for slaughter, these beings are shackled by their ankles, dragged along a conveyor belt, sliced open, and plunged into boiling water, often while fully conscious.
The truth is that, according to the United Nations, animal agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems facing the world today. Consider, for instance, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions caused by so-called livestock exceed that caused by all cars, trucks, ships, buses, and airplanes combined.
The truth is that there is overwhelming evidence linking the consumption of animal products with some of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases in the western world, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
The truth is that those on the front lines of killing – the meatpackers and slaughterhouse workers – are economically and physically exploited and are often traumatized by an industry whose business is violence. Human Rights Watch states that the working conditions of these individuals are so appalling they violate basic human rights; and not surprisingly, such violence begets violence. For instance, one worker stated (and I apologize in advance for the brief profanity):
“One time I took my knife…and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into its nose. Now that hog really went nuts, brushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left…and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass. The poor hog didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”1
The truth is that, globally, 124,000 farmed animals are slaughtered…not every day, or even every hour….but every, single, minute. And so I would like to take a moment of silence, to honor the victims on whose behalf I stand here today, and to commemorate the 124,000 of them who will be killed during the next sixty seconds.
(Sixty seconds of silence)
Thank you.
And the truth was that an entire society of rational, caring people – just like myself – had somehow checked their hearts and minds at the door to enable a global atrocity that has caused more bloodshed than all wars, genocides, famines, and natural disasters combined, in what could only be called a collective madness.
We tearfully bury the bodies of deceased dogs, yet we contentedly consume the bodies of dead pigs. We stop in our tracks to return a fallen bird to her nest, while our chicken nuggets await us back home. We laugh beside our children as they reach toward the calf in the petting zoo, though we feed them the very milk that was taken from this baby, milk that was taken along with his mother. We would call it abuse if a happy, healthy golden retriever were slaughtered just because people liked the way her thighs taste, and yet, when the very same thing is done to individuals of other species we call it humane. We don snorkels and masks and fins to stare in awe at the sundry creatures of the sea, balm to our busy minds, yet we may also soothe ourselves by tricking these same beings into impaling themselves to death on the ends of our sharpened hooks. And the methods of mass destruction….How many times had I heedlessly driven past the squat, elongated factories – windowless sheds in remote locations in which hundreds of thousands of individuals were caged and confined, castrated and cauterized and cut open – factories that bore a haunting resemblance to other architectures of the darker chapters of our history? And how many times had I cheerfully hummed to my radio as truckloads of terrified animals passed me on their way to slaughter, the whites of their eyes flashing from behind dark little slats?
Something was horribly wrong.
How on earth had such a glaring truth been so fully eclipsed by denial?
*******
It was after awakening but before understanding that I was compelled to seek what I would discover was an even deeper truth. And so, to make sense out of the atrocities and absurdities and acrobatics I could no longer un-see, I immersed myself in the study of violence and nonviolence, ultimately writing my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of eating animals.
And what I discovered made everything suddenly clear. There was in fact a rational explanation for the pandemic insanity that had laid claim to an otherwise sound populace.
What I discovered was that there is an invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals. This belief system is woven through the very fabric of society to shape all social institutions and it is therefore internalized, shaping the very way we think and feel – or, more accurately, don’t think and feel – about eating animals. It is a system of oppression that requires us to act against our core values, our own interests, and the interests of others. The system must therefore use a set of social and psychological defense mechanisms so that rational, humane people participate in irrational, inhumane practices without fully realizing what they are doing. And the core of the system is denial.
Carnism, the name I gave to this system of denial, is constructed around an elaborate narrative that presents fiction as fact and distorts our perceptions so that we fail to see the contradictions that are right in front of us. Carnism is the ringmaster that keeps us ungrounded.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is based on a mythology, on what I call the Three Ns of Justification – eating animals is normal, natural, and necessary – a mythology that has been used to justify violent practices throughout human history, from slavery to male dominance.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that in much of the world today, many of us eat animals not because we need to, but because we choose to. And ironically, carnism robs of us of our ability to make such crucial choices freely – because without awareness, there is no free choice.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that animals are individuals, with their own personalities and preferences, and to instead to see them as abstract members of a group: a pig is a pig and all pigs are the same. And as with other victims of violent ideologies, we give them numbers rather than names.
And carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is not merely a matter of personal ethics, but rather it is the inevitable end result of a deeply entrenched oppressive system. So we fail to see that eating animals is in fact a social justice issue.
*******
So there it was. Nearly two decades after the death of my cherished canine companion, I had finally come to understand the very strange – and very dire – nature of the circus act I had been performing. And I knew that if I didn’t share what I had learned I would be colluding in carnistic denial rather than speaking my truth.
So I wrote a book based on my research – entitled “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism” – which sold tens of thousands of copies and whose content has been translated and disseminated around the world, and which eventually formed the basis of my organization, Carnism Awareness and Action Network, now a hub of global carnism awareness activity. I have witnessed the spread of carnism awareness across nearly every continent, as more and more individuals are adopting the cause as their own and as I continue on what is now the third year of my international speaking tour.
And along this most recent phase of my journey, as I travel the world meeting thousands of people from an array of backgrounds, whose lifestyles fall all along the carnistic continuum, I have learned what is perhaps the deepest of truths. Yet unlike the tragic truth about animal agriculture, or the unnerving truth about carnism, this truth is inspiring, for it is the very reason the other truths must remain shrouded within the protective cloak of denial.
The truth is that we care. We care about animals, we care about justice, and we care about the truth. And carnism depends on our not caring, and the system is built on deception. Carnism is a vulnerable system that needs a strong fortress to protect itself from its very own proponents – us. Why else would we need to go through all the psychological acrobatics if not because we care?
The truth is that there is a way off the tightrope. Awareness sweeps out the fictions that clutter our inner worlds, creating space for truth to emerge. We can thus reclaim our authentic thoughts and feelings, and with them, our freedom of choice. With awareness we can choose to be conscientious objectors to the violent system that is carnism, and we can choose to become active witnesses in the transformation of this system.
The truth is that more and more people are waking up. The vegan movement, which is the counterpoint to carnism, is in fact thriving; it is burgeoning in cultures around the world. And the movement is growing precisely because its principles are our principles, its mission is what we all wish for. Veganism is centered on justice, and compassion, and above all it demands an end to the carnistic game of Let’s Pretend.
Veganism, of course, is not the solution to global violence and injustice, but no true solution will be possible without it. For when it comes to systems of oppression, although they can never be equated, as the experiences of each set of victims will always be somewhat unique, they can and must be compared. Because all oppressive systems are structurally similar – the consciousness that enables such oppressions is the same. It is the mentality of domination and subjugation, the mentality that causes us to turn beings into things, lives into units of production. It is the might-makes-right mentality that makes us feel entitled to wield complete control over the lives and deaths of those with less power, just because we can. And to feel justified in our actions because they’re only: savages, women, animals. It is the mentality of meat, the carnistic consciousness.
And so the truth is that, as a powerful man – Hitler – once sad, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”2
But the truth is also that, as a more powerful man – Gandhi – once said, “all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.3
So it was the love of a dog that taught me the true meaning of ahimsa. My relationship with Fritz taught me that love is not merely a feeling, but a practice, a practice that – like all practices – reflects our state of consciousness. It taught me that love should not be limited by arbitrary boundaries such as species; indeed, whenever we place limits on our compassion, we diminish ourselves and damage our world. And so it was the love of a dog that led me to my life’s work, to transform the violent system that is carnism. For transforming carnism is not simply about changing behavior, but about shifting consciousness. It is about shifting from ignorance to awareness, from apathy to empathy, from callousness to compassion, from denial to truth – and from violence, to ahimsa.
Thank you.
1 Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the US Meat Industry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 102-104.
2 I recognize that there is some debate around the attribution of this statement, and that the issue is as of yet unresolved.
3 Ibid.
I want to first thank the Institute of Jainology for honoring me, and the cause for which I work, with this award. And I would also like to thank them for their efforts to help create a world in which one day ahimsa will no longer be worthy of such recognition, because nonviolence will simply be the norm.
This award is a step in that direction. For it is often those with the greatest vulnerability to violence who are the most exploited and the least protected, and whose victimization remains invisible. Recognizing my efforts to illuminate the violence inherent in animal agriculture, and the violence in the consciousness that enables this practice, is a powerful statement legitimizing farmed animals as vulnerable others, as victims who are therefore deserving of protection from harm.
I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful to be receiving the Ahimsa Award, but this award does not belong to me alone. The platform on which I stand has been constructed by the tireless animal advocates and activists, the unsung heroes, whose courage and commitment to speak the truth in the face of overwhelming social denial – to demand compassion and justice for all beings – is perhaps the greatest example of ahimsa I know. And in particular I stand here because of the efforts of my team at Carnism Awareness and Action Network, all volunteers whose dedication frankly humbles me. So I accept this award on behalf of those whose work has made mine possible. And I accept this award on behalf of the pigs and chickens and cows and fish and sheep and rabbits and ducks and everyone else who has been or will be an invisible victim of agricultural violence.
Thank you.
And now I’d like to share with you how I came to be here today, the story of how my search for truth and my discovery of love helped teach me the meaning of ahimsa.
*******
From the moment I was weaned, I was taught to both seek and deny the truth. I was taught to apply the Golden Rule – to consider how I would feel were I on the receiving end of my actions – but also to systematically violate others. I was taught to keep an open mind and a caring heart, but also to block my awareness and shut down my empathy. I was taught to practice compassion, but to participate in cruelty. I was taught to love, and I was taught to kill.
And so I learned to be a psychological acrobat, walking the tightrope between denial and truth, juggling facts and fictions in an elaborate – and deadly – act I didn’t even know I was performing. And it was my journey across that precarious mental highwire that led me to where I stand today.
My first memory of what I would later realize was my acrobatic training was from when I was just two years old, and we adopted a puppy who my parents named Fritz. Fritz became my first friend, my best friend. And Fritz and I were inseparable; he would bound by my side across the open expanse of the local golf course, under an impossibly vast, cloud-swept sky; he lay contently at my feet as I chronicled my adventures in my private journal, nestled in our secret fort in the woods; he good-naturedly pulled me across the little frozen pond between the trees that I had declared my personal skating rink; he aided and abetted me when I smuggled my unwanted dinner from my mouth to my napkin and then to him, at his station under the table, my partner in crime.
And Fritz and I understood each other. When he stepped on a shard of glass and sliced his paw, I cringed in pain. When he caught wind of his Christmas bone and wagged his tail so hard it pulled his backside along with it, my heart swelled with joy. When I lay feverish and aching he held vigil by my bedside. And when he died, at the age of 13 of cancer, I wept with grief for the loss of my brother.
I am the person I am today in part because of my relationship – my connection – to the dog with whom I grew up. Indeed, the relationships we form with others, human and nonhuman, shape our hearts and minds in profound and powerful ways, for better or worse. They wound us and they heal us. They teach us how to be givers, takers, leaders, users, performers, abusers, nurturers. My connection with Fritz helped teach me how to love.
My connection with Fritz taught me to identify with others. When we identify with another, we see something of ourselves in them, and something of them in ourselves, even if the only thing we identify with is the desire not to suffer. My connection with Fritz taught me to empathize with others. When we empathize with another, we look at the world thorough the their eyes, so when we make choices that impact them we ask ourselves, what would he or she ask us to do? Indeed, empathy is central to our psychological wellbeing, and to the wellbeing of our planet. It is the antidote to all forms of violence – from judgment to hatred, from domestic abuse to genocide – as it is the seed from which compassion blooms.
My connection with my dog taught me to be a compassionate witness, to look deeply into the truth of another’s experience, and into the truth of my own experience – even when the truth broke my heart. After Fritz was diagnosed with cancer and his dash to greet me after school was replaced by a hobble, his once overactive tail swaying limply and his once bright eyes clouded in pain, I still wanted nothing more than to keep him alive, even if just for another week. But I loved him. And my relationship with him had helped teach me that to love someone is to truly see them, and that loving another means making choices that are in their best interest. Love and denial cannot coexist.
And so my relationship with Fritz taught me to honor the truth.
But my relationship with Fritz also taught me to deny the truth. It taught me how to play my role in the circus of the absurd, teetering atop that perilous tightrope.
Somehow, throughout all those magical childhood years – years of wonder and adventure and best friendship, of sprinting across panoramic meadows, plunging in towering snow banks, burrowing in fragile, sweet-smelling leaf piles – somehow despite the powerful connection I shared with my dog, there was a deep disconnection within me. Beside my awareness and empathy there resided a numbness of mind and heart. Truth and denial lay side by side, uneasy bedfellows.
Indeed, for the first half of my life, I never thought about how bizarre it was that I could pet my dog with one hand, while I ate a pork chop with the other, a pork chop that had once been an animal who was at least as intelligent and sensitive and conscious as my dog and who – like all of us – had a life that mattered to her. The internal disconnection that caused me to unwittingly support extensive – and completely unnecessary – animal suffering was as powerful as the connection that caused me to love my dog enough to break my own heart to end his suffering. But I simply juggled these contradictions like the acrobat that I was, sleepwalking along the fine line of truth and denial.
*******
It wasn’t until a decade after the death of my beloved dog that I woke up. I first awoke to find myself hospitalized, after having eaten what turned out to be my very last piece of meat – a hamburger that had been contaminated with the foodborne bacteria, campylobacter. And then I awoke to the truth. I awoke to the truth about what is perhaps the most entrenched and brutal industry in human history, an industry that permeates virtually every aspect of human and nonhuman existence and whose very survival depends on denial.
The truth is that nonhuman animals are intelligent, sentient beings. Pigs, for instance, are as intelligent as three-year-old humans; and scientists have demonstrated that fish and certain crustaceans have pain receptors, such that some food manufacturers no longer sell live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that boiling them alive is inhumane.
The truth is that approximately 95% of the meat, eggs, and dairy that make it to our plates comes from animals who lived and died in abject misery. (And the other 5%, from so-called organic or humane farms is, I assure you, far from cruelty-free.) For instance, baby animals are routinely castrated and have their horns and beaks cut off without any painkiller whatsoever. They are born and raised in crowded, filthy, dark environments where their existence is one of torment and terror. The females may be hooked up to so-called rape racks, where they are forcibly impregnated, over and over, only to have their offspring taken from them just hours after birth. (There are few sounds as haunting as the wailing of a cow on a dairy farm, as her baby is carried off.). And when it comes time for slaughter, these beings are shackled by their ankles, dragged along a conveyor belt, sliced open, and plunged into boiling water, often while fully conscious.
The truth is that, according to the United Nations, animal agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems facing the world today. Consider, for instance, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions caused by so-called livestock exceed that caused by all cars, trucks, ships, buses, and airplanes combined.
The truth is that there is overwhelming evidence linking the consumption of animal products with some of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases in the western world, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
The truth is that those on the front lines of killing – the meatpackers and slaughterhouse workers – are economically and physically exploited and are often traumatized by an industry whose business is violence. Human Rights Watch states that the working conditions of these individuals are so appalling they violate basic human rights; and not surprisingly, such violence begets violence. For instance, one worker stated (and I apologize in advance for the brief profanity):
“One time I took my knife…and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into its nose. Now that hog really went nuts, brushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left…and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass. The poor hog didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”1
The truth is that, globally, 124,000 farmed animals are slaughtered…not every day, or even every hour….but every, single, minute. And so I would like to take a moment of silence, to honor the victims on whose behalf I stand here today, and to commemorate the 124,000 of them who will be killed during the next sixty seconds.
(Sixty seconds of silence)
Thank you.
And the truth was that an entire society of rational, caring people – just like myself – had somehow checked their hearts and minds at the door to enable a global atrocity that has caused more bloodshed than all wars, genocides, famines, and natural disasters combined, in what could only be called a collective madness.
We tearfully bury the bodies of deceased dogs, yet we contentedly consume the bodies of dead pigs. We stop in our tracks to return a fallen bird to her nest, while our chicken nuggets await us back home. We laugh beside our children as they reach toward the calf in the petting zoo, though we feed them the very milk that was taken from this baby, milk that was taken along with his mother. We would call it abuse if a happy, healthy golden retriever were slaughtered just because people liked the way her thighs taste, and yet, when the very same thing is done to individuals of other species we call it humane. We don snorkels and masks and fins to stare in awe at the sundry creatures of the sea, balm to our busy minds, yet we may also soothe ourselves by tricking these same beings into impaling themselves to death on the ends of our sharpened hooks. And the methods of mass destruction….How many times had I heedlessly driven past the squat, elongated factories – windowless sheds in remote locations in which hundreds of thousands of individuals were caged and confined, castrated and cauterized and cut open – factories that bore a haunting resemblance to other architectures of the darker chapters of our history? And how many times had I cheerfully hummed to my radio as truckloads of terrified animals passed me on their way to slaughter, the whites of their eyes flashing from behind dark little slats?
Something was horribly wrong.
How on earth had such a glaring truth been so fully eclipsed by denial?
*******
It was after awakening but before understanding that I was compelled to seek what I would discover was an even deeper truth. And so, to make sense out of the atrocities and absurdities and acrobatics I could no longer un-see, I immersed myself in the study of violence and nonviolence, ultimately writing my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of eating animals.
And what I discovered made everything suddenly clear. There was in fact a rational explanation for the pandemic insanity that had laid claim to an otherwise sound populace.
What I discovered was that there is an invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals. This belief system is woven through the very fabric of society to shape all social institutions and it is therefore internalized, shaping the very way we think and feel – or, more accurately, don’t think and feel – about eating animals. It is a system of oppression that requires us to act against our core values, our own interests, and the interests of others. The system must therefore use a set of social and psychological defense mechanisms so that rational, humane people participate in irrational, inhumane practices without fully realizing what they are doing. And the core of the system is denial.
Carnism, the name I gave to this system of denial, is constructed around an elaborate narrative that presents fiction as fact and distorts our perceptions so that we fail to see the contradictions that are right in front of us. Carnism is the ringmaster that keeps us ungrounded.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is based on a mythology, on what I call the Three Ns of Justification – eating animals is normal, natural, and necessary – a mythology that has been used to justify violent practices throughout human history, from slavery to male dominance.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that in much of the world today, many of us eat animals not because we need to, but because we choose to. And ironically, carnism robs of us of our ability to make such crucial choices freely – because without awareness, there is no free choice.
Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that animals are individuals, with their own personalities and preferences, and to instead to see them as abstract members of a group: a pig is a pig and all pigs are the same. And as with other victims of violent ideologies, we give them numbers rather than names.
And carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is not merely a matter of personal ethics, but rather it is the inevitable end result of a deeply entrenched oppressive system. So we fail to see that eating animals is in fact a social justice issue.
*******
So there it was. Nearly two decades after the death of my cherished canine companion, I had finally come to understand the very strange – and very dire – nature of the circus act I had been performing. And I knew that if I didn’t share what I had learned I would be colluding in carnistic denial rather than speaking my truth.
So I wrote a book based on my research – entitled “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism” – which sold tens of thousands of copies and whose content has been translated and disseminated around the world, and which eventually formed the basis of my organization, Carnism Awareness and Action Network, now a hub of global carnism awareness activity. I have witnessed the spread of carnism awareness across nearly every continent, as more and more individuals are adopting the cause as their own and as I continue on what is now the third year of my international speaking tour.
And along this most recent phase of my journey, as I travel the world meeting thousands of people from an array of backgrounds, whose lifestyles fall all along the carnistic continuum, I have learned what is perhaps the deepest of truths. Yet unlike the tragic truth about animal agriculture, or the unnerving truth about carnism, this truth is inspiring, for it is the very reason the other truths must remain shrouded within the protective cloak of denial.
The truth is that we care. We care about animals, we care about justice, and we care about the truth. And carnism depends on our not caring, and the system is built on deception. Carnism is a vulnerable system that needs a strong fortress to protect itself from its very own proponents – us. Why else would we need to go through all the psychological acrobatics if not because we care?
The truth is that there is a way off the tightrope. Awareness sweeps out the fictions that clutter our inner worlds, creating space for truth to emerge. We can thus reclaim our authentic thoughts and feelings, and with them, our freedom of choice. With awareness we can choose to be conscientious objectors to the violent system that is carnism, and we can choose to become active witnesses in the transformation of this system.
The truth is that more and more people are waking up. The vegan movement, which is the counterpoint to carnism, is in fact thriving; it is burgeoning in cultures around the world. And the movement is growing precisely because its principles are our principles, its mission is what we all wish for. Veganism is centered on justice, and compassion, and above all it demands an end to the carnistic game of Let’s Pretend.
Veganism, of course, is not the solution to global violence and injustice, but no true solution will be possible without it. For when it comes to systems of oppression, although they can never be equated, as the experiences of each set of victims will always be somewhat unique, they can and must be compared. Because all oppressive systems are structurally similar – the consciousness that enables such oppressions is the same. It is the mentality of domination and subjugation, the mentality that causes us to turn beings into things, lives into units of production. It is the might-makes-right mentality that makes us feel entitled to wield complete control over the lives and deaths of those with less power, just because we can. And to feel justified in our actions because they’re only: savages, women, animals. It is the mentality of meat, the carnistic consciousness.
And so the truth is that, as a powerful man – Hitler – once sad, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”2
But the truth is also that, as a more powerful man – Gandhi – once said, “all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.3
So it was the love of a dog that taught me the true meaning of ahimsa. My relationship with Fritz taught me that love is not merely a feeling, but a practice, a practice that – like all practices – reflects our state of consciousness. It taught me that love should not be limited by arbitrary boundaries such as species; indeed, whenever we place limits on our compassion, we diminish ourselves and damage our world. And so it was the love of a dog that led me to my life’s work, to transform the violent system that is carnism. For transforming carnism is not simply about changing behavior, but about shifting consciousness. It is about shifting from ignorance to awareness, from apathy to empathy, from callousness to compassion, from denial to truth – and from violence, to ahimsa.
Thank you.
1 Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the US Meat Industry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 102-104.
2 I recognize that there is some debate around the attribution of this statement, and that the issue is as of yet unresolved.
3 Ibid.
How do the Majority of Heart Attacks Occur?
Because heart disease is called "the silent killer," many patients aren't aware that they have cardiovascular disease until they experience chest pain or have their first heart attack. In fact, 64% of women and 50% of men who have suffered a major cardiac event had no previous symptoms. Over 30% of these (first heart attacks) are fatal, making the first symptom of heart disease the last. This is very common since clinical symptoms are not felt until the disease has progressed significantly.
Everyone who has ever eaten the typical American diet has heart disease, even when some test results are considered "normal." By the time symptoms are felt, arteries may be blocked 75% or more. Many diagnostic tools aren't an accurate means of assessing your risk for heart disease because they don't detect artery blockage until the blockage is quite significant. (The heart treadmill test is one example.) The gradual clogging, hardening, loss of endothelial function and inflammation of the interior walls of the arteries goes by unnoticed for many years until symptoms develop. This gradual clogging has been taking place since childhood. Autopsies on the arteries of children as young as 3 years of age show the beginning stages of heart disease. By age 10, nearly 100% of children have atherosclerotic plaque formations.
In the above video, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn addresses how the majority of heart attacks occur. This will really surprise you. When we hear the news of someone who has had a heart attack, we immediately think of them having narrowed blockages in the arteries of their heart. However, the majority of heart attacks do not occur in the narrowed blockages in the coronary arteries. Coronary arteries with significant blockages account for only a small percentage (approximately 10%) of heart attacks. This plaque has had time to solidify since it has taken years and decades to form. As a result, "collateral" vessels have had time to grow. These vessels branch off of the main coronary arteries, providing necessary blood flow to that particular area of the heart muscle.
The greatest percentage of heart attacks (80-90%) occur when newly formed plaques on the inside of our arteries, rupture; causing a clot to form, blocking the flow of blood. The human body contains 60,000-100,000 miles of blood vessels; all of which contain these newly formed, highly unstable, volatile plaques. You can see how many opportunities there are for one of them to rupture, causing a fatal clot. Anyone eating a diet where the majority of calories come from animal products and processed foods has these unstable plaques throughout their
Small plaques rupture - causing a clotentire
vascular system. The force of the blood pumping with each heartbeat can
easily tear the cap from these fragile plaques, causing them to rupture
and form a fatal clot. An animal-based, low-nutrient, fiber-deficient diet doesn't protect this from occuring, whereas a whole-food, nutrient-dense, plant-based diet does. This short animated video clip gives us a glimpse of what it looks like from the inside of a blood vessel as the rupture occurs.When plaque begins to develop on the inside walls of the blood vessels, the walls are pushed outward. This maintains the lumen (inner open space) and normal blood flow. Because these plaques don't obstruct the inner opening, they are not visible and cannot be detected using diagnostic tools such as angiography or stress tests. Dr. Joel Fuhrman says that these plaques are the most vulnerable and very lethal. Dr. John McDougall adds that the reason why surgeons operate on the larger heart vessels is because "they can." The reason why they don't operate on the smaller, undetected plaques is because "they can't." They cannot operate on unseen, smaller, undetected plaques that have accumulated on the inside of the thousands of miles of blood vessels throughout the entire body.
This is the main reason why bypass surgery and stents do not save lives or prevent future cardiac events. The majority of the disease is still left untreated. Your cardiologist will most likely not discuss these facts with you. What they will discuss however is a treatment plan which involves a risky major surgical procedure and a life-time dependency upon drugs. Drugs and procedures offer quick fixes by minimizing the symptoms and risk factors of disease, yet they offer little value for dietary-induced illnesses since they do not treat the underlying cause of disease. Sadly, medical care using drugs and procedures is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Additionally, because the majority of doctors have had little or no training in nutritional medicine, they are not trained to offer any advice on how to prevent and reverse heart disease using an aggressive nutritional approach. Most importantly, as Dr. Esselstyn points out in the video, relieving angina (chest pain) and becoming "heart attack proof" can occur in as little as three weeks when using an aggressive nutritional approach. See how using diet instead of bypass reversed Shelia Lewis' blocked coronary arteries - click here.
Eighty-one million Americans suffer from cardiovascular disease killing one out of every three people or 831,000 each year. It's our nation's leading cause of death for both men and women, resulting in a heart attack every 34 seconds. Protect yourself and your family from being a statistic by adopting a diet which supports optimal cardiovascular health.
Food is powerful medicine with no harmful side effects. Every meal we consume affects our health either in a positive or negative way. If our diets consist mainly of heavily processed foods and animal products, rich in saturated fats, oils, salt and sugar, we are creating an environment that encourages chronic degenerative disease. However, by giving our bodies superior nutrition, we can avoid food addictions, encourage longevity, and support an immune system that resists disease. Disease prevention and reversal begins with your first bite!
For more information, click on the following links:
(1) The Empty Medicine Cabinet
(2) Heart Attack Proof Your Holidays
(3) Atherosclerosis Begins in Early Childhood
(4) Heart Disease Starts in Early Childhood
(5) Who has Heart Disease? Everyone!
(6) Caldwell Esselstyn MD Ends Coronary Artery Disease
(7) Sheila Lewis Chose Diet Instead of Bypass
(8) Yes! Heart Disease Can be Reversed Using Diet!
(9) Bypass-Angioplasty Procedures Not Effective
(10) Sick Before Their Time: More Kids Diagnosed With Adult Diseases
(11) Nathan Pritikin Shows Heart Disease is Reversible
(12) View Dr. Esselstyn's entire lecture on heart disease here
(13) The False Hope of Prescription Medications - A Pharmacist Tells All
(14) Forks Over Knives Documentary May Save Your Life
(15) Low-Carb Diets Impair Blood Flow
(16) Why do Animal Products Cause Inflammation?
(17) Doctors Know Little About Nutrition
(18) Endothelial Cells to the Rescue!
(19) Diet Linked to Heart Disease Reduction During War
(20) Desirable Cholesterol Numbers
(21) What Your Arteries Want You to "NO"
(22) How Bad Can Just One Meal Be?
(23) Antioxidant-Rich Foods Dilate Arteries
(24) Seeing is Believing!
(25) Die Sooner with Good Looking Numbers
(26) Prevent-Reverse Disease With a Plant-Based Doctor
(27) Managing Symptoms vs Treating the Illness
(28) Animal-Based Diet Turns Our Blood Fatty
(29) Today's Children not Expected to Outlive Their Parents
(30) But I Could Never Give up Meat-Dairy!
(31) Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Book
(32) Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease Website
(33) Cardiovascular Disease is the #1 Killer in the U.S. for both Men and Women
(34) But I Must Have Animal Protein!
(35) Is Vegan the New Viagra?
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