The Truth About Health Influencers

 

Plant-Based Eating: First 21 Days

 Switching to a plant-based diet this January? Dr. Neal Barnard walks us through what you can expect the first month of going vegan. Plus, he provides tips on switching your diet when he talks with "The Weight Loss Champion" Chuck Carroll. Happy New Year!

How We Lost Over 100 lbs l Plant Fit Meg

 

Losing Weight on a Plant-Based, Vegan Diet: Tips for Success

A whopping 49.1 percent of Americans actively tried to lose weight within the last calendar year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The standard American diet is called SAD for a reason: It’s loaded with processed foods that drive many of the standard American diseases, including obesity. While multiple scientific studies have shown the effectiveness of plant-based diets for weight loss, not everyone will automatically lose weight after adopting a whole-food, plant-based diet. If you’ve been eating this way in the hope of achieving weight-loss goals and haven’t seen as much progress as you’d like, read on for strategies from leading plant-based experts. 

Master the Concept of Calorie Density

“Calorie density” refers to the amount of calories per pound of a given food. Foods range from around 100 calories per pound (nonstarchy vegetables) to 4,000 calories per pound (oil).

“Understanding caloric density is not about counting calories, or memorizing how many calories are in a cup of rice or half a cup of blueberries,” says Chef AJ, California-based vegan chef and best-selling author of The Secrets to Ultimate Weight Loss. “When you change the average calorie density of the food you eat each day, you can literally consume twice as much food in terms of volume, yet take in half as many calories. As luck would have it, the healthiest, most nutrient-dense foods on the planet—whole plant foods—are also the most calorically dilute. By understanding and implementing calorie density, you really can eat more and weigh less.”

By focusing on low-calorie density foods that are a natural part of a whole-food, plant-based diet, you’ll get lots of nutritional bang for your buck. 

“Foods that are lower in calorie density (fruits, veggies, starchy vegetables, intact whole grains and legumes) are also higher in nutrient density,” says Jeff Novick, MS, RD. “Therefore, by following a diet lower in calorie density, one also automatically consumes a diet higher in nutrient density.”

Garth Davis, MD, medical director of Mission Weight Management Center in Asheville, North Carolina, and author of Proteinaholic, echoes the sentiment: “Natural, unprocessed foods are loaded with fiber and water, which make you feel full without delivering as many calories.” The one caveat has to do with oil. “Watch out with the oils, as people often take a perfectly good salad with low calorie density and then add a ton of oil-filled dressing that’s extremely calorie dense,” he adds. Which leads to our next tip…

Cut Out Added Oil

Most people who cut added oils find that weight slides off easily, even if they’ve been on a plateau. Why?

“Oil is the most calorie-dense food by volume,” says Micaela Karlsen, PhD, MSPH, director of the Lifestyle Medicine Economic Research Consortium in Ithaca, New York, and founder of SustainableDiet.com, a distance-based, three-month support program to help people transition to plant-based eating. 

One cup of oil contains almost 2,000 calories. One cup of brown rice has only about 130 calories. (Other plant foods, besides high-fat nuts and seeds, are similarly calorically low.) Another major strike against oil: Because it doesn’t contain fiber, it doesn’t contribute to satiety. 

All of Forks Over Knives’ recipes are designed without oil, and YouTube is packed with videos that can teach you how to sauté with vegetable broth, bake with applesauce or other substitutes, and make oil-free salad dressings with fruit, tofu, or nuts.

 Load Half Your Plate With Nonstarchy Veggies

 Turns out, Mom was right in telling you to eat your veggies. 

“Veggies aren’t only nutritional powerhouses but also the food group that’s lowest in calorie density,” says Chef AJ. “Full of fiber and water and averaging only 100 calories per pound, they fill you up without filling you out.” 

Veggies such as kale, cabbage, spinach, and lettuce are especially beneficial: A compound in dark green leafies called thylakoid can actually turn off your hunger switch and help fight cravings for unhealthy foods, while a pound of nonstarchy veggies has fewer calories than a tablespoon of olive oil. That’s why Chef AJ recommends making 50 percent of your meals non starchy veggies. Her favorites are Brussels sprouts and zucchini. For the other half of the plate, fill it with whole foods that will satisfy your hunger, such as grains, legumes, and/or starchy veggies.

Avoid Liquid Calories

Aside from avoiding oil, you should also avoid any calories that come in liquid form, if your goal is to lose weight. “Don’t drink your calories, especially in the form of sports drinks, sodas, other sweetened beverages, and alcohol,” says Michelle McMacken, MD, director of the NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue’s Plant-Based Lifestyle Medicine Program. “The calories in these drinks add up fast and don’t fill you up. And for weight loss, in my experience, eating whole fruit trumps drinking fruit juice. Water is the only beverage we actually need.”

Eat Lots of Fiber-Rich Foods

 One of the healthiest ways to lose weight is adopting a lower-calorie, high-fiber, nutrient-rich diet, which means eating more whole, plant-based foods, says Alone Pulde, MD, family medicine physician in Carlsbad, California, and co-author of several books, including The Forks Over Knives Plan and Forks Over Knives Family. That’s why her go-to word is: add. 

“Add, add and add more whole, plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes to every meal,” she says. Easier said than done? Nope, not when you think about combining these foods to create delicious meals like oatmeal with berries and roasted veggies with pasta. “The variety of foods you can include is limited only by your imagination,” she says.

Watch Out for Vegan Junk Foods

 Just because it’s plant-based doesn’t mean it’s healthy. “Many food companies are slapping the plant-based term on numerous foods that are often highly processed, dense in calories, and [low in] nutrients,” says Sharon Palmer, RDN, the Los Angeles–based Plant-Powered Dietitian and author of The Plant-Powered Diet and Plant-Powered for Life. This is true of plant-based burgers made by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. 

Your best bet is to stick as closely as you can to whole plant foods.  

Get Moving

Last but not least, make exercise part of your regular routine. Opt for physical activities you enjoy, as you’ll be more likely to stick to a program. Ideally, you’ll find an activity or a combination of activities that covers strength, endurance, balance, and flexibility. But don’t hesitate to simply start where you are. “If your time is severely limited or you are unable to undertake a dynamic program, it’s still always better to get out and do some activity—even if it’s just a short walk each day,” says Pulde. See No-Meat Athlete Matt Frazier’s 5 Tips for Adding Fitness to Your WFPB Lifestyle for more guidance.

https://www.forksoverknives.com/how-tos/vegan-plant-based-diet-weight-loss-diet-tips/

73 Cows: A 15 minute documentary

73 Cows from Alex Lockwood on Vimeo.

A 15-minute documentary. The story of Jay Wilde, a beef farmer who battles with his conscience every time he takes his cows to slaughter. Feeling trapped within an industry he no longer believes in, Jay knows he must make a change and do what no other farmer from the UK has ever done before.

Five surprising benefits of a plant-based diet

Many of the important benefits of a plant-based diet – particularly for climate health and animals – are well known. Yet despite the science being very clear, there remains confusion about the impact on human health.

We have long known for example, that a diet centred around whole plant-foods – fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, beans, nuts and seeds – significantly reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and certain cancers. In fact, a low fat plant-based diet is the only diet to have been shown to actually reverse established coronary artery disease. It has also been seen to reverse type 2 diabetes, enable effective and sustained weight loss without portion control or exercise, and arrest the progression of early stage prostate cancer.

Here are five additional benefits of a plant-based diet that may surprise you.

1. Improves mental health and wellbeing
Diet choices can have a major impact on mood and mental health, and there is a very good reason for this. Diet affects the health of our gut bacteria, which produce many of the hormones active in the brain. Gut bacteria thrive on fibre, which is only found in whole plant foods. So it is no surprise to find that a plant-based diet can benefit mental health.

In one US study conducted at a large insurance company, participants who were overweight or had a history of type 2 diabetes were either prescribed a low-fat vegan diet or asked to continue their usual diet for 18 weeks. The results showed a significant improvement in mental health, wellbeing and work productivity in those on the vegan diet, as well as lower levels of depression and anxiety.

2. Reduces arthritic pain
Osteoarthritis, the painful breakdown of cartilage in the joints, appears to be an inevitable consequence of ageing. It is not reversible but it is manageable, usually with pain medication and sometimes surgery.

So what role could a plant-based diet play here? One small study looking at the diet’s impact showed a significant improvement in self-reported pain and functioning in people with osteoarthritis. One reason for this could be the anti-inflammatory properties of the micro-nutrients present in plant foods, as inflammation is the main cause of pain in arthritis. Meat-based diets have the opposite effect and, in general, increase the level of inflammation in the body.

3. Improves period pain in women
So if a plant-based diet can improve arthritis pain, could it also perhaps improve other types of pain? Some research suggests it could help with period pain in women.

For this study, women swapped to a low-fat vegan diet for two menstrual cycles, and then back to their usual omnivorous diet for their next two. Pain duration and intensity and pre-mentrual symptoms were recorded and levels of a hormone affecting oestrogen levels were measured.

On the low-fat vegan diet, women reported less pain duration and intensity, shorter duration of premenstrual symptoms and tests showed a lower level of oestrogen. People are often surprised to hear that diet can impact hormone levels in the body. This study shows exactly that, and how lower oestrogen levels can benefit women’s health in a number of ways.

4. Reduces the risk of urinary tract infections
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common causes of infection in the general population with the bacteria Escherichia coli (E coli) often being the culprit. Infection can occur because E coli from the intestine finds its way into the urinary tract. But UTIs can also be caused by E coli strains commonly found in farm animals such as chickens and pigs, so eating contaminated sources of meat can lead to infection.

Given the link between E coli and UTIs, It might seem obvious that those on a plant-based diet who avoid meat might have a lower risk of infection, but whether this was the case was not known for sure until recent research came out.

The analysis of several studies shows that vegetarians have a 16% lower risk of UTIs compared to non-vegetarians. This confirms previous data suggesting that meat-bourne bacteria are a major contributor to the risk of UTIs. Increasingly these food borne bacteria are displaying antibiotic resistance.

5. Saves on hospital costs
So if those following a health plant-based diet have a lower risk of ill health then surely this will save on health costs.In a large Taiwanese study, vegetarians were found to have a lower rate of outpatient visits, which translated into a 13% lower outpatient expenditure and a 15% lower total medical expenditure. So it is interesting to hypothesise the health economic impact of a plant-based diet on the UK’s cash-strapped National Health Service.

In 2017, spending on healthcare in the UK totalled £197 billion – approximately £2,989 per person. If everyone in the country shifted to a vegetarian diet, this could (using the 15% reduction as a guide) reduce healthcare expenditure by £30 billion.

Plant-based diets then, not only have the potential to dramatically improve human and planetary health, but could have significant benefits for the health of the economy too.

How PCRM Changed the World in 2019

Plant-based eating myths, busted

Plant-based diets are no fad. There are big reasons to make the switch: it's more nutritious, it's better for the Earth, and it's better for animal welfare.

But there are big reasons holding many of us back. Speaking to Coach, Simon Hill, who has a plant-based nutrition certificate from Cornell University, clears up the common myths about this way of eating.

Myth: Plant-based means going full vegan

A plant-based diet isn't all-or-nothing: it doesn't mean eliminating animal foods entirely, but simply changing the focus of your diet to plants.

Hill cites food movements like flexitarianism (flexible vegetarianism), pescetarianism (limiting animal foods to fish) and meat-free Monday (exactly what it sounds like) as some of the many different approaches to plant-based eating.

"The way that we eat, we like to label it," he says. "But it's not black and white. Health is a spectrum, and people can move along that spectrum to whatever extent works for them and fits into their lifestyle."

Myth: It's a hard switch to make

It does take some effort and experimentation to eat more plant-based foods, but the learning curve isn't as steep as you probably think.

"It might take you a couple of weeks to find your favourite [plant-based] recipes," Hill acknowledges. "But once you work out how you like to season or spice or marinate those foods, just like you would with your steak and chicken, the preparation time is exactly the same."

The internet and social media overflow with plant-based inspiration and support, while savvy restaurateurs are adding plant-based options to their menus. Food providers, like Eimele, deliver plant-based meals to your door (tomato, basil and lentil soup, anyone?) that are not only tasty and convenient, but also high in plant protein, vitamins and minerals.

Myth: You won't get enough protein

A biology primer: Protein is made up of molecules called amino acids, which are the building blocks of life, and there are nine amino acids that humans can only source from food.

High-protein animal foods (meat, eggs, dairy) typically each contain all nine of these amino acids, whereas high-protein plant foods (grains, nuts, beans) don't have the complete set. That's long been interpreted to mean that plant protein is lower quality than animal protein.

"Very, very big myth," says Hill. "As long as you're eating a healthy mix of different plant-based food groups, and you're consuming enough kilojoules, then you'll be getting all the adequate amounts of the essential amino acids."

Myth: It doesn't allow you to build muscle

Your body uses plant proteins to build strong, lean muscle just as well as it uses animal proteins.

"I get hundreds of messages from people who are amazed by the gains that they're getting in the gym [after they switch to a plant-based diet]," Hill says. "They feel better, they're recovering better, they're able to maintain or build their muscle."

Take a moment to check out Hill's Instagram profile. Still think someone who only eats a plant-based diet can't build muscle?

Eimele offers a delicious range of plant-based soups, porridges and snack bars. The entire range is tasty, healthy, high in fibre, plant protein and healthy fats to keep you feeling satisfied.

https://coach.nine.com.au/diet/plantbased-eating-myths-busted/2db9b0ea-039e-47d0-9dce-521563b6ba7e

Response to The Heart Foundation Dietary Advice

We are shocked and appalled by the new Heart Foundation dietary advice. The direction that nutrition has taken in Australia is a human health and environmental disaster. The Heart Foundation adds fuel to the high animal product/low carb ideology that has been endorsed by CSIRO and embraced by health practitioners and the public. Other nations have not followed this trend. The American Heart Association recommends restricting high fat dairy foods and Canada has removed the dairy foods group from its dietary guidelines.

The Heart Foundation has released new position statements on ‘Heart Healthy Eating’ – high fat dairy foods are back, and eggs are no longer restricted to one per day. There is a caveat that this does not apply to people with heart disease, diabetes or high cholesterol. That could be almost everyone: it’s Malcolm’s clinical (GP) experience that most of his patients have cholesterol levels above the safe range unless they are plant-based or already on medication for high cholesterol, and most adult Australians have significant undiagnosed artery disease.

There are some odd conclusions in the Heart Foundation documents – egg consumption increases the risk of diabetes (by 68%) and the subsequent risk of heart disease, but eggs are apparently ok until they give you diabetes.

It would be a monumental task to go through the new Heart Foundation position statements and evidence reports and to deconstruct the ‘evidence’ they used to conclude that eating high fat animal products is heart healthy. The reports acknowledged that a fair bit of the ‘evidence’ came from food industry funded studies and we have previously observed that the influence of research funding goes well beyond that which is declared. Dr McDougall has said that we have the truth but they have the money.

The Heart Foundation experts do not seem to have discovered TMAO, a new and powerful heart risk factor, which was a ground-breaking discovery in 2013, and has been supported by many further studies including a recent Australian study which found high TMAO levels in people on Paleo diets. TMAO in the blood comes from the action of gut microbes on the carnitine in red meat and the choline in eggs and other animal products. People on long term plant-based diets do not produce TMAO. An inconvenient truth for meat and eggs? A low-fat whole food plant-based diet is the only one – published in the peer reviewed literature – showing reversal of heart disease. Whilst the Heart Foundation does recommend eating plenty of vegetables, fruits and wholegrains, they should have foreseen that their position statements would generate media headlines such as ‘eat more cheese’ which would be happily taken up by the general public who “love to hear good news about their bad habits”.

PS We have two FAQs on our website which address the egg and dairy industry research.

The above post shared from Plant Based Health Australia Facebook

Introduction from Dr Joel Kahn MD

You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again | Eye-Opening Speech!

Is Eating Animals A Personal Choice?

There is very little that will ever get someone as upset and defensive as when you tell them what to eat. many conversations about veganism find their way to this point: The statement that you can’t tell people what to eat because it’s their personal choice. This often comes in the adage: “I respect your choice to be vegan, you should respect my right not to be.” But when our right to make our own dietary choice begins to infringe upon the rights of others, whose rights take priority?


You see, what we choose to eat has a huge impact on the world in a number of ways, including environmentally, socially, and morally.  The animal products industry is the most environmentally devastating force on the planet.  Our choice to eat meat, dairy and eggs impacts more than just our stomachs: It tears down forests, uses insane quantities of water, creates massive pollution, and diverts over 80 percent of the world’s crops to livestock.  Crops that could otherwise easily feed the world’s hungry.

So while respecting your choice to eat animal products may seem important from a personal freedom standpoint, what about respecting the environment and the future generations who have to live in the wake of our destruction?  What about respecting the people who can’t put food in their stomachs because your right to eat animal products took precedence?

This may seem like an indirect effect of dietary choice but the links of the chain are clear when you look for them.  The way we live today removes us so severely from the origin of our food and the impact that it has.  We walk into a grocery store and grab something, or swing through the drive through without a second thought as to where the food came from, whom it came from, and at what cost.

We speak of personal choice and respect while animals are tortured and killed at the hands of our appetites.  So I will say this: If your choice is to eat animal products, then you should be aware of what those choices really entail.  I’d urge you to watch the footage in the video above.  If you find you cannot watch, then I’d ask you the question: If it’s not good enough for your eyes, why is it good enough for your stomach?  If you can't stand to see it or talk about it, how can you stand to eat it?

Which rights are more valid: Our right to eat dairy or a mother cow’s right to not have her child torn from her side and sent to slaughter?   When you choose to eat dairy, you support the veal industry.  You sentence a mother cow to a lifetime of forced pregnancies, endless milkings and infections, all culminating in her body giving out twenty years before her natural lifespan and her being sent to slaughter for cheap meats.
When you choose to eat eggs, your right to your breakfast comes at the cost of countless lives: Male layer chicks are ground up alive as they are of no use to the egg industry.  Layer hens are kept in cramped sheds on top of one another even in so-called cage free and free range facilities. their sensitive beaks are cut off without anesthetics.

When you choose to eat meat, you are literally putting your right to choose above another’s right to live.  You may say, “but these are just animals.”  I ask you to look into their eyes and tell me.  Is that not fear?  Do they not suffer?  They know what is coming when they walk up the chute to slaughter.  They hear the noises. They smell the blood.

It is important that we begin to live as though we are interconnected with each other, the animals, and the planet.  Because we are.  My choices for what goes inside my body affect more than just me.


I’m not saying personal rights aren’t important.  In fact, that’s the opposite of what I’m saying. But my right to choose ends where another’s nose begins.  Just as my rights do not extend to me being legally allowed to beat someone up, so to should my right to choose what I eat not extend to choices which devastate the environment, take food from the hungry, and torture and murder other beings.

7 Days Documentary | Fast Food to Vegan

Unhealthy Vegans - Undercutting the Message?

Fatty Liver, High Cholesterol & A 25kg (55 Pound) Weight Loss

Here is my story, I am so honoured to be interviewed for this podcast. Please have a listen and feel free to pass it on to everyone you know. This is a message that many people need to hear. As you know I rarely share my personal information online (like my photo) but this time I am going out of my comfort zone in the hope that I can help someone who needs it.

It only goes for about 1 hour.

For those that don't know, a whole foods plant based (WFPB) diet is based on whole or minimally processed whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits. It excludes animal-based foods, including fish and dairy, and also highly processed foods such as oils (that means no olive oil or coconut oil).

Click here to listen

Healthful Fish Is a Myth

Terri MacLeod of Access Hollywood and I recently discussed just how toxic fish can be. Since there are many myths about fish being healthful, I want to share Ms. MacLeod’s column on bad fats and fish:

Healthy Hollywood is still reeling over the idea that fish might not be the best thing for your diet.

After years of eating and loving fish, I was in shock when vegan guru and author of “Power Foods For The Brain,” Dr. Neal Barnard, compared fish to a “low tar cigarette.”

My love of fish just went up in smoke!

Healthy Hollywood met up with Dr. Barnard at the “Nutrition and Brain” summit held recently in Washington, D.C. where I was having breakfast with him and chatting about my favorite subject - “healthy/healing” nutrition. Then, his head-spinning proclamation about fish suddenly capsized my appetite for all things from sea.

“Many people have gotten the idea they should be eating fish and fish you could say maybe a better choice than beef. Fish is somewhat lower in fat, depending on how it’s prepared, and the fats are more of the goods fats, which are the omega-3’s, but and this is a big ‘BUT’…,” exclaimed Dr. Barnard.

Dr. Barnard favors a vegan/plant-based diet in order to achieve optimal health and decrease one’s risk for dementia. But, even Dr. Oz, was shocked when Dr. Barnard declared fish a diet don’t on his show back in March 2013. “As group, people who eat fish have more weight problems and have a higher risk of diabetes, compared with people who skip animal products altogether,” he declared to Healthy Hollywood.

In addition, all that hype about good fats in fish, like salmon, is another bottom-feeder, according to Dr. Barnard, who goes on to explain that 40% of salmon is fat and that 70 to 80% of that fat is not good for us. “Most of the fat in fish is not omega-3’s and it doesn’t do your body any good.”

Or, does it do any good for your waistline. “Every gram of fat is 9 calories. And, you don’t have to do a lot of math before you realize I’m not going to lose any weight if I’m eating salmon. Doctors will say that’s the point, ‘it is fatty fish’ and you want the fish for the good fat, but what they’re not realizing is only a tiny fraction of it is good fish. So, I wouldn’t go there,” explain Dr. Barnard.

Besides, the bad fat, fish can also be toxic, with dangerous levels of mercury and other pollutants, adding, “Keep in mind where fish are from. They live in what has become a kind of human sewer – the oceans and waterways.”

So, whether you take Dr. Barnard’s bait is up to you, but he insists it’s good to keep the dialogue going on our food system and keep in mind we are what we eat.

From Dr Barnard's Blog at http://www.pcrm.org/nbBlog/index.php/healthful-fish-is-a-myth

Dementia Fact

Australian media article

Plants vs Animals

Meat - ANY MEAT - costs lives