There are ENDLESS benefits to eating a Whole Food Plant Based diet...truly endless.  Greens are the MOST nutritious foods we can put in our body...they bring vitamins, antioxidants, oxygen and LIFE to our cells.  And remember, our cells are constantly being regenerated...we want the HEALTHIEST cells we can have...unhealthy cells mean DISEASE.

What are plant based foods?  Plant based foods are vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.  Anything that grows in the ground or comes from the earth is plant based.  The difference in eating plant based is that the food will keep us extremely HEALTHY, thriving with energy and free from DISEASE.  The benefits are truly unlimited and they become even more helpful the longer and more consistently we eat them.

Dark green vegetables are probably calorie for calorie the MOST concentrated source of nutrition of any food.  They are a rich source of minerals, (including iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium), and vitamins, (including K, C, E and many B vitamins).  They also provide a wide variety of phytonutrients, (remember, phytonutrients are only found in plants), which protects our cells from damage.  The ammunition green leafy vegetables give our body to fight off all kinds of toxins can't be bought in a pill bottle.  

One of the star ingredients in green leafy vegetables is Vitamin K.  Recent research has shown that this vitamin is more important than once thought.  A cup of most greens will provide you with about nine times the minimal daily requirement of this vitamin, and many people do not get this.  Other benefits of eating greens:

• Regulates blood clotting
• Helps protects bones from osteoporosis
• Helps to prevent and reduce atherosclerosis by reducing calcium in arterial plaques (heart disease)
• Is a key regulator of inflammation and will help protect us from inflammatory diseases such as arthritis
  
• Helps to prevent diabetes 

These foods will give us more energy and give our body what it has been lacking by eating an animal based diet.  We all know that eating more vegetables and fruits is good for us, so why not load up your plate with the HUGE variety that nature has provided for you?  Everyone can benefit from eating a plant based diet.  Give your body the opportunity to FEEL life...just feed it right.

Eight more reasons to eat a plant based diet:

1. Heart health
2. Cancer prevention
3. Diabetes prevention
4. Blood pressure control
5. Vision and eye health
6. Weight loss
7. Fiber intake
8. Skin care

The benefits just go on and on....and again, the longer you continue to eat this way, the HEALTHIER, thinner, more energetic you become!  If you need to start out slowly, that's fine....get rid of all the processed artificial "foods" first. Once you have that mastered, go on to meats--anything with a face or a mother is "meat"---that includes:  beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish...YES FISH!  ALL animals MAKE cholesterol...chicken and fish are just as bad as anything else!  Our body makes cholesterol, you DO NOT NEED ANYMORE...nor do we need all the saturated fat, antibiotics and chemicals that are pumped into these animals.  Remember, whatever goes into that animal you are about to eat, you get.  NO ONE NEEDS TO EAT MEAT!  

After mastering the meat, go on to dairy....this step is harder for many people than getting rid of animal flesh. Remember, not only are we getting boatloads of saturated fat and cholesterol from dairy, but dairy FEEDS cancer cells...keeps them alive, keeps them thriving and keeps them spreading to other parts of our body.  CUT OFF THE SOURCE of life to these cancer cells!!  Start out slowly if you need to....eliminate one dairy product at a time...whatever works for you.  For me, as soon as I learned what dairy was doing to my body, I completely cut it ALL out...just knowing I would be FEEDING cancer cells was enough for me!!

Need help in transforming your health?  Just let me know...I will be having an upcoming class starting soon...I would love to teach you how EASY this can be!!

We deserve the absolute truth about an extremely important topic..as a matter a fact, it's a life or death topic--nutrition.  Our "current system" is failing us miserably.  So what's our "current system"?  Well that's the problem, it's vast and complex, it has political ties, (yes, even nutritional information), and the information is governed by, you guessed it, money. Much of the time health doesn't even come into the equation. This is why nutrition is THE MOST confusing topic, but yet, it is the MOST IMPORTANT information we can have when it comes to health.  The food we eat will either give us HEALTH or it will give us DISEASE. 

Our current "system" of scientists, dietitians, nutritionists, medical doctors, government agencies, pharmaceuticals, food industries, health insurance, hospitals and media have all worked together, (I would like to think unknowingly), to create a highly destructive overall system.   Our current "system" is destroying our health as well as the planet. 

Dr. Richard Oppenlander, author of,  Comfortably Unaware, states, "With health professionals continuing to advocate the consumption of meat and dairy products, true wellness for us and for our planet, will be impossible to achieve.  This brings light to the fact that we have a system of suppressed information and a misplaced trust of individuals and institutions that provide inaccurate and misleading information.   All this needs to change in order for progress to occur.  The mismanagement of information or outright ignorance of reality regarding our food choices and the toll that it takes on our health and environment is the reason we are at where we are today."

We must try and fix this system with urgency....our current health system is crumbling underneath us.  We maintain our cars better than we maintain our health!  We cannot wait for thousands of scientists, doctors, politicians and corporate executives to un-learn all that they have been taught so that they can open their minds to the BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS that we're eating the WRONG FOODS!!  All of those people have a strong financial incentive to maintain the current status quo, and that's simply not going to work for our future grandchildren.

So what's the solution?  I think we have to assemble the right kind of leaders, thinkers, teachers and communicators to start disseminating the TRUTH about food.  When we have the "true experts" from the nutritional world, people with exquisite credibility, we would be able to influence the greatest number of people to move rapidly in the direction of a whole food plant based diet.  

But, we need to start moving in this direction now...not in months or in years...we just don't have that kind of time.  The health of this country it headed down a very slippery slope. Our current health care system just cannot continue to support an ever increasing nation of sick people.  The Number One cause of this health decline--our food.  We have to get back to the basics--back to vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains.  The closer our food is to the "whole food", nothing added to it or stripped from it, the better it is for our body.  Get rid of all the foods that are GIVING  us DISEASE, (processed foods, meat and dairy), and eat foods that GIVE US BACK OUR HEALTH....vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains.  

It's really as SIMPLE as that....we can CURE our very unhealthy nation of people just by educating them with the TRUTH about food.  We could potentially have such a surplus of money in our health care system, (as we would have a nation of healthy people) that we could possibly use that abundance of money to help educate our children.  

Want to learn more about a Whole Food Plant Based diet?  Contact me...I would love to help you make that transition to the healthiest diet for yourself and your family....

The Greek physician Hippocrates stated more than 2,300 years ago that food is medicine--he was way ahead of his time.  He knew that food had either positive effects or negative effects on what we now know as our immune system.  He knew that we had a healing potential within our body that could be harnessed by using food as fuel.  

Recent studies have shown exactly what Hippocrates was talking about--food consumption has the power to either "trigger" genes or keep them suppressed.  The food we eat contains thousands of biologically active substances which have the potential to create optimal health.  

Our diets can prevent disease, causes disease or provide the energy to heal illness and disease.  What determines the path our body will take is the quality and quantity of the nutrients we absorb.  

A family of nutrients essential to health and healing are phytochemicals, also known as phytonutrients.  Phytochemicals are produced naturally by plants as protection against pests and diseases, but they also play an important role in our own well-being.  They contain protective disease-preventing compounds that interact with other plant nutrients that can help prevent or treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.  

Phytonutrients have many various functions in the body--they promote the function of the immune system, attack bacteria and viruses, and reduce inflammation, just to name a few.  As a matter of fact, phytonutrients even protect cartilage in the joints of our body and prevent joint pain and other symptoms of arthritis.

More than 1000 different phytochemicals have been identified in plants,including flavonoids in fruits and lycopene in tomatoes.  When herbicides and pesticieds are use in nonorganic farming, plants do not produce nearly as many phytochemicals as they would under normal conditions.  When the vegetable or fruit is picked is another important consideration as far as phytochemicals are concerned.  Individual nutrients, phytochemicals and enzymes reach optimal concentrations at distinct stages of plant growth.  Early harvesting limits the health benefits we get from eating these foods.  Then, if we are cooking the vegetable, we are eliminating even more of the phytohcemicals.  That's why if we can buy our produce from local farmer's markets, we are getting much higher quality produce, and if we eat lots of the vegetables raw, we are getting much more phytochemicals from that food.  

Of course, food manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industries are trying to benefit from this research about the health benefits of phytochemicals by creating synthetic versions in labs and marketing them as supplements or adding them to processed foods and telling us how healthy they are.  These "phony phytos" do not in any way resemble the natural compounds produced by nature.  The necessary interactions that produce healing results are simply not present in a synthetic pill.  

Dr. Cambpell wrote in the China Study, "nutrition  represents the combined activities of countless food substances.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The chemicals we get from foods we eat are engaged in a series of reactions that work in concert to produce good health.  Everything in food works together to create health or disease.  The more we think that a single chemical characterizes a whole food, the more we stray into idiocy." 

Not to mention, prescription drugs....every prescription carries high prices--the cost of the drug as well as all the side effects that go along with it.  Most of the time the side effects are worse than what the original problem was.  If by changing your diet to prevent, cure and most of the time reverse damage done by a disease, why wouldn't you do that??

By changing your diet I don't mean eating food that doesn't taste good.  Eating lots of vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains can be absolutely delicious!  And, when you are eating a whole food plant based diet, there is no calorie counting, weighing and measuring foods....you eat really good foods whenever you're hungry and watch the weight fall off of your body.  Avoid the foods that are responsible for making us overweight and sick--processed foods, meat and dairy.

Life is all about choices--what we choose to do on a daily basis is up to us.  By choosing to eat a whole food plant based diet, you are opting to feed your body lots of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals--everything your body needs to give you optimal health.  

As I repeatedly say, you can't get good health from a pill bottle...you just can't.....

Our body is a remarkable machine...there is no doubt about it.  When we give it what it needs, lot of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals, our body will reward us. 

Some of the healthiest people in the world live in remote areas where they are eating whatever is grown in their surroundings--lots of fruits, berries, potatoes, rice and corn are amongst their staple foods.  Their every day living requires them to get lots of exercise and sunshine as well--some of these people live to be 100+ years old, and still going strong!!  There's something to be said about this way of living.


Obviously, we don't need to move to some remote are of the globe to be as healthy as we would like to be.  Fortunately, we can get our food just by going to the grocery store and putting it in our cart.  Of course, it's not as fresh as if we just picked it off a tree, but healthy nutritious food is available to us as well.  


Some of the world's superfoods, (foods that give us the best nutritional value) are:

• Acai berries
• Apples
• Apricots
• Avocados
• Blueberries
• Beans
• Brassica vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts)
• Buckwheat
• Cinnamon
• Flax
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Goji berries
• Green tea
• Mushrooms
• Spinach
• Sprouted foods
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Turmeric

As always, we want to eat these superfoods in their natural state--not in an isolated pill form.  When we take supplements as opposed to eating the "whole food" the nutrients are not absorbed by our body in the same way. Remember, all the vitamins and antioxidants work together in whole foods....in supplements we are getting vitamins in isolation...our body does not react the same way AT ALL.  

Eat as many different colors of vegetables and fruits as you can.  The deeper or more vibrant the color of the food, the more phytochemicals the plant has which gives us all kinds of protection against the toxins we are exposed to daily.  Try to choose organic whenever you can--it doesn't mean organic foods have more minerals, but they do have more phytochemicals because the plant grows phytochemicals to keep themselves strong and protects the plant from the weather and bugs.  When you eat that vegetable or fruit, you get the same benefit from the phytochemicals.

By eating a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, as well as beans and whole grains, your body will be getting everything it needs to give you optimal health.  Stay away from artificial and processed foods, as well as meat and dairy..remember, processed foods are not "real food"...they are foods that are made in a lab with ingredients added to them that most of the time we cannot even pronounce.  As far as meat and dairy goes, well, they come with ZERO antioxidants, ZERO fiber, ZERO phytochemicals and a boatload of saturated fat, cholesterol and substances linked to cancer.  (Check out my previous blogs!)

Need more information or help in transforming your diet?  Contact me, I would be happy to help you!  Currently I am finishing up a 12-week class, (tonight is week #11), but I will be starting new classes soon...just let me know if I should add you to my list!

I'm telling you, you never know what's in the food we are eating.  Dr. Micheal Greger reviewed a study regarding microwave popcorn...I can't believe what the researchers found, and reported the information to the FDA, who did NOTHING.  

Let me start by saying there is a lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans, which is a fatal lung disease that was caused by chemical warfare during World War I.  Well guess, what?  Microwave popcorn can have the same effect!

Dr. Greger has warned us about diacetyl, which is the artificial butter flavor being linked to a condition known as "popcorn lung".  Workers who were exposed to this started dying from it.  The industry knew about the dangers for decades about this, but covered it up. Even when their workers started dying, they swore the chemical was safe for consumers, that it was only an "occupational hazard".  In fact, they started running aids for Orville Redenbacker telling consumer to breathe deeply--but Dr. Gregor tells us that any ingredient requiring  the use of a gas mask (which is what the workers are required to wear while making microwave popcorn), is probably not something you want to feed your family.  

Dr. Greger goes on to tell us about some cases of consumers of butter-flavored microwave popcorn developing bronchiolitis obliterans.  There's a 47 year old women who ate 2-3 bags of popcorn a day and now can't even walk without getting out of breath.  She is awaiting a lung transplant.

Then there's a 56 year old man, never smoked, but ate 2 bags of popcorn a day and started coughing up blood.  His doctor reported this to the FDA, but the microwave popcorn is still on the market. 

A third person ate 1-2 bags a day and was found to have shredded up lungs so scarred they had what's called "honeycombing" and patches with the appearance of ground glass.  

This chemical is found in real butter too, but it's heavily concentrated when added as additional flavoring, and remains on store shelves and legal to this day.  The regulation of health hazards from food additives has simply fallen through the cracks.

The manufacturers of microwave popcorn recommend a series of steps to "protect" consumers, such as allowing the bag to cool completely before opening, (who wants cold popcorn), and then open it in a well-ventilated area away from the face.  However, they don't explain on the package of popcorn WHY we should be doing this.  One solution they didn't mention that would also eliminated the risk of lung disease is...DON'T BUY IT....that, however, would effect their bottom line--money.

This is just another reason why eating as close to nature is the BEST thing you can do for you and your family.  One of my recommendations to anyone trying to get their health back is to READ INGREDIENT LABELS.  If there are more than 5 ingredients in the list, or if there is an ingredient you don't know or can't even pronounce, DON'T BUY IT.  This is not real food, it is food made in a laboratory--these ingredients are  foreign to our body and only cause trouble.  When we eat these "food-like products" three times a day everyday, we are giving our body an onslaught of all kinds of trouble.  Of course, our body does it's best to protect us from this "stuff", but after awhile, it starts to break down and weaken.  

Instead of feeding disease, we need to start feeding health!  By getting rid of all the artificial processed "foods", and eating lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole-grains, we are nourishing our body with everything it needs to give us vibrant health.  Eat as close to nature as you possibly can--food that doesn't come in a package, can or box--food that you find in the produce section of your grocery store--or better yet, this time of year food found at farmer's markets--food that is fresh and grown locally is the BEST food you can put in your body!

Still want to eat popcorn?  That's fine--just don't buy the microwave variety.  Instead, buy the actual popcorn that comes in a bag or jar--nothing added to it or taken out of it---just plain kernels of popcorn--and make it yourself!   No artificial anything--and best of all, you won't have to worry about wearing a gas mask when you open the bag.....

Like it or not, DIET is the NUMBER ONE cause of cancer, and you will soon realize how true this is.  Cancer is PREVENTABLE, but preventing cancer requires a MAJOR dietary lifestyle change.  However, I'll take the major dietary lifestyle change over cancer any day.

Only 5-10% of cancer is in our genes or in our family history.  90-95% of cancer is caused by what you expose your body to on a daily basis.  Of the 90-95% of cancer, tobacco contributes to about one quarter of the cancer risk in the United States.  

So, what in particular is it in our diet that puts us at such a high risk?  A massive study done in Canada proved that meat consumption is directly related to these cancers:  colon, stomach, rectal, pancreatic, lung, breast, prostate, testicular, kidney, bladder and leukemia.  

The National Cancer Institute states, "that chemicals are formed when muscle meat, including beef, pork, poultry and fish are cooked forming heterocyclic amines".  Heterocyclic amines are highly carcinogenic.  Studies have shown that our liver has the capacity to detoxify only 50% of carcinogens from meat....the other 50% are left roaming around inside our bodies.  

Women eating meat, any kind of meat, poultry, or fish, whether they are broiled, roasted, grilled, fried or barbecued, have a 5 times higher risk of developing breast cancer due to these heterocyclic amines.  

Processed meats, like hot dogs, sausage, bacon, pepperoni, smoked ham, etc., pose an even HIGHER risk due to all the nitrates that are present in these type of meats.  As a matter of fact, children are 7 times more likely to develop a brain tumor by eating one hot dog a week!!!  Children that insist on eating hot dogs are multiplying their odds by 950% of getting childhood leukemia!!  This is a well known fact that should be plastered all over the front of hot dog packages--WARNING LABELS should be all over them.  A few hot dogs have the SAME AMOUNT of carcinogens as smoking a whole pack of cigarettes.  WHY ISN'T THIS PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE?

Let me tell you about bacon--the carcinogens in bacon are so high that the fumes from bacon cooking has the exact same effect as second hand smoke from a cigarette.  The carcinogenic particles get into our lungs just like cigarette smoke. That's why there is an increased risk of respiratory tract cancers prevalent in cooks.

These heterocyclic amines, which form in cooked meat, damage our bodies in three ways:

1. Damage DNA
2. Promote cancer growth
3. Increases cancer cell metastasis by increasing tumor invasivness (drives cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body)

In Canada, the researchers measured the levels of heterocyclic amines in the breast milk of meat-eating females and in vegans.  The concentration of the carcinogen was significant in 100% of the meat-eating females.  The concentration of the carcinogen in vegans--0%.

This really is a no-brainer for me.....

If pharmaceutical companies were able to "bottle" the benefits of a Whole Food Plant Based diet, they would be the MOST POWERFUL, (not to mention wealthiest) industry in the WORLD.  But, the beauty of this is, they cannot....therefore, everyone can have excellent health...it's not only for the wealthy.  When we eat whole foods that come directly from nature, nothing added or taken away from it, all the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants work together like a symphony orchestra giving your body EXACTLY what it needs....there is no pill that can do that.  

I follow Dr. Michael Greger, MD who is a physician and internationally recognized professional speaker.  He has lectured at the Conference for World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health,  and testifies before Congress on many different health issues.  

Dr. Greger followed Nathan Pritikin's work.  Now, Nathan was an unlikely candidate to spark a nutritional revolution because he wasn't a doctor or a dietician, but an engineer.  However, he reversed his own heart disease with a plant-based diet and went on to help millions of others.  He happened to save Dr. Greger's grandmother's life which is what inspired him to go into medicine.

After Nathan's death, his work continued through his research foundation.  Once Dr. Dean Ornish proved that our Number 1 Killer can be stopped, (heart disease), the focus shifted to cancer.  All kinds of studies were done placing people on different diets for a certain period of time, and then their blood was then dripped on cancer cells in a petri dish to see which diet was more effective at suppressing cancer growth.  

The people's blood on a  Standard American Diet, (SAD) did fight cancer cells, BUT, the blood of those on vegan diets fights about 8 times BETTER.  The blood circulating within the bodies of vegans have nearly 8 times the stopping power when it comes to cancer cell growth.

The next experiment that was tried placed people in three different groups, using just diet, just exercise, or diet and exercise combined to fight cancer cells. Three groups were compared:  a plant-based diet and exercise group, an exercise only group and a control group that did neither.  The diet and exercise group, again, followed a plant based diet and were required to do a moderate amount of exercise everyday which could have been as simple as walking.  The second group were required to do hardcore exercise daily--strenuous exercise, at least an hour-long, everyday--but they ate the SAD.  Which group was better at fighting cancer?

The researchers took petri dishes full of human prostate cancer cells and dripped blood from each of the three groups on different dishes to see whose blood killed off more cancer.  It was unbelievable!!  What they found was the group doing the strenuous exercise helped, but NOTHING appeared to kick more cancer cells than a Whole Food Plant Based diet.  (Dr. Greger shows a video of the experiment on his website, NutritionFacts.org).  

Even though diet appears more powerful than exercise in terms of cancer defense, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do both. Obviously, by doing a WFPB diet and exercise,  we give ourselves even more ammunition to fight off cancer cells.

When we give our body what it needs, it will heal itself...once again, there is no pill out there with that kind of power!

What's our diet got to do with the diseases we may end up with?  It has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT!  Science has been on our side proving the effect our diet has on our health--the diseases and chronic medical conditions that are so prevalent and ACCEPTED today do not have to exist! For 30 years now, we have had the NUTRITIONAL SUPERSTARS (T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, Dean Ornish, MD, Joel Fuhrman, MD, etc.) treating thousands of patients using a Whole Food Plant Based diet. Not only have they had such great success with patients, their work has been published in the best medical journals, but who's listening??  

The problem is, doctors get reimbursed by insurance companies for diagnosing a disease and writing a prescription to "fix" the symptoms.  Doctors are not reimbursed for spending time educating patients on nutrition.  Unfortunately, the doctors themselves are not educated on nutrition unless they educate themselves.  

Conventional medicine is built on drugs and surgery--this is extremely BIG BUSINESS.  The pharmaceutical companies are a multi-billion dollar industry...take a look at the salaries of the CEOs...astronomical to say the least!!  With all this money spent on research and development of new drugs, procedures, etc., one would think we would have made some kind of progress--take a look around--we are fatter and sicker than we have ever been in history!  Our health care system is deteriorating due to the strain of trying to support a nation of overweight and sick people.  

It's time to change all of this.  Thousands of people changed their lives by healing themselves with a Whole Food Plant Based diet.  President Clinton is one of them--his first round with heart issues put a little scare in him--he didn't change his diet "too much", took cholesterol lowering drugs, blood pressure drugs, and whatever other drugs his team of physician prescribed, and went about his usual business.  However, when he had a second bout of heart issues, he was really scared--scared enough to take charge of his health and really do something about it.  He did his own research and called on Dr. Dean Ornish for help.  President Clinton realized the diet he was eating CAUSED his heart disease--he had to stop FEEDING THE DISEASE and start nourishing his body enabling it to HEAL itself. That's exactly what happened.  The ex-president decided he wanted to not only live longer, but he wanted to live a healthy ACTIVE life....being able to do all the activities he enjoys as well as be around for his grandchildren.  

Nutrition has the power to do what no pill can do.....your DIET is a CHOICE...it's like anything else in life, it's all about the choices we make.  We can choose to live a HEALTHY ACTIVE life, giving our body all the vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains it requires to keep us going STRONG, or, we can continue on the slippery slope most of us are on, causing all kinds of heart disease, cancers, diabetes, strokes, and all the other chronic conditions so many people are suffering with.  These diseases are happening in people YOUNGER and YOUNGER....most of these diseases only occurred in "old age"....now, age has NOTHING to do with it!  I see this everyday...children are now being diagnosed with what used to be called Adult Onset Diabetes, but we had to change the "name" to Type II diabetes because our 8 and 9 year olds are being diagnosed with it.  

Unfortunately, the almighty dollar is what rules.  If the insurance companies told physicians they would be reimbursed significantly by teaching their patients about  a Whole Food Plant Based diet, and the patients adhered to this lifestyle change,  you can bet your bottom dollar physicians would be clamoring to become educated in a WFPB diet.  On top of that, do you have any idea the amount of money the insurance companies would be saving on healthy people???  Money saved on drugs, procedures, testing, surgeries, etc.  However, if we had all these healthy people, what would happen to all the pharmaceutical companies and their drugs that weren't needed?? What would happen to the cardiologist's income when there were not many people requiring stents any bypass surgeries??  What would happen to all the out-patient testing requiring very expensive machines??

Maybe "they" don't want us to know how simple it is to become healthy....Keeping people sick is a very big business.......

C.R.A.P.=Calorie Rich And Processed....These are the foods we have to avoid if we want to take our health back...and by taking our health back, we automatically lose weight.  

According to statistics, 65% of calories consumed by Americans are from processed foods...WOW!  Processed foods are NOT FOODS FROM NATURE...they are foods made in a lab.  Processed="things" taken out or "things" added in...the "things" are usually some sort of "magical ingredient" the food industries have developed to make "food" taste better. Bottom line--lots of chemicals, preservatives and artificial ingredients...and our bottoms continue to get bigger and bigger.  

In my opinion, olive oil fits right into this category.  People are absolutely flabbergasted, to say the least, when I start talking about olive oil.  First words out of there mouths are, "Olive oil is healthy for us....olive oil is heart healthy...we need the omega-3s in olive oil"....and it just goes on from there.  Well, lets look at the facts:

1. Olive oil is HIGHLY processed...I don't care what the front of the label reads...cold pressed vs. heat....it DOESN'T make any difference...it is a highly processed food.  It does not come from nature.
2. How many nutrients are we getting from using olive oil?  Protein--0  Carbs--0  Fiber--0  Fat--14 gr.  Omega 3--.1 gr Saturated fat--14%  Vitamins--trace amt of E  Minerals--0
3. How many calories in olive oil?  120 calories per tablespoon--based on the above stats, 120 calories/tablespoon, 14 gr of fat, and absolutely no nutritional value....how many people use 1 tablespoon of olive oil when using it?  Do the math....

How can this be??  We are constantly told olive oil is good for us.....but WHO is telling us this.  Very important fact--know where your information is coming from!  If it's coming from the source who is manufacturing the product, their MAIN GOAL is to SELL their product.  This is where the marketing geniuses come in, and believe me, they are geniuses. Olive oil is NOT HEALTHY--it is FAT and it CLOGS your arteries.  Period.  Your arteries don't care if the oil comes from plants, olives, or animals.....it all has the same end result---arteries clogged with fat!!

Let's say you went to lunch and ordered a big salad with lots of vegetables.  As many people do, you reach for the oil and vinegar---let's say you  truly only use 2 T of oil on that big salad and you eat it.  You can then say I only had a salad for lunch and think you ate very healthy.  Now, let's say, you put a 1/2 cup of premium ice cream on that salad instead of those 2 T of olive oil....mixed up the salad with the premium ice cream and that was your lunch.  Which salad had the least amount of calories and fat?

The salad with the ice cream had the lower numbers.  Not that I would be eating ice cream, (dairy is a WHOLE different story), but, of course, who wouldn't eat a bowl of ice cream rather than 2 T of olive oil?  OLIVE OIL IS NOT A HEALTH FOOD.  Wondering about the omega-3s?  You would need to DRINK 8 oz of OLIVE OIL to get your daily recommended amount.  YUCK!!!  One of the best sources of omega-3s can be found in flaxseeds.  Grind up 2 tablespoons a day, put them in your oatmeal or smoothie.....met your recommended amounts of omega-3s for the day.

You do not need to use another drop of olive oil again.  How could you possibly cook without it, you ask?  The answer is very SIMPLE...most people like to start their sauteing of onions and garlic in olive oil...not necessary.  Use a very small amount of water....yes water....in your skillet...keep a small glass of water next to you while you saute adding tiny amounts as needed.  You will achieve the SAME RESULTS using small amounts of water as you would with the olive oil without all the calories and artery-clogging fat.  YOU WILL NOT MISS THE OLIVE OIL or the detrimental effects it has on your body!! You have to try this for yourself....many people just do not believe me until they try this.  They come back to me AMAZED that they DO NOT MISS  the oil....AT ALL.  

So, what have you got to lose....instead of reaching for that olive oil bottle, get your water ready and begin cooking.  Of course, you also could use vegetable broth in place of the water in tiny amounts, but you don't have to.  I'm telling you, water works!!

You have nothing to lose EXCEPT the calories and artery-clogging fat........

Did you know that the typical dietary advice from the American Heart Association's guidelines will not enable you to get off of medications?  Why?  Because what "they" are suggesting will not protect you from having a heart attack and does not allow heart disease to reverse itself. Moderation can kill.  The problem is, what the American Heart Association's idea of low-fat is not so low-fat at all--compared to worldwide standards, it is a high-fat diet and more importantly, it has a very dangerous low level of plant-derived nutrients.  As a result, heart patients, thinking they are eating healthy, are eating a diet that derives over 80% of its calories from processed foods and animal products.

And we wonder why heart disease is still the Number 1 Killer.  

We can heart-attack proof ourselves, and, we can reverse damage that may have already been done.  To do this, we really have to get control of a few  things:

1. Achieve a normal weight or be in the process of steadily losing weight
2. Achieve a "normal" cholesterol level.  The LDL (bad cholesterol) needs to be below 100, (guidelines may change to be below 70).  An LDL level below 100 earned as a result of nutritional excellence is much more protective than an LDL below 80 as a result of medication.  When you achieve a "normal" cholesterol level with nutrition, you are getting a cascade of effects like lowering inflammation, reducing fat deposits, and lowering blood pressure.  
3. The diet must be nutrient-dense.  That means foods loaded with nutrients with few calories--green leafy vegetables are the superstars!  Animal products are absolutely detrimental and need to be avoided.  Refined carbohydrates also should be avoided, (bread, rice, pasta, doughnuts, pastries, etc.).
4. Blood pressure has to return to normal range, 120/80, or be slowly improving toward that goal.  When you are able to bring your blood pressure back to normal without the use of medications, this represents the reversal of atherosclerosis--blood vessels become more elastic and flexible with nutritional intervention.

Because nutrition has turned into such a confusing topic, people just don't know where to turn---so many people truly believe they are eating a "healthy" diet, but yet their body is telling a different story.  The problem is, most doctors are not educated in nutrition!  I have said this repeatedly...they only have about 4-6 HOURS of nutritional education during their time spent in medical school.

The nutritional information that the average American gets is coming from the food industries--people making big profits.  Remember, money talks--the food industry, including the two big powerhouses--meat and dairy--have brilliant marketing departments.  Believe me, they do not care about your health--their focus is on their bottom line--money.  They have to ensure that  Americans continue to eat more and more meat and dairy, (and will give you all kinds of "reasons" why we it's so important to our health), even though heart disease remains the #1 Killer.  

So, we know what the problem is, now we need the solution.  Drugs and procedures are only providing band-ads, they are not "curing" anything.  To get to the root of the problem, we have to completely cut out the cause.  So, we can do this in baby steps, or, we can jump in with both feet--what ever is right for you:

1. Get rid of all the processed foods--foods that come in a package, box or can--foods that have ingredient lists more than 5 ingredients long or have ingredients you can't pronounce let alone know what they are.  Foods with 5 ingredients or less, and you know what each ingredient is, is on the OK To Eat List.
   
2. Start eliminating animal products--meat.  This includes, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and yes...fish.  Anything with a face or a mother.  Animals store all their cholesterol in tissue and muscle, (along with all the other chemicals that get pumped into them including antibiotics and  growth hormones just to name two), so whatever is in that tissue and muscle of the animal you're eating, you also get.  
3. Start eliminating the next animal product--dairy.  Besides having all kinds of saturated fat and cholesterol, just like meat, (some nutritional experts call dairy 'liquid meat'), the main protein in dairy is called casein--scientists now know that casein FEEDS CANCER CELLS.  Casein keep cancer cells alive, as does SUGAR.  So, not only do we protect ourselves from heart disease by eliminating dairy, we cut off the "food supply" to cancer cells.  
4. Start stocking up on all kinds of  vegetables, fruits, red beans, white beans, black beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, lentils, whole grains, and nuts and seeds.  There are ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES when making dishes from the plant kingdom.  Go on line, type in whole food plant based recipes, or Vegan recipes....you will be inundated with choices.  Start by making a few recipes for you and your family..believe me, there are so many choices you never have to be "bored".  

By getting rid of the foods that are responsible for making us fat and sick, and start replacing them with foods that give us loads of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals, (a substance found ONLY in plants that gives OUR body ammunition against all kinds of diseases), our body will begin to HEAL itself.

The answer to America's health care crisis is really SO SIMPLE...it's so simple that people doubt it.  However, if you do your research, you will find the medical research, (I only get my information from extremely reputable institutions such as Harvard, Berkeley, the Cleveland Clinic and Cornell), repeatedly proving what the POWER OF NUTRITION can do for your health.  

If Americans only knew how easy it would be to take their health back.....