Let's talk about heart disease, the Number 1 Killer in America. The typical dietary advice from the American Heart Association's guidelines is a DANGEROUS DIET. It really is not likely to protect you from having a heart attack and does not allow heart disease to reverse itself. Remember, MODERATION KILLS. The fact is that this kind of dietary advice still allows heart disease to progress in the overwhelming majority of patients...just take a look around.
The American Heart Association recommends that cholesterol intake be less than 300 mg a day. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs...the total amount of cholesterol that one should be eating a day is ZERO! Again, our body knows what it needs....cholesterol is manufactured in our liver....we do not REQUIRE anymore. As a matter of fact, Dr. Joel Fuhrman tells us he doesn't allow more than 300 mg of cholesterol per WEEK in his patient's diet. There have been more than a dozen studies demonstrating that the majority of patients with coronary artery disease who follow the American Heart Association's guidelines have their conditions worsen. And we wonder why heart disease is still the Number 1 Killer. No study has ever shown that the patient who follows an American Heart Association diet can reverse or stop the worsening of coronary artery disease.
However, numerous studies have documented that heart disease is reversible for the majority of patients following a Whole Food Plant Based diet. Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and Dr. John McDougall have treated thousands of patients with a Whole Food Plant based diet with astounding results!
Medical literature continues to refer to the diet recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program as "low-fat". By worldwide standards it should be called a high-fat diet, but what's more important is, it should be called a low-nutrient density diet---a diet with dangerously low levels of plant nutrients. No matter how poorly they eat most patients believe that they are eating a healthy diet. They believe that eating chicken and fish is somehow healthy merely because they are not eating red meat. Chicken and fish is just as "heart dangerous" as red meat....switching from red meat to "white" meat does NOT LOWER CHOLESTEROL! If you are eating something with a face and a mother, you are eating their cholesterol too.
By following a Whole Food Plant Based diet, we will get so many heart protective factors such as FIBER, antioxidants, folate, and several phytochemicals (nutrients found only in plant foods that give our cells ammunition). When eating animal products, we get ZERO amount of fiber, ZERO amount of phytochemicals and a boatload of saturated fat and cholesterol.
It's time to take responsibility for our health. Only we have control over what food goes into our mouth....and the food that goes into our mouth is what will either CREATE HEALTH or CAUSE DISEASE!