Sunday Song: We're Not "On Our Own" + The Doctors I Follow + Resources for Plant-Based Feasting
It was a week of disappointment that so many souls could see what we saw and think “I want 4 more years of that!”, popped with the relief that the candidate who actually has an environmental policy won over the soul who’s plan was to just keep pillaging-for-profit while denying/ignoring the science.
Tangentially, if you find yourself feeling solidly in the camp of “facts and science” over opinion and emotions, I’m here to remind you that a plant-based diet is recommended by the following agencies for robust health and environmental stability: National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, even the National Kidney Foundation.
We could take this zeal for advocacy and science, follow some world-saving/health-bettering/budget-lowering feasting guidelines (<—that are compassionate to boot!) and we’d be on our way to vastly bettering ourselves, our kin, millions of species, and the futures of vital ecosystems. What a positively delicious path forward, eh?
Continue for: a list of world-renowned doctors harking the evidence-based swell of reasons you should transition to plant-based feasting; links showing how/where-to-start; examples of what this family-of-3 is eating, how we’re keeping active, how we’re keeping our kindergarten kiddo’s mind keen through homeschooling; and Ghostbuster soundtrack repeats.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
Dr Will Bulsiewicz is a wonderfully illuminating/down-to-earth/research-based gastroenterologist and also the author of “Fiber Fueled”
Ashley Kitchens is a Dietitian hailing from North Carolina and will light your heart right up. I also previously mentioned her in this essay about your endothelium.
And here’s nutritionist and physiotherapist Simon Hill hailing from Australia, speaking some solid/helpful truths. Simon has conducted some of my favorite doctor interviews: Dr. Kim Williams, Dr. David Katz, and Dr Will Bulsiewicz, and Neurologists Dean and Ayesha Sherzai.
Need some more doctors? Here you go:
Dr Dean Ornish - world renowned cardiologist who proved in 1990 (THIRTY YEARS AGO, FOLKS) that diet could reverse heart disease, and he’s proved it repeatedly since. He’s also proven how to modify the expression of prostate cancer, and shown how diet affects telomere length (telomeres are tied to longevity). His Book Undo It, is a must-read; but if podcasts are more your thing, this one with Cardiologist Dr Danielle Belardo interviewing Dr Ornish and his equally illuminating/inspiring wife Anne is one heck of a great listen.
“After 16 years of review, Medicare recently agreed to provide coverage for Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease. This is the first time that Medicare has covered a program of comprehensive lifestyle changes.
Medicare reimbursement is really a game-changer. When reimbursement changes, so do medical practice and medical education.”
Dr Caldwell Esselstyn - PBWF octogenarian cardiologist spear-heading the “Heart Disease Reversal Program” at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic.
“In 1995 he published his bench mark long-term nutritional research arresting and reversing coronary artery disease in severely ill patients. That same study was updated at 12 years and reviewed beyond twenty years in his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, making it one of the longest longitudinal studies of its type. In July of 2014 he reported the experience of 198 participants seriously ill with cardiovascular disease. During 3.7 years of follow up of the 89% adherent to the program, 99.4% avoided further major cardiac events.”
Dr Neal Barnard - “has led numerous research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body weight, and chronic pain, including a groundbreaking study of dietary interventions in type 2 diabetes, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that paved the way for viewing type 2 diabetes as a reversible condition for many patients. Dr. Barnard has authored more than 90 scientific publications and 20 books for medical and lay readers, and is the editor in chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians, a textbook made available to all U.S. medical students.” [He’s also done brilliant research on autoimmune disorders, and I highly recommend his book “Your Body In Balance” or listening to this podcast where he discusses all the ways your diet is affecting your body.]
Dr. Will Bullsiewicz - “board-certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology and an expert in digestive diseases and the gut. Also won multiple awards and distinctions for his work as a clinician, and conducted research for/contributed to 20+ published scientific articles and 40+ presentations at national meetings.” He’s out there working hard as a practicing gastroenterologist and healing thousands of souls with his mind-blowing information about how our microbiome controls the health of our whole body.
Dr Michael Klaper -”For the past 40 years, Dr. Klaper has distinguished himself as a gifted general practitioner, internationally recognized teacher, and sought-after speaker on diet, health, applied plant-based nutrition and integrative medicine. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, Dr. Klaper has served in many capacities as a clinician with training in a wide variety of disciplines, including internal medicine, surgery, anesthesiology, orthopedics, obstetrics, and acute care.”
Dr Klapper also clinically proved that you can shrink/obliterate lymphomas through plant-based whole-food diets, and now he’s out teaching at medical schools and trying to wake up our fresh/new doctors to the importance of nutrition for the overall health of their patients…and he’s 72 and thriving without medications after decades of plant-based living.
Dr David Katz - “He is the founding director (1998-2019) of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Past-President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and Founder/President of the True Health Initiative, a non-profit organization established to defend and disseminate the science, sense, and global expert consensus about healthy, sustainable diet and lifestyle in the service of adding years to lives and life to years around the globe.” [This Nutrition Rounds podcast interview with him is one of my favorite informational wallops ever.]
Drs Neal and Ayesha Sherzai - brilliant neurologists who are proving how to prevent/reverse Alzheimer’s with plant-based whole-foods. [This podcast interview with them that discusses how our Standard american Diet leads to cardiovascular disease, which leads to strokes and Alzheimer’s, how they are working hard to stop us from that eventuality and even throwing community outreach into packed life-saving days.]
Dr Kim Williams - “Williams has served as president of the American College of Cardiology, president of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, chairman of the Coalition of Cardiovascular Organizations, and chairman of the board of the Association of Black Cardiologists, among other positions.[5]” He’s been promoting a plant-based diet for decades (after he had his own heart issues and looked into the research and learned he needed to change his diet). His podcast interview on Plant Proof is a MUST-LISTEN and titled “The Food We Eat Is Killing Us”. It explains in beautiful scientific detail all that I’m howling.
Dr Brook Goldner - “Dr. Brooke Goldner is a board certified physician. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with honors for genetic research in leukemia and neurobiology.” She healed her own autoimmune disorder (Lupus) and is now out healing other souls with the plant-based whole-food diet that healed her. [Her podcast interview on Switch4Good was mind-blowing and heart-opening.]
Dr Michael Greger - “Dr. Greger is a physician, New York Times bestselling author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety, and public health issues. A founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Dr. Greger is licensed as a general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition. He is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and Tufts University School of Medicine. In 2017, Dr. Greger was honored with the ACLM Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award and became a diplomat of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. His latest books —How Not to Die, the How Not to Die Cookbook, and How Not to Diet — became instant New York Times Best Sellers. His latest book, How to Survive a Pandemic, was just released in May. View the trailer for How Not to Die here, and for How Not to Diet here. 100% of all proceeds he has ever received from his books, DVDs, and speaking engagements have always and will always be donated to charity.” <— He also runs NutritionFacts.org which is a font of FREE helpful nutritional information! <3
Dr. Yami Carloza-Lancaster a super passionate/brainy pediatrician who now hosts a podcast all about pediatric nutrition (<—where she interviews even more doctors so you’re getting folded into evidence-based croissant of nutritional information.)
Dietitians James and Dahlia Marin are another beautiful example of souls who were raised with the foods we all love, were swimming in their own feast of chronic/preventable diseases, learned about plant-based nutrition and have now dedicated their lives to healing as many souls as they can. Dahlia is the focus of another favorite podcast “Understanding Your Gut And Raising Healthy Children With Dahlia Marin” (<—so helpful if you have kiddos and have questions on how best to feed them!) and James has another great one titled “Bettering Your Health With Environmental Nutrition” which includes some mind-opening insights on how Type 2 diabetes starts and how to STOP IT.
And Kiran Sidhu is a nutritionist out of British Columbia who also focuses on pediatric nutrition. She offers recipe ideas, Nutrition-Focused videos from a professional (not some Karen 😅), and offers individualized supports! <3
And the Plant Prescription podcast is a delight and hosted by Toronto medical students Muzammil Ahmad and Cass Warbeck. It is fillllllled with gloriously positive-yet-informative nutrition/health focused interviews with some of the world’s leading doctors.
All those doctors/medical-professionals voices aside, Simon’s focus on #8 of his list is KEY. If you’re like Old Me, you think plant-based diets sound weird and you can’t imagine it being sustainable over the long term.
Start small.
I started intuitively, and with small steps: by swapping out animal-product ingredients with healthier alternatives in meals I already loved to eat. It is untenable if you just leap right into the fire, you need to actually enjoy what you’re eating and know that it’ll be something you can come back to.
For example:
instead of putting milk in our coffee, we started adding deliciously-creamy oatmilk
if I was going to make tacos I used plant-based meat, beans, or lentil-loaf-meat and topped it with cashew queso and pickled delights.
I still made curry, I just made it with more vegetables and maybe a member of the legume family
I still made chili, I just made it without meat and it was better/easier/cheaper, and I was still able to serve it with cornbread. :-)
I made stir-fry with extra vegetables, topped it with peanut sauce, or ate it with a protein-dense grain like quinoa
instead of eggs I started making us oatmeal
I now make mushroom gravy (instead of muscle/organ gravy) to pour over mashed potatoes
instead of ice cream I started making smoothies or nice cream
The list goes on and could go in any vector. I did a lot of googling. :-) I’ve mostly kept our entire menu the same, it just orbits around a different protein and is full of way more beneficial fiber. If I need to find a substitution, I simply look online.
I show what we’re eating because a friend asked for that illumination, and I hope it inspires you to go set up your own healthy rotation. My particular amplification passion-point is where science meets food-love, illuminating what I’m learning, how we’re applying that information, and why it is imperative that we all do.
You’re going to find time and time again that plant-based whole-foods are the best for your body, they can be way more delicious than the old inflammatory junk, and you get the added benefit of removing yourself from a cycle of environmental harm and animal cruelty.
And there are soooo many sites out there that have a way better handle at how to write up recipes, so please go seek out your own tasty paths. In the meantime, here are a few food ideas from sites/sources that are bounds better than mine (and if cooking isn’t your thing, Your Kind Kitchen will have you handled starting in January):
“Plant-Based Primer: The Beginner’s Guide to a Plant-Based Diet”
“Whole-Foods, Plant-Based Diet: A Detailed Beginner's Guide”
“The Step-by-Step Guide to Finally Making a Plant-Based Diet Last”
How to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes through a Plant-Based Whole-Foods Diet
How Not To Die, by Dr. Michael Greger
Undo It, by Dr Dean Ornish
Your Body In Balance, Dr Neal Barnard
Watch the Forks Over Knives documentary
Watch the Game Changers documentary
Watch the What the Health? documentary
Or go back to any of my resource posts. There are feasts of great podcasts.
Plant-Based (almost entirely whole-food, with the exception of a little oil) Super-Simple Comfort Food: Shepherd’s Pie made with lentils, braised carrots, peas, our mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy I need to post soon.
Make a pan of something like this and you have feasting through the week! <3
Squash bisque (made with roasted squash, curry paste, garlic, bay leaf, water, and 2tb coconut milk); served with sesame green beans (steamed them with garlic, aminos, and toasted sesame oil), sunflowers, and sugar-free hot sauce.
Another handy item to use through a week of lunches and dinners.
What Ian’s mound of bisque looked like. :-)
Where’d the pretzels come from? That’s an old favorite past-time of mine and I’ve been working on how to make them with whole-oats and tapioca flour and have finally succeeded! <3
Lightly crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. These may be an eat-them-on-delivery/pick-up-day option for Your Kind Kitchen. Pretzels are always best the day-of, and these guys get gobbled up in a breath over here.
What it looks like the night before CSA pick-up: void of green.
There used to be months where I’d be lucky if I was consuming anything green, and now I’m visually alarmed when any meal passes through this house without green in/on it.
Here seen: hardshell tostadas with mashed potatoes (like a flauta), PBWF “refried” black beans, cashew queso, quick-pickled cabbage, and diced red pepper.
The visual wonder and relief of a CSA pick up.
An easy way to get kale into our kiddo is to saute it up with onion and garlic, throw in some tomato (we had leftover homemade sauce), and make a soup with some heart-healthy beans. He gets a load of fiber, plus greens so soft they are easily gobbled up (<—I hear a lot of folks ask how to get greens into kids who don’t like salads, and this is one of the ways we started). Beans are also one of the hallmarks of the Blue Zones mentioned by those docs above too. <3
And it’s not all soups and seriousness over here, sometimes it’s handy homemade popcorn. :-) (<—topped with canola oil, salt, paprika, nutritional yeast, and garlic... and sometimes also turmeric and black pepper.)
We used our delicata squash from the CSA to make something like a pumpkin pie, but Ian named it “Delicata Cake”. We used our crust bar as a base, and the squash was roasted and then mixed with cashew cream and cinnamon/nutmeg.
Topped it with a vanilla cashew cream, bananas, and almond butter.
Ground oats/flax/unsweetened-coconut topped with cashew cream, banana, flax, and chia.
You’d likely assume my days are filled with cooking, but we get that bulk out in the weekend and my days are then filled with homeschooling our cub (and starting a business).
Here seen more helpful guidance from Ian as we started our day the morning after the election night.
Q woke up immediately concerned with 4 more years of Trump, and worried for the rights of our beloved David. His second thought was to make a drawing “of David riding a Beetlejuice Sandworm, because he always loves a good spooky drawing with him in it and maybe it’ll make him feel a little better and less worried.”
And as we held our breath through the election-week, Q worked on his weekly theme (which he chose himself this time): Ocean Depth Zones.
We were at a funeral for my uncle on Monday, so his Tuesday had double worksheets.
We are set to acidify the oceans beyond repair by as early as 2050 if we don’t start making actions to reduce our emissions. HELP US! Wake up! <3
“I was working in trying to make the mouth look more three-dimensional…”
What he drew later. <3 (He’s never played the game, but he’s seen pictures after getting keyed up by the Audrey2 similarities.)
“Like math is connected to everything, these mushrooms and roots are all connected and speaking to each other in ways we can’t see.” <—Thoughts Q doodles on his math work that blow my jaw right open.
“It’s you and me feeding mosquitoes and deer flies to our own Audrey 2.”
Teaching his grandmother how he builds/names 3 digit numbers.
I could eat, create, and look at Q’s art all day long, but movement is essential to health so we also factor in some manner of cardio work every day. This is not something that comes naturally to me and I’ve never been a focused exerciser, so for us this means heading out to free parks, dancing to cheesy songs, jumping jacks to those same songs, yoga, occasional weights, and/or running around in the yard.
However you like to move (or however is bearable :-), if not enjoyable) just remember to factor it in. Your cardiovascular system and your microbiome thrive via cardio.
Hiking with my cub.
The Rand Tract is free, located in the South Side of Syracuse, and offers trails and streams to climb over.
Every time we come we try a different path and see something new.
“Mama! Take a picture of this flower for Aria. It’s so nice to see things still blooming!”
And we climb and scamper on the way in, and then run trails back to the car. <3
And if you can’t get out to a local park and you have a little yard: we run circuits around ours.
Zombie Tag :-)
Yard Dancing <3
And if you have no yard: dancing and jumping jacks can still be done inside, and we do both most mornings.
Here seen: a kiddo who still wants to wear his Beetlejuice suit and is forever asking, “Mama, can I have this dance?” <3
Thanks to Ghostbusters2 the most-listened to song in the house this week was Bobby Brown’s “On Our Own”, Q could not get enough of it.
Why? Apparently “the singer’s voice and the rhythm make me want to dance every time!”, it was true because he couldn’t stay still and most of the things he drew this week were to the tune of him singing the background “Ooo Ooo Ooo OooOooOoo”s to himself while shimmying.
It also worked well for ELA rhyming work and discussions about how the lyrics tied into our environmental/nutritional/compassionate howl with it:
If you want something bad ya, you gotta wanna give your all
'Cause I believe so much in we and know we're not kidding
If you feel the same as me, yo, you gotta want to take the ball
And those lyrics are obviously taken vastly out of context to the original intent of the song, hence why we also discussed how “doing it all on [our] own” is the opposite of this household’s mind-frame: we’re best when we work together with the understanding that we’re all connected.
Fun tangential side note: that emotionally charged slime from GhostBusters2 really resonated with Q and his already deeply empathetic awareness of how energies radiate out and affect others. He later had a dream where someone had snuck into Willy Wonka’s imagination room “but they weren’t aware that the chocolate had the same abilities as the Ghostbusters slime, the chocolate was LIVID, and it shot them right out.”
”Emotional Chocolate” will definitely be our first band name.
And speaking of connectedness: behind all of the political/environmental/homeschooling/health whirl is the background sprint of starting a business from scratch with one of my favorite souls.
We got our business account set up and we unexpectedly held court with a lobby of tellers who all want to sign up for Your Kind Kitchen in January. There’s a lot of excitement and excited/anxious squealing over here as of late. :-D
And then behind all of the above is deep-seated appreciation.
Here seen:
Q when he found out Biden had won and was jumping up and down in pure joy because he cares about the environment and the rights of his fellow Americans.
The sort of kiddo who waits all year for leaf piles and can spend hours in pure joy with this free-fun.
Q, Ian, J: the prints of a family who had just been running around in dewy grass. <3
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
