Gut-Health/Whole-Health with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz & Settlers of Catan With Pre-K Kiddos
5.21.2020
Over the last few days, I’ve listened to the gastroenterologist Dr. Will Bulsiewicz podcasts so many times that I’m finally able to relay/condense some of his powerful, evidence-based gut-health info. Tangentially, his personal food arc lines right up with this passionate Mama Bear’s stumbling path forward; which couldn’t be more perfectly timed, because over the last few days I have gotten a lot of questions about how to shift toward plant-based whole-foods.
Tomorrow, we’ll go over the why and how, because I’m running out of time, don’t like to be on this computer when Q is awake, I’d like to give it a thorough winding, and if I stop writing early I can work on writing up the black bean brownie with cashew cream recipe. :-)
Today we’re going to go over:
the similarities in souls who line up the evidenced-based fact that plant-based whole-foods are the absolute healthiest diet, how they are also best for environmental sustainability (which will prevent the runaway climate collapse that could doom every species on this earth, and which we are causing purely for TASTE), and how once a person internalizes that, tries out plant-based whole-foods for themselves (which inevitably makes you feel stronger, healthier, happier, years younger) they are propelled so forward with passion they can’t help but try to shake others awake.
what mechanisms go on within that gut of yours and why you want to avoid animal products at all costs for the sake of your microbiome (<—which controls your whole health)
Continue for: 3 data-dense podcasts with gastroenterologist Dr. Will Bulsiewicz (Have cardiovascular disease, colitis, Crohn’s, IBD, depression, anxiety? You’ll want to listen); more before-and-afters in the lawn created by this plant-based powerhouse; Settlers of Catan and how it is great for teaching numbers, math, matching, sequencing, but also just one of the best dang games ever; a full day of plant-based family-feasting.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
Q’s Morning Chalkboard: I was running late due to yesterday’s dense essay on the cardiovascular system, so this is the crappiest of them yet. It was inspired by all the hearts on my mind and the fact that this little cub in my care has the biggest heart I’ve ever witnessed, but it’s intertwined with this fantastical/tentacular brain.
It’s a big ol’ Q heart with Doc Oc arms, tentacle arms, and a Cthulu face, and at first sight he said, “Is that supposed to be me?! I love it Mama!!!”
Plant Based Kiddo Breakfast: cacao oatmeal, oatmilk, and golden flax seeds.
Q’s Daily David Barber Drawing: “Doc Oc in his lair and that is Peter Parker up in one of those buildings.”
Just like yesterday, this was one of many and he’s filling his comic book log right up.
After he finished this, he moved on to 5 pages of pre-k homework.
I can’t get the collage setting to let me choose the order these go in :-), but here seen: a simple way to make sugar-free peanut sauce.
3tb peanut butter, 2 tb red curry paste, a good shake of berbere seasoning, one clove of grated garlic (or shake in some garlic powder), 1/2 tb lemon juice, 3/4 cp water.
Stir, microwave for a minute or two, enjoy.
Plant-Based Lunch: rice noodles with peanut sauce, quick-pickled red cabbage, bell peppers, roasted cauliflower, garlicky peas.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: black bean brownie, cashew cream, slight drizzle of peanut butter.
Q spent most of the afternoon drawing and drawing and drawing. When he wasn’t drawing, he was running over to tell me the stories behind the drawings, or running up the stairs to do the same with Ian. <3
I spent the afternoon out in the yard, listening (again) to the 2 Plant Proof interviews with Dr. B and then started his interview with the lovely ladies over at Switch4Good.
Boy Howdy are these three podcasts a wallop to the heart and mind. This household is already pretty well-versed in microbiome research because Ian brought it into our brainspace years ago when we cut out refined sugars/processed foods; but when I started listening to podcasts with gastroenterologists, I learned how our microbiome controls our whole health and how it is also degraded by animal products. You’d think that’d be enough to learn, but there is always something new to learn and the microbiome is such an important/fresh field that there is perpetually illuminating data, and these interviews with Dr. B taught me something new and different in each one.
Like the bulk of us, Dr B was eating the Standard American diet and rolling with the health harms associated with it (full of anxiety, working out for hours yet unable to control his ever-increasing weight), he met his plant-forward wife, decided to look into the research explaining how she could thrive while he struggled, has his mind blown right open with the “thousands” (<—his words) of studies that proved that plant-based diets are categorically best for our bodies. He decided to try it on himself, found his anxiety gone, his weight shed away, muscles came back with gusto, and he felt like he had reversed his age.
He couldn’t sit back on that personal anecdote, so he went right back into the research, and started trying it out on his patients and found that he was now healing thousands of gut-pained souls.
He could have stopped there, but he started doing podcasts trying to illuminate folks to the science of what is going on within in them, how their diets could both heal their bodies and the planet, and then he started writing this amazing book (which I have on order from the river’s end bookstore, and you should go order one too) because he couldn’t sleep knowing that there was so much people didn’t know, and that simple changes could revolutionize our collective health.
This arc is so familiar! Once you start trying this out you feel SO much better, you see that all the science is illuminating why (and exactly why animal products are harming you), you realize that the foods that are making you thrive are ENVIRONMENTALLY NECESSARY, and you can’t help but start trying to shake people awake.
Simon Hill had a similar path, Dotsie Baush had a similar path, so did Dr Dean Ornish, Dr Neal Barnard, Dr Kim Williams, Dr Danielle Belardo, Dr Angie Sadeghi, Dr Michael Greger, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr Michael Klaper, and the list could go on! Those last two souls are over 70, have been plant-based for decades, and are powering through life without medications…not wasting away like our culture assumes of plant-based folks.
Each and every one of those souls started out eating like you and me, but they learned a better path and found themselves stronger, healthier, and motivated to help as many souls as possible.
Once you start actually reading and listening to the mounting mechanistic data, you cannot deny the empirical truth that plant-based whole-foods are biologically necessary and animal products are harming you, and —as seen above— it isn’t this lone impassioned harpy sounding the alarm: it is every nutritionally-focused, evidence-based doc out there.
If you want to have your mind pried open and learn how important your gut-health is to your overall health, give Dr. B a listen: he started in epidemiological studies so he has a wise-wizard brain to discuss the data, but he is a practicing gastroenterologist so he’s seen first-hand how this diet is saving thousands of souls, and he also is down-to-earth so he explains everything in luminary detail.
I’d recommend starting with his first Plant Proof interview. It goes over:
The Microbiome and how it works
Dysbiosis and the many diseases tied to it
What can lead to poor microbiome (ANIMAL PRODUCTS, antibiotics, refined sugars)
How your microbiome is set up by age three (and how it is ruined)
Pre & Probiotics
How to cultivate healthy microbiome on a plant-based diet with lots of practical information to implement in your own lifestyle
Then give a listen to his newest interview, it goes over:
Writing his first book ‘Fiber Fueled’ (how he was launched into passionate writing just like so many of us, but he’s out there directly saving lives at the same time)
Eating like our ancestors -does this make sense? (Paleo diets were focused in surviving, not longevity. If you’re eating keto or participating in that insane carnivore-only diet, it’s like “driving down the highway without breaks”, cardiovascular disease is growing within you and it is going to come home to roost with a catastrophic cardiac event, diabetes, stroke, and participation in the climate doom that awaits us just so you can chase soul-flavor and disease.)
A recap on dysbiosis and gut health 101
How dysbiosis causes/contributes to a feast of auto-immune diseases, weight gain and chronic diseases (Have colitis, Crohn’s, IBD, depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease? You’ll want to listen)
The importance of fiber and all the different types
History of microbiome research and all the amazing new things we’re learning
Then check out the Switch4Good podcast interview for even more info!
The science of how to heal your gut
The gut/brain connection
Benefits of fermented plant foods
Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s nutritarian philosophy
Diet Rapidly and Reproducibly Alters the Human Gut Microbiome 2014 study
Dr. Bulsiewicz’s website: theplantfedgut.com
There’s health and participation in planetary healing if you open up your mind and start stumbling forward.
Before
After
Before
After
What I worked on through the afternoon: digging up this whole stone border, hauling compost, schlepping stones, then mowing the yard.
If you kick out a leg while bending over, it releases/spares any tension you would have put in that back by bending over, and it lets you get a good leg stretch and core practice. :-)
Plant-Based Family Feasting: potato soup with roasted broccoli, quinoa, hempeh, bell peppers, and quick-pickled cabbage. Topped this with hot sauce and nutritional yeast. <3
Family Fun for the night: Settlers of Catan. <3
Good for working in pre-k counting skills, number identification, sequencing, and building.
This has long been a favorite game of ours. We used to have nerdy board game nights in Brooklyn and fill our living room with teams of Catan players, we’ve played it with Ian’s mom, we’ve played it over repeated visits with my old highschool best friend, we once figured out a way to play with just the two of us, and now it is good for the heart to have a cub old enough to join in and love it just as much as we do.
Q is always jazzed to work toward resource cards and got himself the 2 point bonus of Largest Army. :-)
And found a way to make his pieces into another Sarlacc sculpture.
