3.22.2020

These days, we are in unchartered territory. I’m not sure how shuttered it is where you live; but in New York, all non-essential workers are to remain at home with their families.

How to fill our days with all this time? I’ve seen a smattering of ideas ranging from beautiful balcony serenades (<—heart swelling), crafts, TV binging, cleaning, hiking (<—our personal favorite way to soak up fresh air and Vitamin D), to people posting pictures of carcasses with the same intelligence/empathetic response as the pets-those-folks-may-have-alongside-them-in-quarantine. The saturated fats from that suffering creature will slide down their gullets, slip through their bloodstream like a fatty sludge, and render their endothelial system (<—crucial for immune support) sluggish and clogged. On a zero-waste group, I saw a woman trying to sort out the most environmental non-papertowel option to cool her bacon. When I pointed out that the World Health Organization has broadcasted has classified bacon as a carcinogen (back in 2015!) and that animal agriculture is ruining this planet far more than a pack of paper-towels (though you should ditch paper-towels and start using rags: they are cheaper, better for the environment), I was asked to leave the group. Pointing out imperative fact may be hard on people’s feelings; but my focus is far beyond the sensitive feelings of humans.

My focus is brightly beamed on informing us all that our environment is in dire need of our attention, your body (your child’s, your parent’s, your friend’s, etc) is harmed by the same animal products harming the earth and healed (made stronger/healthier) through plant-based diets), and by the way:

Mother pigs sing to their young and are traumatized when separated from their piglets because they are matriarchal-lead, highly social creatures.

Feelings about eating bacon and barbecue do not weight higher than any of the above.

I’d like to propose the radical idea that we use the extra time to wake up, and start learning and acting on the knowledge of how our animal & product diets are affecting the earth, harming and our bodies, and causing needless suffering to other species; because we have no time to lose, while now simultaneously having heaps of free-time at hand to LEARN HOW WE CAN TURN THE TIDE.

What a great moment to refocus bad habits and start on a new, healthier, kinder path, eh?

Below you will find: a book that will shake you into action as it explains how we are impacting every ecosystem on this plant (and how we can start fixing that damage before it is too late); a mind-blowing podcast lead by two neurologists about brain health, vascular health, and how animal-product-heavy diets lead to strokes (and how plant-based diets reverse the damage before you get to that point); an engaging, well-written book (by a doctor) on powerful foods that will boost your memory and how to keep it from slipping; another doctor-lead podcast, this one about how to heal your body and attack autoimmune disorders with plant-based diets (she healed herself from liver failure and Lupus); and a grocery list of foods that are as kind to your immune system as they are to the earth.

Move forward and live kindly, folks!

If ever there was a book to rattle your brainbox and explain clearly, empathetically, and abashedly why we need to change our dietary patterns, it is We Are The Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer. Order it now from your local bookstore (many are sending out deliveries to keep themselves afloat) or online if that is your preference. (Personally, my budget prefers libraries, but I know that they may seem an unsafe choice at present.)

Best part? Unlike me, he isn’t urging you to drop animal products all together (he found that too hard to do himself, and he’s very honest about it) he’s simply urging you to wait until dinner. As seen in the last photo above: look how much of an impact that would have!

”We Are The Weather” doesn’t involve any of the health harms associated with consuming animals (likely the reason he’d even suggest you still eat other souls for dinner) or go into what happens to those souls on factory farms (which I recognize can be vastly off-putting, so worry not), but he brilliantly explains the data behind the impact of animal agriculture on the earth, and why we need to move NOW (NOW! RIGHT NOW, FOLKS!) or the environment of the generations and species in our wake will be wrought with the positive feedback loop of runaway climate change.

This book is so dang good I’ve read it twice and I’ve only had it for a little over a month. It expresses with perfect urgency what was previously just a tangled howl of misdirection within me. “How to wake people up?! How do I articulate all this data I’m learning?! How to get them to SEE?!” It redirected that wail into fiery focus, and it will light you right up because it is full of fact and forward movement.

All of the above are also from “We Are The Weather”. Our world will be fatally wounded unless we adopt plant-based diets, and shocker: so will your body. You could heal two things with the same simple act! — All of the above are also from “We Are The Weather”.
Our world will be fatally wounded unless we adopt plant-based diets, and shocker: so will your body.
You could heal two things with the same simple act!

Environmental palate cleanser and living by the words I wail: this was my delicious/healthy/plant-strong lunch today. Black rice, black beans, roasted butternut squash, quick-pickled green cabbage, easy avocado, fresh green pepper, and enchilada sau… — Environmental palate cleanser and living by the words I wail: this was my delicious/healthy/plant-strong lunch today. Black rice, black beans, roasted butternut squash, quick-pickled green cabbage, easy avocado, fresh green pepper, and enchilada sauce.

What we eat doesn’t just affect the earth, it has serious ramifications to our health.

We knew that heart disease is the #1 killer in America (and that it is caused by diet and reversed by diet), but did you know that every 3.5 minutes someone dies of a stroke? (I had no idea!) Did you know that strokes are caused by blockages in your arteries that have built up from years of the saturated fats from animal products? The same diet leading you to heart disease, is the same diet that is leading you toward a stroke, and is the same diet killing this earth. Cut out the animal products and you have a healthier you and a kinder planet!

If you’d like to save your vascular system and blow your mind right open, I highly recommend this podcast interview with Drs Dean and Ayesha Sherzai. They are both neurologists (she has a particular focus in vascular neurology) and they explain what is going on within our brains in beautifully engaging, illuminating, down-to-earth language.

Best part? There is added information about brain health, chronic inflammation, how to re-navigate stress to positive outcomes, info on the gut-brain connection, how they are helping all the folks that just don’t know how their diets are affecting them (they even work to offer outreach within food deserts), what kind of fats you do want to eat (<— plant-based OMEGAS).

GOOD GRAVY, FOLKS! If you are eating the Standard American Diet (which I used to revel in) you are killing yourself from the inside out and aiding in the death of this planet. If you start eating plant-based whole-foods you may spare yourself from stroke death or recovering from a stroke and finding your abilities diminished.

Give this podcast a listen and have your mind and path rattled to action.

Currently reading through this. My bookmark? An old photo of me with the love/light of my life (my husband) using flashlights to write in the air. Why? This photo always reminds me of how elementally we are aligned (I’m the scattered nucleus, he’s t… — Currently reading through this. *My bookmark?* An old photo of me with the love/light of my life (my husband) using flashlights to write in the air. *Why?* This photo always reminds me of how elementally we are aligned (I’m the scattered nucleus, he’s the orbit) and how we are always growing forward: finding new ways to love life and be creative.

Here’s a taste of this book’s great insight.

Want to prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia? Want to be healthy and keen of mind as you age?

Step away from animal products, go buy as many plant-based whole-foods as you can, and then hunker down and gobble up this beautiful book by Dr. Neal Barnard. I love everything about him and all that he is doing to heal us flesh-craving humans. His writing is a joy to read and easy to absorb.

Dr. Barnard’s parents and grandparents all wasted away with dementia, and his medical movement has been about finding ways to solve American health calamities, showing us that our diets are the leading cause of most of our issues, and he’s working tirelessly to make us the healthiest/kindest versions of ourselves.

This book discusses how memory issues are caused, what to avoid if you want to keep your memory, what to eat instead (it’s the same as those healthy Blue Zones we hear so much about), how to strengthen your memory before it slips away, and why exercise is beneficial for your gray matter.

It even has a whole chapter about how various medications are bludgeoning your brainbox and setting you up for memory issues now and in the future; which is important for any of you on statins, prolonged allergy meds, and anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. NOT A SHOCKER: plant-based whole-foods are linked with lower cholesterol (because you’re not stuffing your cardiovascular system with saturated animal fats your body is not meant to process) and reduced/obliterated depressive and anxiety symptoms (because gut-health-is-mental health, your gut controls 90% of your serotonin, and those animal products are ruining it all). I can’t speak to the statins and cholesterol because those haven’t been an issue for me (never been on prescription meds), but I can say I was dang amazed at how my anxiety withered away and depressive thoughts went up like silly smoke when I changed my diet. Take away the harmful foods (for you, for the earth) hindering your serotonin levels and see for yourself.

Buy it for yourself, buy it for a loved one, buy it for the earth (who desperately needs you to listen up).

Do you or someone you know have an autoimmune disorder? My mother died of sarcoidosis and that disease has trickled out to other branches of the family tree. What breaks my heart and flames my brain, is that there were dietary changes recommended by the Sarcoidosis foundation, but they were never learned/adhered by my mother and she left this earth in April of 2016.

Have your doctors just pushed pills in your direction and told you life will never be the same again? Have they maybe even tried chemo on you thinking that would help? Did they even ask you what you’re eating or propose a nutritional shift?

Lest those seem like ignorant questions from a lady on a high hill, all of the above happened to Dr. Brooke Goldner when she was diagnosed with lupus and kidney failure at 16 years of age. Diet was never, ever mentioned and she felt many-times-more-ill on all the pills she was given and chemo she was subjected to. She was resigned to live out her life in pain and die early, but she powered through school to become a doctor, and then luckily for her (and all of us) she fatefully stumbled into her future husband (who was a physical trainer), learned about nutrition, healed herself with plant-based whole-foods, and is now out healing hundreds of other souls with autoimmune disorders and shedding as much light on the science as she can possibly amplify.

This amazing podcast interview made me cry, made me laugh, made my heart swell, gave me hope: it gave me ALL THE FEELS.

If you or someone you know have an autoimmune disorder you NEED to listen to this podcast! For you, for them, and again for the earth. (AGAIN AND AGAIN: what heals you, also heals the earth.)

Hmm…that distance between awareness and action. Sound like what is happening with COVID-19? Sound like what always happens with us? Now is the time to move forward, folks.

Delicious, nutritious, shelf-safe red lentils.

Last, but not least: if any of the above has crawled into your gray matter and rattled some resolve to move forward (for the sake of your health, the health of your loved ones, and the health of the earth): the folks over at Forks Over Knives (a great movie you need to watch, and a great website full of resources for vibrant health) have compiled a grocery list for souls seeking immune-boosting superfoods in this time of COVID calamity.