New Resources: Three Good Listens and a Documentary You Need to Watch
3.10.2020
This weekend we had an extra CSA pick-up, which lead to a full Saturday of cooking through the unexpected bounty; and then a Sunday of exploring local streams and trails. I used to spend cooking days and driving-time singing away to my favorite mix on Spotify, but now I’ll often turn on podcasts for parallel continued learning.
Why? This family is healthier and more energetic that we’ve ever been, and I could coast on the self-satisfaction of that anecdotal relief; but is important to me to keep learning why so I can relay that information and help as many loved ones as possible.
Why would I use my precious time on such a venture? Because too many souls follow outdated and misguided info to comfort their harmful food choices, and those choices are not only increasing their risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, hormonal diseases (thyroid, infertility, breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc), and diabetes: they are destabilizing our environment.
This isn’t just a lone Cappello hill: plant-based diets are supported by physicians because the data shows they promote better health and can reverse heart disease and diabetes!
Knowing that most folks don’t have the time, desire, or passion to learn about their health (and the planet’s health) as much as I do, I’m working on sifting through the noise to show you the pieces I find most illuminating and mind-opening.
Started the weekend with the Dr. David Katz interview. This is a slice of what my daily logs look like. They are mostly filled out after something has been done, but with cooking I’ll map out what I’m aiming to accomplish. We had a visit from my father (who has been gone since early January), so that butternut squash and black rice were tabled for another day.
There are a feast of fantastic health-focused podcasts out there, but Nutrition Rounds has quickly become my favorite. It is focused on plant based nutrition through an evidence-based approach; which means it goes deep into the weeds of fact, research, and explanation.
Dr. Danielle Belardo has all the enthusiasm and intelligence of Allie Ward (<--Ologies is another fun and witty podcast), and Dr. Belardo is using those powers to interview health professionals in an engaging and illuminating way.
What many of y'all may not know is that our doctors have almost no training in nutritional sciences (the standard is one class requirement where they get a brief overview...and pending on how old your doctor is, imagine how much has changed since that one class!), and this podcast is aimed at informing *them* by interviewing leaders in the field of research and application. The rest of us are just lucky enough to listen in and learn along with them.
This interview with Dr. David Katz is a great one to start on because he is even-keeled 100% pure research and science.
"We discuss research methodology in nutrition science, why the world needs to follow a plant predominant diet for both our health and the climate, the pseudo confusion created in the nutrition space, keto debunked and much, much more."
Think health professionals are all on different pages? He explains where there is concrete, complete consensus. Gobbling down processed foods day in and day out? He explains why you should step away from that bag of fried inflammation. Trying a keto diet and think it is making you healthier? This will explain how it is just the Atkins Diet 2.0 and you are riddling yourself with cardiovascular distress (<---remember that Atkins died of a heart attack). He even explains how you could do a form of keto without hurting yourself or the planet.
Still want to eat meat? Katz is working in harmony with omnivore doctors through the True Health Initiative to come to an agreement on how much you can handle and still be your healthiest self.
What my hands were working on while my brain was buzzing.
What you see above is health, antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and FIBER and what you’ll learn through this amazing interview with Gastroenterologist Dr. Angie Sadeghi is just how much your body relies on fiber for physical and mental health.
If you struggle with depression or bloating, you’ll want to give this a listen. She even explains why that FODMAP diet is terrible for you.
Your micro-biome is reliant upon a thin mucus layer that is fed by fiber and degraded by: alcohol, sugar, and animal products. The degradation leads to distress, bloating, SIBO, and that leaky gut you hear so much about.
We’ve already gone over the mind-blowing statistic that 90% of your serotonin is created in your gut, but did you know that roughly ***75%*** of your micro-biome is found in your colon?! (<—That shocked me so much I’m still shocked!) You want to make that organ as happy as possible, and to do so you need to give it as much fiber as possible and to stop eating animal products.
Why animal products? Because they create TMAO (Trimethylamine N-Oxide) which is a metabolite caused by consumption of animal products. Animal products are high in choline (all of them: cow, pig, chicken, eggs, and fish), when choline hits your gut micro-biome it is converted to TMA, and your liver converts the TMA to TMAO. TMAO is associated with cardiovascular decay, colon cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer, kidney disease, increased diabetes risk, the list goes on.
How many of y’all know someone with any of the diseases I mentioned? With a stent? On a statin?
Dr. Sadeghi is also a vocal proponent of eliminating dairy due to its ties to all-of-the-above, plus its link to eczema (which she suffered from before cutting out dairy), and the brain-bursting fact that the composition of cow milk is packed with enough leucine and protein to double a cow’s weight in 40 days. Shocker, we aren’t supposed to be the size of a cow. We humans double our weight in 180 days and are meant to be weened around 2 years of age. We should never be consuming milk into adulthood, because it is just filling our bodies full of unnecessary growth hormones (<—milk is meant to grow infant animals not adults!) and continued consumption perpetuates the growth of cancers.
Did you know that even Canada removed dairy from its food pyramid and we have doctors here in the United States trying to do the same thing, or to at least post warnings that it is linked to cancer? Did you know that 70% of humans are lactose intolerant and that the numbers are higher in those of Asian and African descent? Did you know there are doctors out there (like Dr. Milton Mills) stating that the American Dietary guidelines pushing milk are institutionalized racism?
All of the above should make you realize that the introduction of animal products is an open door to terrible diseases and GI distress, and that cutting them out of your diet will leave you and the planet healthier; yet, I still have at least one soul a week repeating the erroneous belief that they need animals products for protein (despite all the abundant protein found in plants) and when I explain all the health risks, I get: “but we are designed to eat meat!”
Fun fact: our bodies are not designed to process meat. We have the flat-fiber-grinding molars of herbivores, no carnivorous claws and teeth for catching prey, unlike carnivores our digestive tract is long to process plant fibers, and our persistence on suckling another animal’s breastmilk into adulthood is leading us toward terrible health.
Sunday stick sword-fighting with my son at Filmore Glen State Park. Previously, this would have been a day to be on the couch wrapped around an ice pack and full of ibuprofen, yet now I’m full of fiber and free from pain.
Dr. Danielle Belardo’s interview with Dr. Neal Barnard is the most mind-opening of them all. At this point, I think we may all know that consuming processed foods is bad for our health, or that the foods we eat will affect our gut (ie the first 2 podcast confirmed things I had already learned through other research, but were great refreshers), but I had no idea how interlinked our foods are with our hormones.
Have you or someone you know suffered from: thyroid diseases (hyper and hypo), breast cancer, fibroids, PCOS, infertility, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, Sjogren’s Disease, or debilitating menstrual cramps? You need (NEED) to give this a listen or go read his book.
Most of you know that we dealt with infertility and that the road to Q was drenched in tears. What you may not know, is that I used to have menstrual cramps so bad that they’d lay me low for a whole day. When I was in school, this involved my sweet father driving over to pick me up so I could go home and continue to vomit from the pain. My cycles came with staggering pain, dizzying headaches, cold sweats, and I couldn’t speak above a whisper because it’d send a howl of pain through me so bad I’d throw up again. I spent my days wrapped around an icepack and full of ibuprofen.
When I cut out dairy (<—which was HARD because if you know me, you know just how much I LOVED dairy), all of the above went away. I didn’t understand why and didn’t want to post about it without knowing the root cause, but through this podcast I learned that I was absorbing high amounts of estrogen from all that cheese, and that higher levels of fiber eradicates the worst of menstrual-pain symptoms because fiber binds to estrogen and flushes it from our bodies, and that this has been known for years!
Regardless of how you feel about eating animals: you owe it to yourself to cut the dairy, eat more fiber, and give this podcast a listen so you can give your body better health and your mind the information to explain why you’re feeling better.
Monday: Vitamin D on a 65º day with a transplanted Coney Island Polar Bear Club cub.
Last but not least, we finally watched What the Health.
“The film follows intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases – and investigates why the nation’s leading health organizations don’t want us to know about it. With heart disease and cancer the leading causes of death in America, and diabetes at an all-time high, the film reveals possibly the largest health cover-up of our time. With the help of medical doctors, researchers, and consumer advocates, What the Health exposes the collusion and corruption in government and big business that is costing us trillions of healthcare dollars, and keeping us sick.”
Just when I think I’ve heard and learned it all (<—which will never be the case, because we should always be learning and growing), I had my heart ripped open as I learned about dietary consumption of dioxins, how much is in animal products, and how it doesn’t leave our bodies…unless you are a female and it passes through the placenta or out of your breastmilk into your baby.
Lest the above make you think the movie is a downer: it is full of doctors illuminating how plant-based diets are better for your bodies, what exactly all those animal products are doing to you on a cellular level, and it ends with souls who have healed themselves and are thriving by cutting out the foods that riddled with them with disease. Like Gamechangers and Forks Over Knives it is the sort of movie that leaves you feeling inspired with the fire to move forward and change your health/life/soul for the better.
Sunday with the two souls most precious to me on this Earth: healthier and happier since shifting to plant-based whole foods.
Folks, knowledge is power and growth.
I’ve never been happier to be free of animal products, or more heartbroken to see how many souls I love still gobbling them up.
Take what I’ve told you and ignore it, and accept full culpability in the ruination of our only planet and the only body you have.
Or read, listen, watch, and grow along with us. You’ll leave behind disease, animal cruelty, planetary harm, and move forward with health, vitality, & environmental kindness.
