“Why is there reticence to provide the public with guidelines that will spare them [Coronary Artery Disease] or its progression?” asked Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. MD, in an article published in The American Journal of Cardiology. “The National Research Council position was that a dietary fat recommendation lower than 30% would be too frustrating for those attempting to achieve a significant reduction. Although it is uncertain to what extent people will adopt the advice, it is nevertheless scientifically and ethically imperative to inform the public what constitutes an optimal diet,” He continued. “We must tell the public the truth about what is best for their health, and let them decide their degree of compliance.”
Dr. Esselstyn challenged an expert panel to answer these questions from patients: “I’ll do anything, but I never want to have heart disease” and “I’ve had a heart attack, and I never want another.” Answers ranged from having them “eat beans, beans, and more beans” to its “time for the public to embrace a plant-based diet.”
A plant-based diet is not the same as vegetarianism. Vegetarians often consume all sorts of less-than-healthful foods, such as oils, margarine, dairy products, and eggs. Vegans do too, for that matter. “This new paradigm is exclusively plant-based nutrition,” Dr. Esselstyn explains. In other words, it consists only of whole plant foods. Why exclusively? Because, as reported in the Cornell China Study, it appears that the more plant-based foods and the fewer animal-based foods, the better your health will be.
In a separate paper published in The American Journal of Cardiology, Dr. Esselstyn acknowledges that he is “acutely aware of the castigation that accompanies recommending a plant-based diet—namely that the recommendation will be met with skepticism and hostility on the part of the general public”—though less so these days as millions jump on the plant-based wagon. But that hostility is “peculiar,” Dr. Esselstyn continues, “because many cultures sustain themselves with such a diet, enjoying its taste, texture, and variety, as well as its health-promoting qualities. However, dietary preference is deeply personal, and one can easily be offended. Nevertheless, the public has a right to know the truth as understood by experts in nutritive biology about what constitutes the safest and healthiest diet.”
“Some criticize this exclusively plant-based diet as extreme or draconian. Webster’s dictionary defines draconian as ‘inhumanly cruel,’” Dr. Esselstyn writes. “A closer look reveals that ‘extreme’ or ‘inhumanly cruel’ describes not plant-based nutrition, but the consequences of our present Western diet.” Having a breastbone sawed in half for bypass surgery or a stroke that renders one an invalid unable to speak “can be construed as extreme, and having a breast, prostate, colon, or rectum removed to treat cancer may seem inhumanly cruel.” That’s what is truly extreme. Eating a plant-based diet is not only cheaper and safer, but also much more effective than drugs or surgery.
Eating a bean burrito is easy.
Nature knows best!
Adapted from Plant-Based Is Not the Same as Vegetarianism, by Dr. Michael Gregor.
Comments
Daniel Baldwin
Monday February 26th, 2018 at 11:04 AMGood article. Dr. Gregor is a good man.
Rob Chew
Friday March 2nd, 2018 at 04:19 PMWell said. I am staggered at the mentality of the world when it comes to health and well being. Do they want to be healthy and vital or sickly and on multiple medications to offset their unhealthy practices. We can’t have it both ways! Rob (RN)
Tumo Galeragwe
Wednesday March 28th, 2018 at 04:31 AMinteresting findings… the stones are beginning to speak…. the Lord spoke many years ago through His servant that a plant based diet is the way to go. how often modern Israel and those who are professing to be living in the last days mock at the thought of practicing a plant based diet and wonder why the diseases of the Egyptians are afflicting us as well as the ignorant is the same way?