It turns out that halting and reversing disease processes such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer may be quite an easy matter once you've mastered some simple diet modifications. I've now been eating a whole foods, plant based diet on a consistent basis for a year. Through this process, I've learned a lot about health, longevity, physical performance, and broken more than a few myths about nutrition for athletes.
First off, eating healthy does not need to be boring, tasteless, or unenjoyable. I've greatly increased the variety of foods I eat. I went from eating only meat, fried potatoes, and cheese with hot sauce to a wide spectrum diet including multiple types of beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fruit, mushrooms, and vegetables, all consumed throughout the day so I literally never feel hungry. Further, since none of the foods I eat are habit forming, I have no hunger induced anger or anxiety after prolonged fasts. I just eat until I'm full, then wait until I'm hungry and eat again.
Making this transition seems difficult, until you learn how basic substitutions of a few key healthy foods can easily replace unhealthy staples. For example:
Substitute beans for beef and pork. With this one simple modification, you can cut your risk of disease dramatically. Beans are heart healthy, much more nutritious than beef, low in artery inflaming fat, rich in fiber, and beans are much CHEAPER than beef or pork, especially if you buy them dry in bulk portions and soak them the night before cooking. If you don't like the taste, you simply need to learn how to season them. A dash of curry powder, black pepper, iodized salt, nutritional yeast, lime, and mustard can make beans taste delicious. You can mix and match different types of beans as well. Red, black, and other varieties of beans along with lentils, chickpeas, soy, and black eyed peas all have their own unique flavor profiles and nutritional benefits. Most importantly, none of them are associated with disease risk, and consumption of beans has been shown to be the most important single dietary factor that predicts lifespan. More than saving your life, eating beans has also been suggested as a way of saving the environment. Though leftists are generally wrong as a rule in matters of government, even broken clocks are correct twice per day. Raising beef consumes more water, cropland, money, and time than growing beans while producing tons of literal shit, and ironically, most of the soy produced in the US is grown to feed beef cattle. Why not simply eat beans yourself, instead of waiting for a cow to eat beans, be pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, get slaughtered, left to sit and collect bacteria, then pumped full of preservatives and left to rot on store shelves so you can take it home to overcook it and fill your arteries with inflammatory fat? And with reduced cattle demand, more land would be available for growing beans of all varieties or any vegetable food for that matter. With this one fix, we could literally fix the health of the nation and our environment. And on this matter, both environmentalists and ecofascists could potentially agree as well, so it may be a bridge to political compromise. Beans bring us together.
If you simply must eat meat, try eliminating just land mammals from your diet. That includes cattle, goats, pigs, deer, and carnivore meat. Instead, substitute all meat for fish, ideally fresh caught and frozen. Eating fish twice per week can guarantee proper amounts of omega 3's and vitamin b12 as well as sufficient protein while minimizing mercury intake. Fish twice per week is the only meat I eat anymore. It also helps to ward off common 'vegan problems' they don't like to talk about like demineralizing teeth, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal insufficiency, reduced sex drive, frail bones, and wimpy little muscles. Poultry is also fine, but does not contain the same amount of health promoting omega 3.
Substitute all fried foods for healthy snacks. Instead of potato chips, eat no fat baked tortilla chips with salsa. Instead of french fries, eat oil free baked potatoes, or if you crave something crispy, make oil free garlic sourdough toast. When you feel like binge eating, eat bananas until you aren't hungry anymore. Make oil free popcorn with nutritional yeast, cayenne, and salt for flavor. You can overeat those foods without worrying as much about your health.
When you crave sweets that are fruit flavored, eat actual fruit. There are so many varieties to try. Grapes, peaches, prunes, plums, apples, bananas, berries, etc. Why eat sugary imitations when you can have the real thing with actual nutrients?
Lastly, eat your damn vegetables. Cruciferous veggies, root veggies, and leaves of all kinds. They're good for you and they make you a well rounded adult. They aren't fun to eat, but exercise isn't fun either. You should damn well partake of both and grow the hell up while you're at it. Eat 3 servings per day, every day. One steamed, two raw. If you flavor your vegetables, you might as well take a Pilates class so you can workout the same way you eat: like a woman.
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