Happy Healthy Gut (7 page)

Kim was told nothing about what to expect with the surgery or the subsequent pain and recovery. She was given no information about proper nutrition for a Crohn’s patient, let alone what foods she should eat or avoid eating right after having the surgery. The parting communication that she had with her doctor was him trying to convince her to fill a prescription for the pain killer Demerol. She didn’t. Her Crohn’s symptoms were back within two months after
the reassurance of her doctors that she should experience one to twenty years of relief from the surgery.

At twenty-nine, she began a more natural process of managing her health that seemed to work, at least temporarily. Her regimen included daily doses of slippery elm, white willow, aloe vera capsules, oil of oregano, iron, and vitamin B12. She gave up alcohol, and started to pay more attention to her diet. This lifestyle change worked better than anything she had tried before, and the effects lasted for about a year before her chronic symptoms came back, coinciding with a series of stressful situations.

As I write this sentence, at the age of thirty-one, she is debating those steroids.

She is always exhausted, because she averages about two hours of sleep per night due to her inability to rest properly, something that is also symptomatic of Crohn’s. She is always in pain, which has led to chronic stress and low self-esteem. Among other ideas, she has recently had a specialist make the ludicrous suggestion that she eat only processed baby food! She is completely confused, and at a loss for inspiration. Recently, Kim discovered that she was approved for a new type of drug, administered via bi-weekly injections. This “miracle” medication will cost her $1200 per injection, unless she can get a government subsidy for it. That’s $2400 a month, more than double her monthly mortgage payment.

Kim’s doctors have never suggested she follow a restricted diet plan, rich in quality nutrients. She has met with numerous specialists over the years, and none of them have ever recommended making a lifestyle change that included stress-relief strategies, dietary improvements, exercise, or anything else that could help her without painkillers, steroids, or major surgical interventions. Drugs and surgery are all she can ever remember being discussed. She even admits that when she brings up the possibility of a more holistic treatment, her doctors become dismissive and even angry with her.

Why is the obvious question of food quality often left out of the initial diagnosis when it comes to digestive disorders? It’s confusing, and, unfortunately for those suffering, it’s the norm.

The situation with Kim has left us both feeling that there is something incredibly wrong with our current healthcare system. In a structural scheme where surgeries and medications come before common sense and dietary intervention, and where the average general practitioner in the United States completes only about two credits worth of nutritional training in their entire university career,
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what do we have to lose by taking our precious health into our own hands, and begin walking a road of healing by simply altering our own eating habits?

When we can’t fathom food as being something that directly affects or has the power to change our digestive health, what does that say about our relationship with it? When did food get put on the backburner as the answer to digestive health, never mind health in general? Why are we so relentlessly obsessed with turning to medications, whose results are typically menial at best, and whose side effects generally greatly outweigh any possible benefits or relief?

We live in a world that is sympathetic to our vices, and offers help in the form of a veil. We are significantly sicker now than ever before. We seem to have lost a lot of what originally got us here to begin with. Lives used to be lived for our families, our happiness, good friends, and good food. What words do you associate with these ideals?

I’ll bet the average American, without even knowing it, thinks of an Applebee’s when supplied with these images.

We need to get back to close families, outdoor recreation, breathing deep, slowing down, and eating fresh food that is even a little bit supplied by ourselves. It’s sometimes hard to remember that the correct answer is most often the obvious one. Need to lose
weight? Eat less, eat better food, and exercise more. Want better quality family time? Hang out together, play together, and talk amongst yourselves. Need to reconnect with old friends? Invite them over for a meal, laugh, and share your life a little. Everyone is looking for extra hours in the day, but how many hours do we spend in front of the television, on the phone, or staring at our laptops? By changing your food, you can change your life. You can ease digestion, encourage weight loss, aid elimination, reduce stress, and get back to Earth.

As in, “Earth to Jen! Are you there, Jen?”

I have been completely guilty of using every single one of the following bandage solutions in the past, but not anymore. Happily, I got back to Earth. (Yay!) You can too. This next list is my old assembly of quick fixes:

1. Diet pills or shakes for weight loss
   
2. Laxatives & stool softeners to induce bowel movements
   
3. Various over-the-counter meds to halt diarrhea
   
4. Sleeping pills to fall and stay asleep
   
5. Various vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements
   
6. Hemorrhoid cream to banish BFFs
   
7. Yeast infection medication to control sugary yeast issues in the nether-regions
   

All of these crutches can be completely eliminated by adopting a clean, whole, plant-based diet. They exist to mask symptoms and/or provide a temporary solution to a (usually) recurrent problem. None of these items are necessary to take for longer than a couple of days, and only in dire situations. Luckily, everything that they promise to solve for you, I guarantee that good, whole, thoughtful food can do significantly better. If you are going to eat the way that I outline later on in this book, you will never have a need for any of these things ever again. Food becomes your complete nourishment, and takes care of you in every single way. It’s like
being wrapped up in a warm blanket and rocked to sleep at night. You feel calm, happy, cozy, and in tune with your body. It’s crazy and awesome, and it’s about time.

“If Americans stopped overeating, stopped eating unhealthy foods, and instead ate more foods with higher nutrient densities and cancer-protective properties, we could have a more affordable, sustainable, and effective healthcare system.”
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—John Robbins,
No Happy Cows

Dr. Dean Ornish is the perfect example of how we have the power to change the conventional treatment of chronic disease. He is president and founder of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, as well as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
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For more than thirty years, he has worked to systematically to prove that diet and lifestyle directly contribute to coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and other western diseases. His philosophy includes adopting a healthy, whole food, plant-based diet coupled with stress reducing activities, such as yoga and meditation. Not only has Dr. Ornish been able to prove his theories about reducing the above diseases through diet; he has also proven that you can reverse them. His plan is so successful that various medical insurance companies in the United States, including Medicare, have agreed to cover his patients.
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Now that’s some serious proof!

Not only is this amazing news for those of us looking for ways to genuinely improve our own health naturally, but it’s also great news for our healthcare system. If we could all be prescribed this lifestyle change instead of the insane amount of drug prescriptions and surgeries, we could collectively save a lot of money, and a lot of tummy aches. I believe that an immense change in current medical philosophy and practice is forthcoming, but we could start healing
now. Why wait for the average Joe? Why not heal ourselves, and then help Joe heal himself too?

Dr. Ornish is not the only one campaigning for better nutrition. Other well-known professionals in the field of health include Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, author of
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
, who has been advocating a plant-based diet for almost thirty years, and Dr. T. Colin Campbell, co-author of
The China Study
. All three of these men live and breathe a healthy, whole food, vegetarian lifestyle, and all are in incredible health. Dr. Neal Barnard, author of
Foods That Heal
, is another famous American doctor who believes in the ability of plants to heal our aches and pains, and there are many, many more. No one else offers advice on how to prevent sickness, eradicate current disease, and improve quality of life in the same ways that these men do.

What do we have to lose, besides a few pounds and a sack full of prescription medication?

Many of you are probably skeptical as to why a whole food, plant-based plan works wonders, while other plans will also claim that they can do the same thing, but fail. This plan works because it’s not so much a diet plan; it’s a life plan; a full-on lifestyle recalibration of your entire way of thinking about and consuming food. You are making an active decision to change your life, because pain, among other things, is motivating you to do so. Armed with this powerful way of considering your food and how consuming it will help or hinder you, you ultimately end up eating food that is real, genuine nourishment. Your body recognizes the food as nutrients, and processes them accordingly. Pure foods create a clean result, and you will feel it almost immediately. This works, especially where digestion is concerned. There is a lot of information out there about how a whole food, plant-based diet can cure diabetes and heart disease, hypertension and obesity problems. Most digestive diseases
won’t kill you the way heart disease can, but they can certainly make your life a living hell.

In the book (and film documentary)
Forks Over Knives
, editor Gene Stone outlines on page five what many of the book’s featured physicians consider to be the key principles of a whole food, plant-based diet, and I’d have to agree with them whole-heartedly:

1. “Eat plants. The more intact, the better.” More intact, meaning less processed, less cooked, less messed with or altered. To receive the full benefits of plant foods(and they are countless), you should eat most of them raw, most of the time. Our bodies know exactly what to do with raw fruits and veggies, because they are small miracles of amazing digestion. Again, your tummy goes bonkers over these marvelous morsels!
   
2. “Avoid overly processed foods.” Foods that are highly processed, including meat and dairy, are stripped of their original nutrients (meat through cooking; dairy through pasteurization), and can no longer help your digestion but, instead, will hinder it. There are too many added chemicals, and your body becomes overrun, tired, and confused.
   
3. “Avoid preservatives and additives.” Again, these items obviously aren’t good for you. They are added to food for the sole purpose of being able to extend the product’s shelf life, which should be a warning sign right there. You don’t want to be eating anything that lives longer than your pet goldfish; especially in room temperature! (Ummm . . . did someone say margarine?)
   
4. “Eliminate dairy.” As a self-proclaimed dairy maniac, this one is sad, but so, so true. Dairy is not good for you, no matter how many milk posters you’ve seen. The dairy industry is a very lucrative one, and sadly, dairy is pushed for that reason
   alone. Lactose intolerance is probably the leading cause of digestive distress.
   
5. “Don’t worry about carbohydrates.” Yay! Don’t even try and tell me you’re not excited at this prospect. The anti-carb movement has been around far too long, and again, people are only getting more and more sick. Making smart carbohydrate choices (complex carbohydrates in the form of whole, unprocessed or minimally processed grains) will give you much more long-lasting energy and help you lose weight, not make you gain. There is way too much false information about the role of carbs out there, and we are paying the price. Carbs are not the enemy!
   
6. “Don’t worry about not getting enough protein.” Again, I realize you’re still in shock from the carbohydrate statement, but here it is again: don’t stress about your protein intake. Newsflash: vegetables contain protein! (Don’t fall over. In fact, maybe you should sit down.) We don’t need animal products, or even protein powder to crank up our consumption of this nutrient. There is a huge misconception about how much protein we need to be healthy.
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   Have you ever heard of someone in the developed world having a protein deficiency? Probably not. If you are consuming enough calories to keep you healthy, then you are getting enough protein. Are you sitting as suggested, or passed out on the floor in disbelief? Well, this fact is true, folks, and very well documented.
   
7. “Don’t worry about omega-3 fatty acids.” The reason that people fret over omega 3’s is because we’ve all been told that there needs to be a proper ratio (1:1-1:3) of omega 3’s to omega 6’s, and we eat far too many omega 6’s. Therefore, we must eat more omega 3’s. (I talked about their role in reducing inflammation in chapter four.) However, if we were all on a plant-centered, whole and healthy diet, that ratio would naturally fall into its proper proportions. Mother
   Nature knows what to do—trust her. Don’t manipulate or forget about her. Girls hate that.
   
8. “Consider a vitamin B12 supplement.” I will talk more about this special nutrient later, but the gist is this: we used to get enough of this naturally, but by messing up the quality of our topsoil through recent, crazy agricultural practices(broad-spray fertilizer/pesticides, etc), we don’t get it anymore by eating a plant-based diet. We are capable of obtaining enough of this vitamin by eating meat, because the animals have eaten enough of it via plants, and are passing it on to us. However, on a plant-based diet, you need to consider getting this nutrient in the form of a supplement.