To find out what is healthy to eat and drink:

This is the book for you. This is the book for everyone. From Atkins to Dukan, fear of the almighty carb has taken over the diet industry for the past few decades—even the mere mention of a starch-heavy food is enough to trigger an avalanche of suspicion. But the truth is, carbs are not the enemy- they are our friends. Now, best-selling author John McDougall, MD, and his kitchen-savvy wife, Mary, prove that a starch-rich diet will help you improve your health, lose weight, prevent a variety of ills, cure common diseases, and affect the earth in a positive way. The Starch Solution is based on a simple swap: by fueling your body primarily with carbohydrates, you’ll feel satisfied, boost energy, and look and feel your best. Based on the latest scientific research, this easy-to-follow plan teaches you what to eat and what to avoid, how to make healthy swaps for your favorite foods, and smart choices when dining out. The Starch Solution explains the healthiest way of eating on earth. You'll not only improve your health, you'll shed pounds, save money, and help save the earth. It will change your life. To order: http://www.drmcdougall.com/store_starch_solution.html or go to Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Starch-Solution-Regain-Health-Weight/dp/1609613937/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329158755&sr=8-1

Disease promoting TV commercials, ads, and billboards

We are unknowingly bombarded by incorrect and disturbing information in our everyday lives- in TV commercials, in newspaper and magazine ads, and on billboards. What a sad thing. There are many of these misleading ads.
Here are 5:

1) On a TV commercial sponsored by the corn syrup business: To music in the background, a nice, smiling person in a beautiful corn field reports that scientists have proven that corn syrup acts exactly like sugar in the human digestive tract- that there is no difference.

And this is their selling point? They're counting on a naive public to be unaware that sugar kills (as well as corn syrup), that it is highly addictive, that it promotes diseases: cancer, heart disease, diabetes II, alzheimer's, obesity, and others. Processed white sugar has been compared by doctors to cocaine addiction as it is so hard to give up.
What a preposterous commercial. Isn't the corn syrup corporation aware of the health hazards of sugar and corn syrup? Yes they are the same. They are equally unhealthy!

2) There are several TV commercials for prescription drugs that state: "When diet and exercise aren't enough..." then they give their spiel for the need to take their drugs. What a lark. Take Lipitor for example, a drug to reduce cholesterol. If people wouldn't eat cholesterol in the first place, they would not have a cholesterol problem, plain and simple. There is cholesterol in all foods from animals. There is no cholesterol in plant foods. So, if your diet was healthy/plant based, you would not have a cholesterol problem- period. Diet and exercise would be enough.
Also be aware that all prescription drugs have harmful, unhealthy side effects, and are expensive. You are paying to be unhealthy, in more ways than one.
And if you do take prescription drugs for a diet related disease, the pills don't cure the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on a cut that never heals.
You can cure a diet related disease by turning to a low fat, plant based diet. See "The Starch Solution" in the Welcome entry of this blog.

3) In large print on a large billboard advertising a fish market along the highway in a southern state: "Fresh Farm Raised Catfish"
What a terrible, unhealthy selling point. This company obviously is hoping customers don't know the distinction between "Wild Caught" and "Farm Raised".
Maybe the company themselves don't know the distinction!?

A wild caught fish is caught in the wild- from a river, lake, or ocean. In other words, it has had a normal fish life.

A fish that is farm raised has been raised unnaturally in misery its whole life.
It is raised in a situation where it has to breathe its own sewage its entire life with many other fish in a confined area. Many people think, "so what, a fish has such a small brain, who cares?"
Fish are sentient beings that experience pain and stress. Having to inhale their own urine and excrement their entire lives makes their flesh unhealthy for human consumption. And by the way, fish is not health food. Besides containing cholesterol and saturated fat, fish are sponges for pollutants.

4) I pick on McDonalds alot, because they deserve it. Almost ALL fast food restaurants sell junk foods. I used to eat them. Now I understand what's in them. If you are what you eat, and you eat junk, what does that make you!?
I used to be a junk food junkie, until I became informed.
If we stop buying their junk, maybe fast food places would start serving healthier fast food. It is possible as there are a few individual fast food restaurants in western states that are offering healthier choices. We need to vote with our dollars folks. First, the general public needs to be educated.

On a highway McDonalds billboard, in large print by a huge burger:
"$1 buys Happiness."

It should read, "$1 buys disease and animal misery."

Educate yourself what is in that burger. Please click on the link:
http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/11/pass-pink-slime.html

McDonalds only uses factory farmed cows for their burgers. All factory farmed animals are raised in misery their whole lives.
So the next time you think about eating a McDonalds/any fast food burger, keep in mind, there's misery on the menu.

5) And my favorite commercial, (or least favorite) would be the milk mustaches. On posters in well-intentioned school cafeterias, on billboards, on TV commercials, in magazines and in newspapers, the dairy industry has plastered this unhealthy message everywhere brainwashing children and adults into thinking they need the milk from a cow to be healthy. If people were cows this would hold true. The milk from a cow is intended for its calf, not a person. I have written many blog entries on this topic. A recent one is two entries down: http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-am-sad.html
In the entry "I am sad" I list several links dispelling the dairy myth. All foods from a cow promote diseases in people: cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes II, bone disease, and more. Please check out the links in "I am sad" for the truth on dairy.
We are the only country that consumes the milk from another animal.
We have been duped folks.

(And by the way, regarding the picture at the top of this entry with the kids watching TV, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) uses only factory farmed chickens- again, misery on the menu. Boycott! Do not buy. If we do not buy, hopefully they will start using only respectfully raised chickens, called free range.
At the very least, try to decrease your consumption of food from animals.


When I see all the incorrect information advertised out there in the world, the first thing I think about are children- unsuspecting, innocent children. It is time to get to the bottom of what is healthy for our kids, and what is not. We must all educate ourselves, and spread the word. There is a small growing army of people who are becoming "in the know". Maybe not in our lifetimes, but in the future there will be only TV commercials, ads, and billboards that promote the health of our children.

Plant foods, particularly vegetables are the real health foods.

Health for the Ages

Make “eat your vegetables” a timeless prescription.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/visions-now-next#/now
Scroll down.

Submitted by Peter

I am sad.

I am a school assembly performer, on a tour across the U.S. to almost every state, presenting programs on fitness and health. At the end of one of my recent shows, a little boy, maybe a 2nd grader? came up to me and asked,
"Is milk healthy?" The question probably came to him after I explained in the show that the two healthiest drinks for people on the earth are good clean water, and freshly squeezed juice from fruit or vegetables.

On previous tours years ago, I was much more vocal and honest in front of my audiences about the unhealthy qualities of food from animals, even if it got me in trouble. I even went so far as to say, "The two most dangerous foods for people are cheese and butter, because of their high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol." You can guess that this did not go over well in Wisconsin! I did not mention that dairy foods can cause Crohn's Disease in humans, irritable bowel disease, colitis, can contribute to obesity, diabetes II, and that all foods from a cow contain cancer promoting substances called casein and estrogen. Excess estrogen is linked to prostate and breast cancer. I did end my negative dairy message years ago with a question: "What is the natural purpose of a mother cow's milk?"
(answer of course to feed its calf)
In North Dakota where the state drink is milk, after seeing my school program, some kids went home and told their parents that this guy suggested that milk is not healthy to drink. This upset parents, who may have been dairy farmers, who in turned complained to the school principals, who in turn complained to my boss, who in turn demanded I take this message out of my shows. So- from that moment on, I had to choose my job over telling the truth to students about milk.

Back to the 2nd grader who asked if milk was healthy- I was handcuffed.
As much as I wanted to tell him, I told him that he must study to find that answer, that I knew the answer but I could not tell him- that he must find the answer for himself.

Abraham Lincoln said, "The truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstance."
Well, Mr. Lincoln, in a perfect world, that statement would be true. Here are links that provide proof that dairy is unhealthy, unless you are a calf:

http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/10/this-is-must-see.html

http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/09/got-courage.html

http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/08/got-facts-on-milk-milk-documentary.html

http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2011/09/two-most-dangerous-foods.html

It is amazing to me, that even when people are presented the truth about the milk from a cow, they discount the information and continue to consume dairy products. If it's not broke, no need to fix it right? Well it IS broke. Did you know that cow's milk is infected with viruses such as bovine leukemia virus? http://greg-foodforthought.blogspot.com/2012/08/milkit-does-body-harm.html Maybe if someone gets sick, it'll be enough to change their minds. Maybe not. Some people resort to medication, mistakenly thinking it'll fix the problem, when in actuality the only way to heal or prevent a diet related disease is to turn to a healthy starch-based, plant-based diet- which does not include consuming the excretions/milk from another species.

In hind sight, the next time students asks me if milk is healthy, I'll give them a hint by leaving them with a question, "What is the natural purpose of a mother cow's milk?"
I could also tell them they can find the answer in the books "The Starch Solution" http://peopleforplants.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-atkins-to-dukan-fear-of-almighty.html, or "Eat To Live" http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/ETLBook.aspx.
The titles are easy to remember.

Here in America, I cannot tell an elementary student the truth. I am sad.

Fat, sick, and nearly dead...

Check out this 13 minute audio interview. Joe got his health back, by adopting the People For Plants lifestyle. Click "Download audio".

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/joe-cross-fat-sick-and-nearly-dead/3691648

Submitted by Peter

* Comment from a reader: "This is wonderful. It's funny how 'juicing' is seen by the medical professions and dieticians as being not so good and yet here it, along with a healthy diet, cured disease that couldn't be cured with medication.
We should be looking at food and lifestyle more often than just getting a prescription, but unfortunately that's harder for people to do given so many issues we have with affordability and resourcing of pure food.
I know that juicing is a great way of getting nutrients that couldn't otherwise be eaten. It's helpful in addition to daily food for children."

Editor's comment: If you take prescription medication for a diet related disease, the pills never heal the disease. It's like putting a band-aid on a cut that never heals. The best way to prevent disease is with a low fat, plant based diet.
If you do have a diet related disease, it can be healed with a low fat, plant based diet: "The Starch Solution".

There are two main rules for getting the most out of your vegetables:

– one is eat lots of different colored vegetables (not just the green ones)
and the other is never ever boil them. Boiling vegetables is a food crime. Besides nuking important nutrients, it also kills off delicate flavors, giving good vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts a bad name. If you ever wondered why Australia’s vegetable intake is low, boiling deserves some of the blame.
But while we’ve learned that lightly steaming is the best way to preserve flavor as well as nutrients like vitamin C in cooked vegetables, how well do other methods like roasting and stir-frying do when it comes to locking the food value in?
They’re pretty good, according to nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton in her latest book, The Choice Guide to Food – how to look after your health, your budget, and the planet.
“There’s not a lot of difference between stir-frying and steaming, as long as the stir-fried vegies are still crisp,” she says.
Stanton rates roasting as the next best way to preserve nutrients, especially if you wrap vegetables in foil. Stewing vegetables – as you might do in ratatouille or in a casserole - is okay too. You might lose some of the vitamin C and the B vitamin folate but most of it will go into the cooking liquid and be part of the meal, she adds. That’s assuming you don’t soak your vegetables in water first - another good way to sacrifice vitamin C.
But sometimes cooking can make it easier to get some nutrients from vegetables - carotenoids, an important group of around 600 plant chemicals found in brightly colored fruit and vegetables, are absorbed better from cooked vegetables than raw. That doesn’t mean you have to cook every carrot – they still contribute useful amounts of carotenoids in their raw state, says Stanton who suggests eating some of your vegetables raw, and some of them cooked.

As for what to dress your vegetables with, olive oil vinaigrette trumps fat free dressing every time.
“Carotenoids are absorbed better when some fat is eaten at the same meal – so adding a dressing with extra virgin olive oil or cooking tomatoes in olive oil helps to absorb these valuable compounds,” Stanton explains. "Make sure to always use olive oil (or any oil for that matter) sparingly, as it is pure fat, virtually zero nutrients. The fat you eat is the fat you wear."
But whatever the cooking method, the fibre content of vegetables is bullet proof and won’t be lost – even if your beans are soggy.

Along with the right cooking techniques, there are other ways of getting more bang for your buck with vegetables. Many nutrients work better as a team than all by themselves – which helps explain why eating a broad mix of fresh food is good for us. You’ll absorb more iron if you eat a vitamin C rich food with your iron food, for instance – think tomatoes or red capsicum with a plant source of iron like red kidney beans.
Tossing avocado into a salad can also make a difference. Along with its own package of vitamins and minerals, it has a similar effect to adding olive oil – the healthy fat helps us capture more nutrients. In a study at Ohio University, researchers found that the fat in avocado helped to absorb more of the antioxidant lycopene and more carotenoids from tomatoes. The same researchers found that when volunteers ate a salad they absorbed four times as much lutein from the leafy greens when avocado was added to the mix – lutein is the antioxidant credited with protecting against vision loss from macular degeneration.
Another winning combination could be broccoli paired with spicy salad vegetables like radish, rocket or watercress – University of Illinois researchers say that an enzyme in these hot flavored vegetables boosts broccoli’s cancer fighting properties.

If all this inspires you to get cooking with vegetables, there's a goldmine of ideas on the Well column of the New York Times - a collection of great vegetable recipes for Thanksgiving that can work for an Aussie Christmas.
The Choice Guide to food: how to look after your health, your budget, and the planet by Rosemary Stanton is published by Choice, RRP 29.95

Submitted by Peter

The Truth

There is a saying, "People tend to lie to themselves, rather than face the truth."

Even when science and logic are right in front of our faces, sometimes we choose not to believe it. That may mean having to change a belief, or habit, what we are used to. It points to a flaw in our human nature- our imperfection.

"Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it." Blaise Pascal, 1660.

"Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they can understand." Stanislaw J. Lec.

Those that do change their lifestyles, their eating and drinking habits, for their own good and for the good of the earth, will reep the rewards. Those that continue to lie to themselves, well, let's just say "will make their own beds."

If you can make the foundation of your diet whole natural foods, good clean water, and freshly juiced fruits or vegetables, you will have the best chance for great health, to be at your best.