Medical Monitoring Helped - TO CONFIRM THE CURE for Annette's Diabetes

I believe there are many ways that nutritarian eating affects health. These things are completely effective, non-controversial, well researched, and proven to consistently work – for everybody. These things are so hugely beneficial that there ought to be a groundswell of public acclaim and demand for this information.

But although nutritarian solutions to disease are proven with solid research, they remain unappreciated. They aren’t taught as the core of medical education; instead, medical students are lucky to get one course in nutrition. These solutions will remain as unproven, experimental and even unfounded (hint – read that as unfunded, and you’ll begin to understand the problem here) to the medical community at large.

And to most people in general.

Still, where positive outcomes are consistent, there is real power and truth at work. You just have to understand how to interpret truth. There is a substantial body of well researched, peer reviewed evidence, to help anyone understand where the real truth lies.

I want to make that very clear. Nutritarian eating can be healing all on its own. It ought to be the first thing people do, not the last. But for serious chronic conditions, and to be on the safe side, and even on the effective side, there are other measures.

For example, my wife’s diabetes. We changed how we ate, but continued to have her medically supervised, including a program of blood sugar monitoring. That way we knew there was healing taking place. We also had complete confidence that what we were doing was not just effective, but safe.

Plus we had medical confirmation for our claims. We knew when all symptoms were reversed. We had full support for the fact that there was never any need for medication. We even knew that after a long period of no symptoms, we could consider her healed.

Along the way we gained some valuable support that made the long-term outcome much easier and more certain.

The support came from a book, recommended by our naturopathic MD friend, Jerry Taylor. He described it as focused, specific advice on recovery from diabetes, and said it would be information that would add to what we’d already accomplished.

Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes* provided the strong backup we needed. It told of amazing recoveries from diabetes, time after time, in the great majority of Type II diabetics. Because it’s written by an MD, backed up by research, with the medical justification for the approach well detailed (his chapter he says only your doctor will understand is right on the money), it was exactly what we needed to keep moving forward in the face of all-but-total ignorance from almost everyone we knew.

Dr. Barnard recommends a diet that has three important components:

1. No animal source calories. Fats, protein, milk, cheese, fish, everything animal based is goners.
2. Low glycemic foods. High glycemic foods contain sugars, or carbohydrates that the body quickly converts to sugars.
3. Low fat, with no added oils, fried food, etc.

If you can’t find the nutritarian essence here, you don’t yet understand. And if you can’t also see how the nutritarian approach expands, explains and makes this anti-diabetes diet even better than the original, then you don’t understand it the same way I do.

Maybe I’m wrong.

But, I really don’t think so.

Healed from a supposedly impossible-to-heal disease. Medically validated. Nutritionally supported. Long term solution. Medication free. Well understood principles. A fabulous support network, strong enough to overcome all reservations, lack of knowledge, support or sympathy from any doctor or other source, including friends, family and culture.

That’s amazing healing power.

Miraculous? Not really.

But the circumstances that made it possible are rare.

It’s actually much, much better than miraculous. It’s repeatable. It’s something anyone can do, at any time of life, that will help powerfully prevent and treat so many disease conditions. It has the potential for massively improving life span, quality of life, productivity, financial stability and so much more.

Imagine that. Worldwide positive outcomes from disease-free people voluntarily making good nutritional choices based on solid, true information.

Now that would be a miracle.

*As much as I appreciate Dr. Barnard's book, if I were looking for an even more effective  and relevant book I'd check out Dr. Fuhrman's 2012 book, The End of Diabetes. Nothing against Dr. Barnard, I think he's also a visionary in the best sense, but I find Dr. Fuhrman's approach more complete and effective, with Dr. Barnard's book as great validation, not the other way around.

Nutritarian Principle: Prevention is Treatment

In Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat To Live, on pages 83-85, is the best summary of the “China Project” I’ve ever seen. The China Project is the main study reviewed in the book The China Study. It’s the largest study of diet and health ever done.

The China Study is a famous book by Dr. Colin Campbell, a nutritional researcher now retired from Cornell University, and his son Thomas Campbell. It reviews years of correlative research, culminating a study where Dr. Campbell was the lead researcher commonly called The China Study.

This study was sponsored by Cornell University, the USDA and the Chinese Ministry of Health, and reviewed the health outcomes of 850 million people in China, based on what they ate and the diseases they developed. Solid stuff with surprising results that the USDA never expected.

The USDA hoped it would justify ever-expanding markets of U.S. produced meat and agricultural technology. After all, aren't we in the U.S. the healthiest population ever, with all the meat, milk and cheese in our diet; we're the healthiest/wealthiest in the world, right? It did the opposite, so the USDA largely ignored the results from a practical standpoint (I think some people just hoped it would go away).

The study found as animal source calories decreased to 10% and under, cancer almost disappeared. So did diabetes, heart disease and autoimmune diseases. Eggs and milk were nutritionally about the same as meat. Even relatively small added amounts of any kind of meat, milk and cheese significantly increased disease, and real reductions in disease did not take place until animal source calories dropped way below what the great majority of people in the U.S. as well as other western countries eat.

Dr. Campbell even proclaims casein, milk protein, as the most cancer-causing food on the planet.

The main point is, the China Project showed these diseases don’t have to even start. Curing and treating these can be all but totally unnecessary.

Now, if this is true, it has vast significance. It means cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many other diseases can be eliminated.

Of course, it follows that if this is so, we can live longer, healthier, more productive lives.

From my experience with this, I believe it can happen. It will happen, when we’re ready for it.

And if animal source calories are the cause, and drastic reductions are almost totally preventive, then treating these diseases becomes potentially much simpler. Treatment that removes the cause are also the cure.

In other words, cutting out the foods causing these in the first place, and adding foods that the lack of which is a cause, can bring "miraculous" results. It's not necessarily so, but it could be, and only experience with trying this could prove if that's so. That’s what Dr. Taylor prescribes for every single patient, and he’s had some amazing results. So does Dr. Fuhrman, also with amazing results. We know from personal experience it works just that way.

Going from proven prevention to proven cure is a leap that's easy to make, and a connection that you can experience personally, as we have, or as clinicians treating patients, as have Dr. Fuhrman and Dr. Taylor.

That's not enough proof to totally revolutionalize medical practice and turn our medical and food culture around. Evidence based medicine sets a high threshold of double blind, peer reviewed studies, published and agreed as to their conclusions. Or, you could have population studies that are repeated and test various aspects of the hypothesis, and are similarly peer reviewed and published.

Couldn’t say it’s true.

Unless it works, over and over and over again, until it becomes so obvious that only fools could disagree.

My wife is cured. That's enough for me. But only as others join me and the thousands of other followers, practitioners, and believers in Dr. Fuhrman, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Campbell and others who live this way, will it become obvious.

One of the most powerful principles I have come to understand about nutritarian eating is that the most universal prevention is to eat right, and the most universal - and long term effective - treatment of most disease is . . . . drum roll . . . . wait for it . . . . I know this is going to be hard to believe . . . . to eat right.

I think Dr. Fuhrman said it best, that based on his experience this is so obvious, how can it not grow? Of course, it all depends if it really works. And it's obvious based on his experience and medical practice, it really does.

From what I've read and experienced, I think so too.

That could take many years, or just a few. How many just might be the subject of a future article . . . .

The Nutritarian Basis For Ideal Health

One of the truly serendipitous events of my life occurred several months after we had corrected my wife’s high blood sugar.

We had effectively cured her diabetes through aggressive dietary measures. It was through nutritarian style eating, though we didn’t know enough to call it that.

We met the Jerry Taylor family at church, and invited them over for dinner.

Now, let me explain. We had accomplished something we’d been told by the “best” experts was impossible. We had reason to believe the cure would be long term, as long as we kept up the changes we’d made, and similar benefits would come to anyone who tried this. Every meal was an adventure. We were delighted to confirm new eating habits, leave behind old ones, try new combinations and recipes, and occasionally to share the wonderful things we learned.

We have done this before and since, invited people over and shared this, including some in dire need of this information. Usually our efforts to explain are met with polite disregard, not much real interest.

Dr. Jerry Taylor, Montana

This time though, our story was met with unabashed, raging enthusiasm. You see, they had experienced the same type healing experience of an "incurable" condition through nutrition in their family.

Not only that, but Dr. Taylor had just graduated with a naturopathic MD degree, and came to Montana to heal diabetes in one of the many native American communities critically needing such a thing.

(Note: I’m using the word “heal” and “cure” guardedly, as it’s a controversial thing. “Heal” and “cure” when used with “diabetes” is a politically incorrect, as it is with the word “autism” which was the Taylor family’s experience. The standard medical community does not believe in and does not support that “cures” can regularly ((or even ever)) happen with such difficult chronic illness. After all, if such things could be healed, doctors would be doing it, right? And by and large they don’t.)

Self perpetuating ignorance, not necessarily willful or knowing, but as it's associated with lies and death, certainly evil of a real sort.

The one thing, though, exciting me more than anything was he recommended every single one of his patients read The China Study. This book was a foundation of healing my wife’s diabetes.

And my wife is healed in large part because the evidence outlined in The China Study is so powerful, so compelling, so well researched and validated, we understood and believed it was possible.

Our hope turned into knowledge, certainty and reality regarding Annette's diabetes.

And it's why I thought there were real reasons to hope after a second, inoperable, likely soon to be fatal episode of coronary artery disease, caused by a blockage in my "Widow Maker" artery.

A Gift of Truth (the nutritarian foods list from )

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t understand a lot of things. For example, I’m not sure what I’ve put here is completely square.

It is mostly copied from Eat To Live, 2011 edition, pages 118 – 120. I’m counting on someone to tell me, please, if I should take it down because I've violated some legal or moral protocol.

But it’s such a fabulous summary I truly think it’s worth a shot. It’s what impressed me as being the heart of the book, the essentials of what to eat in what quantities.

It’s got numbers.

It’s a summary.

It gives detail without overwhelming.

It's a real key to my understanding, and understanding is what makes it work.

But to truly understand and appreciate this, you gotta read the book and review the list in context. So with those qualifiers, here goes (:

The Nutrient-Density Line
Nutrient density = Phytochemicals, antioxidant activity, vitamins & minerals, per calorie.
Highest nutrient density=100		Lowest nutrient density=0
100	Dark green leafy vegetables - kale, spinach, swiss chard, etc.
95	Other green vegetables - Romaine, cabbage, green beans, green peas, etc.
50	Non-green nutrient-rich vegetables - Mushrooms, onions, peppers, tomatoes, etc.
45	Berries & fresh fruits
40	Dry beans - Lentils, pinto, garbanzos, etc.
30	Raw nuts and seeds [Please note: This is my personal dividing line. I do well when I stick mostly with foods above here, and not so well with all foods below here. I don't eliminate everything below, I just minimize them. ]
25	Colorful starchy vegetables - Winter squash, sweet potatoes, corn
20	Whole grains/white potatoes
18	Fish
15	Fat-free dairy, eggs, wild meat and fowl
8	Full-fat dairy
6	Red meat, refined grain products
3	Cheese
0	Sweets, sugars, cookies, candy, soda, oils and fat

I like it better than anything else I’ve seen in this regard. Better than more exact listings of foods, better than the new food pyramid in the book and on Dr. Fuhrman’s website. Better than any information I’ve seen about the book or the nutritarian diet. Can’t find it anywhere on the web or in any other source.

Now with this said, I fully understand why Dr. Fuhrman has moved beyond this list, and publishes some fine summaries that are more specific and powerful in many ways.

But this list has own kind of power and awesome simplicity. It helps me understand in my own mind, the incredible variety and wonderful tastes associated with this way of eating, even limiting it mostly to the top half.

And if I want some specific food, I can almost always find a way to include it in my diet. I have to be creative though, in substituting, minimizing and maximizing ingredients according to their nutritarian value. To do this I've had to learn and understand foods from this perspective.

Powerful stuff, truth is.