To the Editor:
My father died of a massive heart attack in 1974 at the age of 51, I was 21. At the time, it never occurred to me that his death might be related to his diet, but a decade later in my thirties, I read books by Drs. John McDougall and Dean Ornish showing that they could actually reverse heart disease simply by having their patients adhere to a plant-based (vegan) diet that excluded animal foods. That got my attention! I realized that if I didn’t want to die young like my dad, I had to reform my eating habits, so I went fully plant-based at the age of 37. Now at the age of 72, I feel great.
As part of my plant-based food journey over the intervening 35 years, I have made it my practice to keep up with the latest findings of modern nutritional science, and I continue to modify my diet as I learn new information. For example, when I first went plant-based I still ate a lot of processed foods, but the more I learned about the advantages of whole plant foods, I have eliminated most processed foods from my diet and I now concentrate on eating whole plant foods.
While I am not a doctor, a nutritionist, or a dietitian, I have educated myself about the study of nutritional science which unequivocally supports the efficacy of a whole-food, plant-based diet to treat and prevent the most debilitating chronic degenerative diseases that are epidemic in America today, including: heart disease and strokes, most types of cancer, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and kidney failure. No other diet or therapy can legitimately make this claim.
In modern times we have been brainwashed by media hucksters to believe that animal foods are a central component of a wholesome nutritionally complete diet, but human physiology actually evolved over millions of years to be perfectly adapted to metabolize a high-fiber, low-protein, low-fat, no-cholesterol diet of fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts, and seeds, and is not well adapted to metabolize a low-fiber, high-protein, high-fat, high-cholesterol diet centered around meat, dairy, and eggs. This is not surprising when one considers that like our great ape relatives—orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos—we are in fact an herbivorous species.
Even as whole plant foods contain an abundance of nutrients we need to thrive, and animal foods contain certain nutrients that predispose us to degenerative diseases, there are a number of other compelling reasons to recommend a plant-based (vegan) diet: (1) producing an unnatural diet of meat, dairy, and eggs for billions of people is rapidly depleting the Earth’s arable land and fresh water resources needed to grow food for people; (2) habitat destruction to graze and grow feed for livestock is the world’s leading cause of species extinction; (3) raising livestock emits massive amounts of methane gas that is a leading contributor to global warming; and (4) billions of sentient animals, mainly cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, and fish, are ruthlessly exploited every year to provide these foods that are literally killing people.
I started on my plant-based food journey 35 years ago, and now at a healthy 72, I can honestly say that going plant-based was the most self-empowering decision I’ve ever made in my life. Just as choosing plant foods has nourished my body, knowing my food choices help mitigate species extinction and climate change as well as alleviate the needless suffering of animals has nourished my soul.
Here in America we live in a toxic food culture that is extremely addictive, and the very thought of being deprived of our comfort foods is unthinkable. But as long as we Americans continue to eat an animal-centric diet we will continue to be at high risk for the aforementioned chronic degenerative diseases, and no amount of designer drugs or invasive surgeries is going to change that.
Now I can tell you from my own personal experience, once I finally came to grips with the fact that we humans are an herbivorous species, the idea of abstaining from animal foods didn’t seem so far-fetched. When I made the transition from an animal-centric to a plant-based diet, I quickly came to appreciate the pure pleasure and satisfaction of plan.
-Jon Spitz, Laytonville
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