by Phillip Day
The short bottom line?
- 130 years ago people died from the conditions in which they lived; the majority of deaths were from environmental/pathogen diseases such as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal disorders and typhus.
- Today, 80 per cent of 'westernised' popluations die of cancer or heart disease
- Science shows us that cancer and heart disease are related closely to what we eat
- So why does the medical establishment not talk about this? Has food become the new smoking?
- Good news: you do have a choice; educate yourself and change your diet.
If you'd prefer to die of old age rather than cancer or heart disease, give this a go. For the next month, remove all meats, eggs, milk and fish from your plate and switch to a 100 per cent plant-based, organic diet, the vast majority eaten raw. Within a week you'll notice the difference, we promise.
Death is still the only condition which has a 100 per cent hit rate. There's no escaping it (unless you know something we don't).
So you choose: how will you go? Read the full article to learn more.
What are we dying of today? So here's the picture: today, half of us will die of a cardiovascular-related disease. Add to that cancer and stroke and you're up over 80 per cent of any given ‘western-styled' population.
The rest of us will variously succumb to diabetes, lung disease, Alzheimers, suicide and death by doctoring.
Of course, everyone has to die of something, but when was the last time you heard of anyone who just conked out from old age? Rare, isn't it? It's very telling.
More to the point, if everyone has to die of something, what do
you choose? It doesn't have to be chemo or open heart surgery.
What about 130 years ago?Part of my job as a health author/researcher is to study trends. A surprising one is that 130 years ago, people weren't dying from what they were eating, they were dying from the conditions in which they lived.
The majority of deaths were from the environmental/pathogen diseases such as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal disorders and typhus. In other words, polluted water, air choked with smoke from factories and immune system disorders such as pneumonia and influenza. One university study states:
If infections were the killers of reckless 19th century urbanization, cardiovascular diseases were the killers of 20th century modernization. While avoiding the subway in your auto may have reduced the chance of influenza, it increased the risk of heart disease. Traditionally populations fatten when they change to a modern lifestyle. When Samoans migrate to Hawaii and San Francisco or live a relatively affluent life in American Samoa, they gain between 10 and 30 kg... Since the 1950s, however, cardiovascular disease has steadily lost ground to a more indefatigable terminator, cancer...Though cancer trailed cardiovascular in 1997 by 41 to 23 percent, cancer should take over as the nation's #1 killer by 2015, if long-run dynamics continue as usual. The main reasons are not environmental. Doll and Peto estimate that only about 5 percent of U.S. cancer deaths are attributable to environmental pollution and geophysical factors such as background radiation and sunlight.[1] (our emphasis).So runs a report out of Rockefeller University, motto
Science for the Benefit of Humanity. It's interesting that in their summary of death trends in modern society, wherein they correctly cite that cancer will eventually succeed CVD as chief terminator, they are more coy as to the causes.
Clearly sunlight wasn't killing people in a statistical fashion prior to 1900, although no-one disputes that if you barbecue yourself there'll be trouble. Vaccination advocates like to claim credit for ‘conquering' smallpox and the rest of the dirt diseases but city development programs and environmental clean-ups after 1850 were responsible for spelling the steady decline of these scourges.
At the same time, citizens in the developed nations became wealthier and society changed as a result, not only in how people lived but in what they ate and slapped on their skin.
'A pack a day keeps lung cancer away'...?Of course, social trends like smoking have skewed the statistics. Today, as the world comes to grips with getting those little white sticks out of our feverish fingers, it's worth remembering that sixty years ago, doctors were actually encouraging people to smoke, even pregnant women.
Smoking adverts appeared such as, "For digestion's sake, smoke Camels." "More athletes smoke Luckies all day long with no harmful effects to wind or physical condition." "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!" And my favourite, "Not a cough in a carload" from Old Gold.
The establishment got it wrong and they knew it. While it was common gossip that smokes were doing us in, we watched bemused as expert after expert not only denied tobacco was harmful but that it could actually improve our health.
It's no secret today that the medical establishment of the time was in bed with the tobacco mafia. Two health spokesmen in America, Dr Ian MacDonald and Dr Henry Garland, defended cigarette smoking as a harmless pastime unrelated to cancer in the 1950s. MacDonald, a prominent cancer surgeon listed in
Who's Who, even coined the phrase,
"A pack a day keeps lung cancer away." [2]
But scientific reality about cigarettes was to tell a different story and these men were, of course, tragically wrong in their beliefs. Both doctors were later charged with accepting money under the table from the tobacco industry and perished because of their error.
MacDonald was burned to death in his bed a few years later when it was believed the cigarette he had been smoking set his bedclothes on fire. Garland, who bragged that he had chain-smoked from childhood and that cigarettes were just an innocent pastime, died of lung cancer.
Food: the new tobacco?
Today, the medical establishment is wrong again and making the same mistake over diet.
Today our medical peers have conflicted interests with the drug and food industry. Results? We are now dying from what we eat and are prescribed by doctors, not from where we live.
It is beyond scientific dispute that our changed diets and medical abuse are at the heart of what's killing us[3].
Today the medical establishment persists in calling these facts ‘debatable', just as they did with their (now laughably bizarre) denials 50 years ago that smoking was bad for our health.
So the majority of people are now dying from their diets. Yet they are not offered nutrional advice (doctors receive almost no formal training in nutrition so that's no real surprise) and are instead prescribed pills, surgery, ex-chemical warfare agents and radiation in an attempt to cure them.
You have a choiceIf you would like to avoid needless suffering and a pointless death, you can. Simply, take charge. The three areas of concern with diet are:
- the extent to which our food is cooked, thereby destroying nutrients,
- the extent of animal-based foods consumed and
- the extent of processed junk palmed off on the public as 'food'.
The studies are conclusive. Processed, animal-based diets kill, organic plant-based diets heal,[4] and you're hearing this from someone who is not a strict vegetarian.
I received a few emails from outraged meat-scarfers and milk-moustachers the other day who were ticked off at my recent articles. Firstly, get a sense of humour.
Secondly, ‘my forthright, extreme position' offends you? I'll tell you what's extreme: heart disease, cancer and stroke killing 80 per cent of the population is extreme. Following government-mandated guidelines on diet and the out-dated food pyramid will prematurely kill 80 per cent-plus of the population; I'd say that's extreme.
If 1 in every 2 of us and 1 in 3 are dying from heart disease and cancer respectively, this follows we are doing something fundamentally wrong as a society.
Let me put it this way. The No. 1 cause of unassisted suicide in Britain, the US and Australia is what you'll put on your dinner plate tonight.
So who's talking about this?Not many. No-one in the media dares talk about the real food because of all the drug advertising in their newspapers.
So let me lay out the real extreme position: Doctors have no problem believing every cell in your body comes from what you eat, and food is necessary to keep you alive. But they have a big problem believing food can fix you when you're sick. And most of them are not stupid people.
Conclusion? You're responsible for your own health. You deal with it.
Environmental destruction & economic madness
There are other ramifications to our runaway love affair with the modern die-eat.
People deplore the destruction of the Amazon rainforest without realising that 250 million acres have been trashed by the Brazilian government and big business, not to yield wood for industry(!) or even build towns and cities for their burgeoning populations(!!), but to provide grazing land to raise animals to eat and agriculture to farm crops to feed the animals we eat.
Why waste farmland to raise crops for direct human consumption when you can make millions from the subsidies poured into the animal industry by government politicians in return for campaign contributions?
Mike Harrison reports that
farm animals consume 80 per cent of American-grown corn,
80 per cent of America's grain and 95 per cent of the oats, yet cows are not physiologically designed to eat grains. Much of this is stuffed into them during the 100-day fattening period prior to slaughter at high-density feed lots such as Harris Ranch, just off I-5 in central California, up the road from where I used to live.
Notwithstanding the appalling conditions cattle have to tolerate at such places, it's simply unhygienic and complete madness from an economic and health standpoint.
One-third of raw materials and fuels are consumed raising animals to eat. 87 per cent of America's total agricultural land - almost half the entire land mass - is used to raise the animals we eat, either grazing them or raising feed. New York Times writes:
The world's total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a "relentless growth in livestock production."[5]Effect on our health?What effects have these changes in diet had on our health? You be the judge. Drinking three glasses of milk provides approximately the same cholesterol as 21 slices of bacon 1 pint of ice cream? 24 slices of bacon.
Add to that the heart attack on a plate for breakfast, followed by burgers, steaks, chicken, fish, pizzas, eggs and don't forget those hot-dogs on 4th July, and you might as well take your teddy and throw yourself on the bonfire now.
Is chicken better? Hardly. Jacked up with diethylstilbesterol, hormone-accelerated skinless farmed chicken comes in marginally less in the cholesterol stakes, but only just. The natural alternatives are hardly better but come without the hormones, antibiotics, arsenic and mercury.
With well over 50 per cent of the average western diet derived from artery-clogging transfats, not to mention all the sugar and processed starches, Big Business is both clogging you and having you artificially unclogged, and sticking their kids through private school at your expense.
Without state subsidies, steak would be $90/lb and we'd be back to the old days when only the wealthy could glue themselves up. Go figure. Anyway, I could go on and on and I've frequently been known to.
What does this mean to YOU? It means that one of the most stunning things you can do with your life is to find out what it actually feels like to clear out the rubbish, have bags of energy into your old age, remove the fear of some apocalyptic illness, save a huge amount of money on killer foods, and not die on a gurney stuck in a cupboard in some out of the way hospital.
Since writing about all this in
Health Wars ten years ago, numerous studies have emerged confirming how a 100 per cent plant-based, organic diet reverses serious illness, clears out your arteries, prevents and cures cancer, prevents and helps cure stroke, increases heart-rate variability, prevents and cures diabetes, prevents and cures arthritis and gives you the body of a Greek god(dess) with thunderbolts to match.
It's your choice whether you try it or not. I'm not going to come round and do it for you.
You have to do it. That's part of the repentance - ah, sorry, therapy.
Affairs of the Heart - educate yourself free
In the next two weeks, I'm going to launch my new online seminar/film/presentation entitled
Affairs of the Heart, which deals with our No.1 disease killer.
This will be free to watch for anyone who registers and has a broadband connection. In it, I will cover the science behind why we're dying unnecessarily on these heavy, animal-based diets and what we do about it.
You will learn about Drs Dean Ornish, Joel Fuhrman and others who have been
reversing serious metabolic disease, even in its final stages, for years.
Bad news, good newsFor all those out there who are overweight, overfed, bloated, constipated, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arrhythmia, diabetic, arthritic, cancerous, osteoporotic, under-exercised, over-drugged and under-appreciated, the bad news is, no pill or surgery will cure you.
The good news is that you already have a cure for these problems. It's called a maximised immune system operating in an optimally nourished and de-stressed body. Yours for the taking, only you have to
do something.
Ah-ha! Easier to pop a pill than change your ways. And much more profitable for Big Business; enough said.
Deciding to change your diet and lifestyle is a commitment you make not only to yourself but to your friends and family. It's saying, "I'm going to be around for a while and in peak, physical condition, so watch out!"
If Grandma continues to shovel steaks onto your plate, she probably wants you gone. Switching to a 100 per cent plant-based diet is not as hard as it sounds provided you carry out a little preparation and research beforehand.
You will reap enormous benefits right from the get-go, a fact not often appreciated by those who grudgingly consider the change.
If you're not willing to change, then DON'T. But you will suffer what you must suffer. If you do want to change, try an experiment.
Try this - clean it outFor the next month, remove all meats, eggs, milk and fish from your plate and switch to a 100 per cent plant-based, organic diet, the vast majority eaten raw. Within the first week, your body will feel wonderfully and completely different. As you progress:
- bloating will go
- insulin levels will tumble
- high blood pressure starts to drop
- blood cholesterol levels and deposits begin to clear out
- bones begin to strengthen because they are getting the correct calcium (fine calcium) from vegetable sources
- you'll have three to five bowel movements a day depending how much junk you need to move
- weight will drop off
You can eat an unlimited amount of raw, plant-based wholefoods with health-enhancing effects.A heavy animal-based diet will eventually kill you. Plant-based foods are the only foods that strengthen the immune system and contain cancer-fighting phyto-nutrients which is why the most successful clinics in the world use them.
Your immune system is the only way to cure metabolic disease. Richard Cutler MD states:
"The amount of antioxidants you maintain in your body is directly proportional to how long you will live."He's right. A whole spread of raw, organic plant dietary ingested daily for a period of several months will undo decades of culinary abuse. And you'll feel the good it's doing you even while you are recovering.
Death by delusion? Your choiceDon't give yourself a hard time over this. If you really object to what I'm saying, then don't do it, but let's not fall out about it. The science is in whether you like it or not.
If you want to get more details and really make the change, pick up a copy of
Health Wars, watch
Food Matters (available in this week's Credence Special) and have a look at Mike Harrison's
www.ravediet.com site.
My book,
Food for Thought, provides a whole host of transitional recipes to bring you and your family over from where you are now to where you need to be.
I see this way of eating and living bringing untold joy to families around the world whose loved ones recover from serious illness, lose weight and enjoy vitality well into old age.
Imagine how empowered you'll become when you discover that the measures to recover from a disease that was trying to destroy you are in your own hands and you can start right now without your doctor's ‘help'.
There are enough problems in the world to occupy us without ignorance. Don't let death by delusion be the one that does you and your family in.
Footnotes[1] Jesse H Ausubel, Perrin S Meyer, Iddo KWernick "Death and the Human Environment: The United States in the 20th Century", Technology in Society 23(2):131-146 (2001)
[2] US News & World Report, "Here's Another View: Tobacco May Be Harmless," 2nd August 1957, pp.85-86
[3] www.wcrf.org
[4] www.ravediet.com/refs.htm
[5] New York Times, 27th January 2008
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