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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?
Why Adopting this Wellness Plan Works
    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 diseaseswon’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:
“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!
“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.
“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?)
“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 reasonalone. Lactose intolerance is probably the leading cause of digestive distress.
“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