veganese

our decision to become vegan has been met with a lot of support and a lot of, "you must be crazy!"
and i agree, we are crazy.

via

when we were at the beach over labor day, it was so rainy that we watched a lot of the boob tube. my friend moved out to LA and helped work on the forks over knives documentary so we watched it on instant netflix and that's what made us take the plunge. here's the movie in a nutshell:

Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at Cornell University, was concerned in the late 1960′s with producing "high quality" animal protein to bring to the poor and malnourished areas of the third world. While in the Philippines, he made a life-changing discovery: the country’s wealthier children, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods, were much more likely to get liver cancer. Dr. Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, found that many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.

These discoveries inspired Campbell and Esselstyn, who didn’t know each other yet, to conduct several groundbreaking studies. One of them took place in China and is still among the most comprehensive health-related investigations ever undertaken. Their research led them to a startling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented – and in many cases reversed – by adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet. Despite the profound implications of their findings, their work has remained relatively unknown to the public.

via forks over knives

after watching this, it just made sense to us to give it a shot. we've never been meat people so that part should be easy, but the dairy part will be harder because we're really going to miss our cheese. at first our mantra was to just cut back as much as we can without being too hardcore, but we bought  dr. esselstyn's book (prevent and reverse heart disease) off amazon and after reading it brett became pretty gung ho about really sticking to what esselstyn says, which is, "if disease is a house fire, you wouldn't pour gasoline on it to put it out - even a tiny bit of gasoline." esselstyn says no added oils either which is even more extreme. we'll see how it goes, it means eating out of the house will be really hard to do. we also bought his son rip's book (the engine 2 diet) off amazon and i can't wait for it to get here. both books talk about the science/research behind this diet, have sections about how to actually make it doable in your life, and have recipes. i stir fried veggies last night without olive oil and i really didn't miss it (i just had to keep stirring and adding a little water).

here are the rules of esselstyn's program in their simplest form:

• you may not eat anything with a mother or a face 
• you cannot eat dairy products
• you must not consume oil of any kind -- not a drop
• generally, you cannot eat nuts or avocados
• you can eat all vegetables (except avocado)
• you can eat all legumes -- beans, peas, and lentils of all varieties 
• you can eat all whole grains and products that are made from them as long as they don't have added fats
• you can eat all fruits

wish us luck!!!!!

p.s. here are some more links:
the documentary website page with all the resources
dr. esselstyn's website
the website for dr. campbell  who did the china study
the lds church word of wisdom