So you call yourself an environmentalist?

I read a recent study that 70% of Americans consider themselves to be environmentalists. Green is very much the in color right now. People are opting for higher fuel efficiency cars, recycling their trash, putting solar panels on their roofs, and using fewer utilities to save our precious resources.

I  don't know about all of you, but I love the environmental movement. It is good to know that we can help pass the earth to future generations with hopefully minimal impact. If you ask most people who are the biggest offenders to the environment are, they would say humankind. In a way, they are right.One sector of human endeavor does contribute massively to energy waste and greenhouse gases. It isn't the automobile industry, nor is it factories and other manufacturing. What is this huge drain on our resources? Meat.

The meat industry, in particular factory farms, is a leech on the environment. The meat farmers claim to produce quality products at a cheap price. I'll give them one thing: the price tag on the grocery store packages is relatively low. What they don't tell you about is the cost to society and the planet. Since they won't, I will.

1. The raising of billions of animals for slaughter takes a lot of grain and water. It takes approximately 12 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce just ONE POUND of beef. Due to the fossil fuels required to produce the grain, that equals 1 gallon of gas. Since the average beef cow weighs in around 1000 lbs, it takes 1000 gallons of gas to raise one cow. All in all, factory farming accounts for 18% of the fossil fuel used in America today. That is more than all the cars on the road, even before you take into account the gas required to ship the dead cows around the country to get to your local grocery store.
2. The concentration of thousands of animals in a small enclosure leads to humongous amounts of waste (urine and feces). The waste is pumped into giant lagoons, some of which is used as drinking water for the animals themselves, but the rest of which seeps into the ground water, ruining the quality of the water we all drink every day. Some even seeps into the air, causing asthma and other respiratory ailments. People who live near or work on factory farms have 3 times the rate of asthma of the general population.
3. The cheap corn and soybeans that are used for feeding this mass of animals can come from South America and other places, contributing to deforestation of the precious rain forests.
4. The massive amounts of Methane and Sulfur dioxide produced by the animals (farts) contributes more to greenhouse gases than all vehicles on the roads combined.

The reason I find this interesting is the statistic I quoted at the beginning: 70% of Americans consider themselves environmentalists. Yet 95% of Americans eat meat, and 99% of Americans eat dairy, eggs, or other animal products. Given the facts presented above, you simply CANNOT be an environmentalist if you choose to eat animal products. Unless you farm the animals yourself (in a non factory manner), you are enabling that system. Eating organic doesn't help. Organic operations are just as factory as the next guy.

If you care about the environment like I do, I hope that you use these newly learned facts to opt out of the factory farming system. Your health and our planet will be all the better for it.

Feel free to share any experiences or thoughts you have on your journey to true environmentalism and a truly sustainable lifestyle. Good luck!

M Jacob Ott, MD

So You Want to be a Vegan?

I've been looking back on the history of DevolveHealth lately. I started this company in 2010. The reason that I started DevolveHealth was because I saw the results that a plant based diet and good exercise habits had in my life. I went from 350 lbs to 200 lbs, and discovered levels of energy that I never knew were possible.

In 2012, I had a little hiccough in my life. If you define hiccough as your wife has an affair and leaves you, and you go through over a year of depression. Needless to say, this whole episode left me rather devastated. I didn't really care about anything, and that included my own health. I forgot all the hard work I had put into reforming my mind and body, and went back to my old habits of overeating and being sedentary. Not surprisingly, I gained a significant portion of my weight back, topping out near 300 lbs again.

Even despite this, I never forgot the way I was from 2010 to 2012. I longed to get back to the way I looked and felt at that time. I tried multiple diets- I won't mention their names, but they all have very popular books that make a lot of money. For some reason, I didn't consider going back to the vegan diet which had gotten me to my goal in the first place.

Not surprisingly, none of those diets really work. In fact, one of the guiding principles of DevolveHealth is that diets don't work. It is rather amusing, but I didn't take my own advice at all. Finally a few weeks ago, I came back to my senses, and got back to my roots, so to speak.

Returning to veganism made me think about going through the process of eliminating animal products from my diet in the first place. Hopefully, some of you have read some of my other blog posts, and see the wisdom and health value of avoiding animal products. If not, please go back and read some of them. This post is dedicated to those of you who would like to go vegan, but feel like it might be too hard, or just plain don't know how.

For those of you who think it will be hard, I won't lie to you. Avoiding animal products is not easy. Both times I went vegan, I suffered meat cravings for about a week to two weeks. That being said, finding foods to eat is not that hard. Even in your local grocery store, there is a tremendous variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts. You just have to be willing to experiment, and have an open mind. When I was just a fledgling vegan, the thing I had the most trouble with was figuring out what to cook. There are loads of vegan cookbooks out there (my personal favorite is the Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero), and plenty of websites which offer free vegan recipes. My favorites:

www.vegweb.com: offers over 10,000 vegan recipes of all kinds.
www.allrecipes.com: not specifically vegan, but has a large vegan section

I promise you, it isn't nearly as hard as you think it may be. I was a staunch omnivore. In high school, if anyone would have been voted "most likely to die while eating a steak" it was me. The term "meat and potatoes man" found its literal meaning in me. If I can do it, so can you. No excuses.

If you fall into the "I want to go vegan, but I don't know how" group, then here is some advice I learned the hard way, through trial and error:

1. Eat a variety of foods. Vegan diets are nutritionally sound, and superior to diets with meat in virtually every way, with one proviso. You have to eat a variety of foods. Rice, beans, green leafy veggies, nuts, legumes, and soy, tempeh, seitan. Use the websites above for ideas and be adventurous. 
2. Avoid processed foods. Oreo's are technically vegan. They aren't good for you. With all the processed vegan products out there today, it is easy to become a "junk food vegan." Make sure the foods you eat are in the form they grew in nature. Avoid processed sugars and refined oils as much as possible. It is fine to indulge once in a while, but refined sugars are just as bad for vegans as they are for meat eaters.
3. Get ready to poop a lot. One byproduct of eating lots of vegetables and beans is that you will probably get 50-80 grams of fiber daily. While this is good for preventing colon cancer, It also means several trips to the restroom per day. On the upside, you'll never be constipated...
4. Get a B12 and a Vitamin D supplement. Vitamin D intake is too low in vegans and meat eaters alike. B12, which vegans would normally get from the bacteria in the dirt on the plants they ate, is gone in our toxic soil, and needs to be supplemented. I recommend 5000 IU of D per day, and 1000 mcg of B12 once weekly. The best B12 is the type of tablet that dissolves under the tongue.
5. If you feel craving for meat, get a meat replacement product. Although these aren't the best for you, as they are heavily processed, they are OK in a pinch, and vastly better than going back to meat. There is a wide array of soy burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and other meat like products at your local grocery store.
6. PLAN AHEAD. This is really important. Although restaurants and cafeterias are getting better about offering vegan options, not every place has them. Some places say they have vegan entrees, but they are cooked in butter or the like. Family gatherings, weddings, and parties can be especially bad, as they usually lack vegan food choices. Be sure to bring a snack with you (some nuts or carrots, an apple, banana, or peach) so that you have something to eat in a real pinch. If I am going to a party or wedding, I like to eat a vegan meal ahead of time, just in case. The same is true of air travel. Airplanes never feed you anymore, and airports have very limited choices. Pack some good vegan snacks in your carry-on.
7. Be prepared for people to think you are odd. Meat eating is very ingrained into our culture. People think all vegans are tree hugging hippies. If you tell someone you are vegan, they will pepper you with questions. Read my post entitled "What are you Eating?" for more info on the questions. Even if they think you are odd, most people are intrigued, and those questions can be a good jumping off point to discuss a better lifestyle with them (as long as you don't sound pompous and preachy)
8. Get ready to feel good. Now that your body no longer wastes half of its energy trying to digest meat, you will feel younger, with tons of energy. Funnel that into exercise, family, and fun!

I'm not kidding about any of this. Try going vegan for a month, and if you don't feel a world of difference, I will refund the $0 you paid to read this blog. (Seriously, you will notice a large difference)

If you need more info on how to make the change and opt out of the Standard American Diet, feel free to comment, visit my website www.devolvehealth.com, or email me at drott@devolvehealth.com 

The Freedom to Not Choose

Today is Memorial Day. We dedicate today to remembering those who have served and given their lives for the freedom that we all enjoy. The fact that we live in a country with a constitutional republic, in which we are free to express our views and opinions without fear of censorship, oppression, or even death is due to the actions of countless brave men and women over the course of two centuries and counting.

Freedom is something that must be constantly defended, because it is not a natural state. Ever since man has existed, we have tried to exert power over our fellows, and force them to work toward our ends. Sadly, most of the ancient wonders of the world were built with forced labor, and up until very recently, slavery was not only acceptable, but common practice. We are very fortunate to live in a country in which we are free to choose the course of our lives.

By now, you might be wondering how this all ties in to a health and wellness blog. Good question. There is one crucial point that most of us never think of with regard to freedom. Just because we can do something, does not mean that we should, or that it is best for us. Besides having unprecedented legal and social freedoms, Americans (and residents of other industrialized countries) also have culinary freedom which has never been experienced on the planet before.

To realize this point, you need to look no further than the cookout you will likely attend this afternoon. Represented at your Memorial Day cookout will likely be hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, potato salad, potato chips, corn, fruit salad, watermelon, cantaloupe, beer, soft drinks, green beans, deviled eggs, cupcakes, cookies, and countless other foods. Before eating today, let's think for just a minute on what foods will be represented in the average American backyard today:

Beef                                         Chicken                                  Pork
Potatoes                                  Eggs                                        Corn
Mayonnaise                            Bananas                                 Grapes
Watermelon                           Cantaloupe                             Sugar
Beans                                      Milk                                        Wheat
Rice                                         Soybeans                                Pineapple

This list is far from inclusive, but it gives you the basic idea. As important as how many foods we have access to is how easily we can obtain them. Unlike our caveman ancestors, we don't have to forage and hunt in order to obtain the foods we eat. All we have to do is go to the grocery store, and we see all of the foods above and more sitting on the shelves. Cavemen would never have been able to match either the quantity or variety of food that we have at our fingertips. The foods above come from all over the world, from Europe to America to tropical islands in the middle of the pacific ocean.

It is wonderful that we have access to all of these foods, in quantities that ensure most people don't have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. It is also somewhat ironic that this freedom is slowly killing us. In the past fifty years, we have been getting larger and larger and larger. Two-thirds of all Americans are now either overweight or obese. Infectious diseases like pneumonia, which used to be the biggest killers of people, have been supplanted with diseases of lifestyle like heart disease, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes. Mounting evidence in the past 20 years has shown that some foods, particularly meat, milk, and eggs, are directly related to the diseases which now kill us in epidemic proportions.

I, like all of you, dear readers, am extremely grateful for the men and women who died to allow us to live free of oppression and slavery, and to pursue our dreams. I shudder to consider what those men and women would think if they were to see how we are slowly killing ourselves. I have never served in the military. The fight I participate in is not for our freedom, but for our health. This Memorial Day, I would like to humbly suggest that we try to honor the memory of those who served by trying to take care of our bodies, and using some of our freedom to not choose some of the foods which cause us so much harm.


Happy Memorial Day,

M. Jacob Ott, M.D.

Supplemental Danger

Yesterday, I read a fairly disturbing study about calcium intake. The study, which was a retrospective study which took into account various factors, including supplement intake, showed that taking calcium supplements significantly increased the risk of heart attack. The exact findings are as follows:

• Participants who took supplements that included calcium were 86 percent more likely to have a heart attack, compared to people who didn’t take any supplements.
• Participants who only took calcium pills were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack. 

This is fairly disturbing, but not the first time a supplement has been indicated in a problem. A 2004 study showed that taking mega-doses of Vitamin E as supplements increased risk of death. Just like calcium, Vitamin E was previously shown to be helpful. Several other studies have shown single supplements, and even the ubiquitous multivitamin to be harmful.

What is the common link between all of these studies? The fact that it is a supplement. When we isolate a chemical from food, and put it in a pill, something happens. At best, it loses its effectiveness. At worst, it becomes harmful. The supplement study is only part of the story. In fact, rarely has a supplement ever been shown to be helpful in pill form. I have previously spoken about fiber, which is not effective in the myriad of powders and pills that are sold, and is only beneficial when taken as part of the food.

Why is it that our pills do not help us? I believe it is because we have an incomplete understanding of how food works. While we do our chemistry and isolate these chemicals, and then take them, we are unaware of the thousands of other compounds in the food which contribute to the action of the "vitamin" that we have isolated.

But Jake, you ask, what about calcium? I know I have to take a supplement of at least 1500 mg of calcium a day for bone health? My doctor told me so. All parts of the above statement are wrong. I will spend the rest of this post debunking the calcium myth:

1. Calcium intake is required to prevent osteoporosis: Point one is a partial truth. Bones are comprised of a matrix of calcium phosphate. In order to build or maintain bone, you must have some calcium. Where this truth gets distorted is in the advertising. People in this country have spent billions of dollars associating two items in our brain: milk and calcium. I wrote a previous post about this, but the short version is that milk does nothing to prevent osteoporosis. If it did, then the countries with the most milk intake would have the lowest rates of osteoporosis. In fact, the opposite is true. The more milk a country consumes, the HIGHER rate of osteoporosis it has.

2. Calcium supplements (or mega-doses of milk) are needed, because dietary sources are inadequate: The milk people, and the people who sell the pills would have you believe that people cannot get enough calcium from their diets, and thus some form of supplementation is necessary. Though good for the old bottom line, this "fact" is simply not true. Here is a list of foods which are rich dietary sources of calcium:


Spinach
Turnip greens
Mustard greens
Collard greens
Blackstrap molasses
Swiss chard
Kale
Basil, thyme, dill seed, cinnamon, and peppermint leaves
Romaine lettuce
Rhubarb
Broccoli
Sesame seeds
Fennel
Cabbage
Summer squash
Green beans
Garlic
Tofu
Brussel sprouts
Oranges
Asparagus
Crimini mushrooms

Many of these foods have as much or more calcium as milk, and are rich in untold other nutrients as well.

So, in summary, there is no need to take a calcium supplement, especially given the results of the study that came out yesterday. The formula for bone health is simple:

1. Eat a wide variety of plant foods, which are rich in all the nutrients you need.
2. Avoid excess protein intake. The acid load that proteins provide actually dissolve bone.
3. Perform load bearing exercise (running, jumping, etc...) the impact stimulates bone formation.

Good Eating,

 




M. Jacob Ott, M.D.