World Health Names Two Things Responsible For High Risk Of Chronic Disease And The Category Of Food

Intro

good morning everyone is it still morning it will be yes I just flew in about midnight last night and I was so glad to make it because I was an hour and a half delayed at my first point and I had a very tight connection so I got my exercise of running one one gate to the other but I’m very happy to be here and very grateful to share this time with you so this morning we’re going to be talking about unleashing the power of plant-based diets oh and by the way I’m

Outline

from Kelowna British Columbia so this is of the southern part of BC so the other end of the of the continent so let’s start out with just a very brief thank you just a brief outline we’re going to talk a little bit about the link between diet and disease we’ll talk about the advantage of plant-based diets and then we’ll talk about the practical piece seven steps to an optimal disease-fighting diet and I wanted to

Story

start out with a little story about my dad my dad I didn’t get my interest in health and nutrition from my dad and I want to tell you this story and I’m going to tell you the rest of the story at the end of the presentation but the story happened over 40 years ago I was in university and I was home for the holidays and I was in the kitchen I can remember it like it was yesterday and as I was preparing supper in the kitchen my dad walked by the kitchen and he was teasing me m’as studying nutrition and I was all into health and he wasn’t and he had two cigarettes hanging out of his mouth and he was he was carrying a big bag of chips a two-liter bottle of coke and a bag of liquorice allsorts and he walked by me really slowly just kind of sauntering by he stuck his belly out as far as it would go and then he turned to me and just had this big grin on his face and I just shook my head in disgust and later on that evening I said to him dad I don’t understand why you’re doing this to yourself and he said to me I would sooner live 50 years doing what I love to do just having that freedom to eat what I want to eat and smoke my cigarettes he said I’d rather live to be 50 doing that then lived to be 75 having to restrict this and restrict that he said you know I could be hit by a truck tomorrow and I said to him I know dad but it doesn’t mean you should go walk out in front of one and the reality is

The Reality

of course this is what we know 70% of all deaths are due to chronic diseases of our own making an estimated 80 to 90% of heart disease 90% of type 2 diabetes and about 40 to 70% of cancers are considered entirely preventable and in 2011 the World Health Organization identified the four big lifestyle culprits as being a sedentary lifestyle alcohol tobacco and an unhealthy diet and they define the unhealthy diet as one that is based on processed foods with added fat sugar and salt and animal products rich in saturated fats it’s low in vegetables fruits legumes whole grains nuts and other high-fiber foods and I want you to notice something about this quote they name two things that are responsible for our high risk of chronic disease number one processed foods with added fat sugar and salt and number two animal products rich in saturated fats they name one category of foods that protects us and that is plant foods and if you look around the world the people at the highest risk are in active populations consuming western-style diets the highest rates globally are North America northern Europe Australia and of course all of the developing countries who are adopting our Western ways unfortunately and at the lowest risk are populations

The Blue Zones

who live simply are physically active and consume unprocessed plant-based diets the lowest rates globally are some parts of rural Asia South America and of course the people of the Blue Zones and for those of you most of you have probably heard about the Blue Zones but the Blue Zones are places in the world where people live the longest healthiest lives what’s really unique about the Blue Zones is when people reach ninety or a hundred years of age they’re actually still productive they’re doing things and that’s what we all want to achieve so there are five blue zones Okinawa Japan and that’s court of the traditional Okinawan Sardinia Italy Loma Linda California which is the seventh-day adventists of Loma Linda Korea Greece and the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and what’s interesting about the blue zones is that they all every single blue zone on the planet they tend to have features that that are common to all of these blue zones and they are that they all have strong sense of family they tend not to smoke they’re very socially engaged they do constant moderate physical activity they do a lot of walking and hiking and gardening and so forth and where diet is concerned there are two things that are common to all the blue zones one is that they all consume plant diets and the second is that they all consume legumes this man is an Okinawan centenarian he’s a hundred years old this is the goal really to be that vibrant at that age