The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (4 page)

But that’s the Superhero diet, and I don’t expect anyone to go full Superhero overnight. The simplest elements of the counselor’s recommendations were to add whole grains to my diet at every meal. I also had miso soup almost every day and totally cranked up the vegetables. I made sure that everything I was eating was local and seasonal, choosing apples over pineapples. In terms of letting go, I said good-bye to white sugar, substituting sweeteners like rice syrup and maple syrup. I also gave up white flour and processed foods and, of course, still no meat or dairy.

A few tweaks and everything changed.

Although I felt good as a vegan, I had even more energy when I adopted the macrobiotic suggestions. At the same time, I was very calm and at peace within myself. My mind focused easily and my thinking became really clear. Although I had lost weight by going vegan, the macrobiotic diet helped me shed the few extra pounds I was holding on to and brought me to my perfect body effortlessly.

Over time, I became more sensitive. I started to feel things more acutely and sense my intuition. People used to say, “Listen to your body,” and I had no idea what they meant. “What is my body saying? I don’t know . . . it’s just
here
!” But soon I really understood; my body was trying to tell me things all the time, and once I stripped away all the layers of crap inside, I could hear it.

As I aligned more with nature and the seasons, I aligned more with myself. Instead of constantly relying on the people around me for direction, I felt I was on my own journey and I was beginning to sense—from inside of me—each next right step.

Which brings me to this book. I’ve known for quite a while that I wanted to help other people become their best selves. And, in fact, for the last few years, I’ve seen how my practice has influenced the people around me. The information I have to share is powerful because the food is powerful. Literally. Your deepest, truest self is released through food.

I encourage you to let this book gently lift your awareness, and you will begin to make the changes that work for you. There are plenty of little choices you can make—choices that will make huge impacts—without getting all uptight and thinking you have to be perfect.

Based on these stages I went through, I have designed three different approaches to the Kind Diet—each one for a different level of readiness—and you can choose according to what feels right to you. The first plan is called Flirting, and it’s simply sticking your toe in the pool of the Kind Diet. The second plan is Vegan; it’s for experienced Flirts and those of you who, after reading this book, want to commit to a plant-based diet. The third plan, Superhero, emphasizes whole grains, organic vegetables, and sea vegetables and will make you levitate. (Well, almost.)

So as you read, keep in mind that these different levels exist; that no matter where you’re coming from, there’s plenty of room for you on this path. Whether it takes you 2 weeks or 10
years
to make my delicious rice crispy treats matters not a jot. It’s your path, based on what you think and feel while reading this book. You will know what’s right for you.

But before you choose your path, let’s dine on some information. It’s only by digesting and absorbing pertinent facts that you can make an informed choice. In the following chapters, we look closely at specific foods and the very real impact they have on our bodies and our world.
Bon appétit!

A Weighty Issue

Although I wasn’t an overweight kid, I do remember starting to develop self-consciousness around my body at a pretty early age. And it didn’t help that I was in the movie industry, not exactly known for its relaxed attitudes toward an extra 10 or 15 pounds. By the time I was 14, I was fully hypnotized by calorie-counting, and my manager at the time took me to a Weight Watchers
meeting. While preparing to play Batgirl in
Batman & Robin
, the press was so cruel about my teenage curves that I was chased through the L.A. airport by paparazzi yelling, “Fatgirl!” Of course, all the pressure made me rebel and eat even more. Although I was probably a normal weight, I was certainly moving in the wrong direction.

That feels like such a long time ago.

On the Kind Diet, you will experience freedom not only from excess pounds, but from the crazy, obsessive fixation on points, fats, calories, and all those horrible weight loss goals and deadlines. Over time, those things will simply slip away, I promise. Whole grains will give you a calm and peaceful mind. Vegetables—packed so densely with nutrients—will give you the most amazing, happy, and youthful vitality. And beans, full of fiber, will keep you feeling full and satisfied while everything moves through you like a dream. You’re getting more than a new waistline, my friend. You’re getting a new reality.

Dr. John MacDougall
has been running a 10-day residential program in Santa Rosa, California, for 20 years now, is the author of several books, and has even developed a line of vegetarian foods for people on the go. By adopting a low-fat, plant-based diet, patients of Dr. MacDougall not only reach their optimal weight, they are often able to throw away their medications and reverse serious illness, such as heart disease and even cancer. Go Dr. MacDougall!

Dr. Joel Fuhrman encountered the same thing. Author of
Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss,
Dr. Fuhrman devised a program that involves packing as much nutrition as possible into every calorie consumed. And what does he consider the best sources of nutrient-dense calories? Not meat. Not dairy. Plant-based foods. Like Dr. MacDougall, he has seen countless patients not only lose weight on their vegan food plans, but experience total transformations in health and emotional well-being as well, including reversals in heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies, osteoporosis, lupus, and more. Amazing what happens when you eat
real food
!

For tips on quicker weight loss, go to page
138
.

2

Nasty Food #1: Meat

Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.

Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, 460–377 BC

Things have changed a lot since Hippocrates uttered that beautiful statement. In fact, it’s almost as if he never said it at all. These days, we tend to think of being healthy as just getting through the day, making a living, or not dropping dead. We consider health the absence of disease. When symptoms do arise, we throw chemicals at them, hoping they will go away rather than looking for the underlying cause. This is modern medicine.

Because we look at the body as a bunch of bits and pieces, we have all sorts of different doctors—the ear, nose, and throat guy; the skin guy; the heart guy—and when things go wrong, we have doctors who concentrate on the disease itself—like the oncologist, the cancer guy. Modern science is constantly focusing its microscope, seeing tinier and tinier bits and pieces, trying to figure out the puzzle of disease. Not health . . . disease.

Strangest of all, we’ve convinced ourselves that our health has nothing to do with what we eat. People who will spend that extra 20 cents on a gallon of premium gasoline because they realize their car performs better on it will drive straight to McDonald’s for a Big Mac. We create a mental separation between food and illness in our culture, and our modern Western medical system—for the most part—supports this denial. When asked what causes an illness, we are told it’s due to genetics or just bad luck. “Kids just get allergies” and “We don’t have all the answers.” These statements are usually swiftly followed by a prescription.

There are major forces trying to keep us all in this denial—megarich corporations and institutions that would not only prefer you stay in the dark, but are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to keep the lights off. But our mental disconnect between food and disease is not simply lining corporate pockets; it is literally destroying our health and that of the planet. This chapter and the next two shed some light on meat, dairy, sugar, and processed foods. I think you’ll see why I call them “nasty.”

MEAT: NASTY TO YOUR BODY

I grew up eating beef, pork, chicken, and eggs. And turkey and fish. Oh, and lamb, too. So it’s no mystery to me why people love their flesh; the palate loves the taste and the belly feels full and warm with a greasy hunk of meat inside. I get it.

But that’s just one side of the story.

Meat is bad for your ticker:
Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. Number one. Not breast cancer . . . not mascara poisoning. . . . Heart disease! And meat eating is a major contributor. You see, meat contains lots of saturated fat. Saturated fat elevates your blood cholesterol, and that causes plaque to clog your arteries. Clogged arteries lead to high blood pressure or—even worse—a stroke or a nice, juicy heart attack. But you knew that already. It’s one of the few facts about meat eating that the meat industry has not been able to conceal.

According to the American Heart Association, high-cholesterol foods also raise blood cholesterol. Eggs contain 250 milligrams of cholesterol, and 64 percent of an egg’s calories come from fat. Chicken contains as much cholesterol as beef, and trout is right behind that.
¹

No meat is a truly low-fat food. Because saturated fat is marbled throughout the muscle, and the cholesterol is found in the cell membranes of the meat itself, trimming the excess fat off your steak doesn’t do much good. It seems that only a plant-based diet protects the heart. Dr. William Castelli, director of the Framingham Heart Study, says a low-fat plant-based diet would lower an individual’s risk of heart attack by 85 percent. You heard me. Eighty-five percent.

Meat contributes to cancer:
There are so many studies linking meat to cancer, it’s hard to choose! Here are some of the stats on cancer and the possible reasons that meat is linked to it:

A 2007 study of more than 35,000 women published in the
British Journal of Cancer
found that women who ate the most meat were more likely to develop breast cancer than those who consumed the least.

Perhaps this is the reason: Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have isolated a sugar molecule (with the sexy name Neu5Gc) that shows up in many cancerous human tumors. But the human body doesn’t produce Neu5Gc, so where could it be coming from? You guessed it: red meat. Not only does Neu5Gc seem to build tumors, our human bodies produce antibodies against Neu5Gc, which causes inflammation, helping the tumors to grow even more!

And maybe toxins play a role: Dioxin is the most toxic chemical known to science and is recognized as a human carcinogen. It is estimated that 93 percent
²
of our exposure to dioxin comes through eating animal products—beef, lamb, pork, chicken, dairy, eggs, and especially fish. Dioxin settles and accumulates in fat, so the more animal food we eat, the more dioxin we get. According to a study published in 1998,
³
the dioxin level in the blood of vegans was found to be much lower than that of the general population.

Finally, how we cook meat is a piece in the cancer puzzle as well: When either red or white meats hit a grill, they create cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines. FYI: Grilled chicken has more than 17 times the number of these compounds than grilled steak.
⁴

Meat contributes to osteoporosis:
When you eat meat, your blood becomes acidic, and that’s not cool; acidic blood can lead to all sorts of nasty problems, including . . . death. In order to balance all the acidity, your bones come to the rescue by releasing some of their minerals. This leaves your blood nice and balanced but your bones weak. It’s a neat physiological trick to keep you healthy in the moment, but your poor bones pay the price over time. According to Dr. Neal Barnard, animal protein is the chief cause of osteoporosis (followed by sodium, caffeine, tobacco, and inactivity).
⁵

In 1994, a report in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
showed that when people went from a standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, they had over 50 percent less bone loss. Gnaw on that!

Meat is hard to digest:
Fiber is the broom that sweeps out your intestines, moving food through your digestive tract and helping to eliminate waste. Meat contains absolutely no fiber. It gets stuck down there, creating a funky, stuck, acid environment. High meat consumption is a recognized factor in conditions such as colitis, diverticulitis, and even colon cancer.
^6–8