What If? …

30 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Cancer Cells DividingWhat if there was a way to stop you, your children, your family, your friends from developing cancer? What if, having already been diagnosed with cancer, there was a way to stop the tumour from developing further?

What if you knew that both of these have been known since the 80’s, but nothing has been done about it? Would you want to know more, so you could use the information?

Well the answers to these and many, many other questions are in the book The China Study and I would urge everyone to read it. I wrote about this last weekend, having read about how the diet also prevents and reverses coronary heart disease, but the revelations just keep coming.

I have to admit that I stumbled across the book via Freelee and DurianRiders excellent Facebook and YouTube channels whilst trying to find a sustainable diet to help me continue my weight loss program. But I could never have imagined that I would ever find such a life changing source of information.

Reading the book makes me sad, happy, angry and above all, determined to help more people find out the truth about what they are eating, and what it is doing to them.

There is an old saying, ‘you are what you eat’ and nothing could be closer to the truth. Sadly the saying, ‘you are what you think you are eating’ does not come close to the same truth. We are all told that fat is bad for us, that we should limit the amount we eat. Nobody ever told me, or you I imagine, that it’s not just fat that can harm us, but the animal protein that often accompanies it, in steaks, burgers, chicken, bacon, the list goes on and on.

The book covers many, many studies, experiments and surveys carried out all around the world. One of them, however, makes you really sit up and listen. Experiments on rats, carried out in India had found that animals exposed to a potent carcinogen aflatoxin, a mould found on peanuts, developed liver cancer in the same way humans exposed to the same chemical do.

So what, I hear you say, but there’s an amazing twist. The rats were split into two groups. Half were fed on a diet containing 20% protein, the other half 5% protein. The first group all developed liver cancer, but of the second group NOT ONE developed cancer. When allied to a survey undertaken in the Philippines, where aflatoxin is common, which found that the children of the wealthiest families were far more prone to liver cancer for exactly the same reason, because they consumed more protein, because their families could afford meat.

So again, I urge you to at least investigate this for yourself. There are many reasons for becoming a vegan, but I cannot think of a single one that can be more important than protecting yourself, and those you love, from a potentially life threatening illness like cancer.

I realise that this is rather off topic for a blog about Buddhism, but using Wisdom, Courage and Compassion is encouraged in my faith, and I feel I am employing all three in this post.

A Crying Shame

24 Nov 2013 3 Comments

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The China StudyI have to admit to having shed a few tears this afternoon, whilst reading how the epidemic levels of heart disease caused by our western diet, can be easily and effectively reversed by simple changes in that diet.

Why tears? Well it was heart disease that took my father from us all too soon, and because maybe, just maybe, knowing then what I know now, might have saved him. The evidence has been around for decades, but it has been buried by the food companies, under a deluge of marketing ‘science’, simply to protect their obscene profits.

When you add cancer, diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease to the list of conditions being caused by what we eat and amazingly, amongst other things, the Casein protein in milk, it makes you wonder what the hell you have been taught all this time.

So what was this book I was reading, what scientific basis has it to make these outlandish claims? Written by the renowned Dr T. Colin Campbell and his son, The China Study has a simple title, coined from the research project that revealed some of the shocking truths.

For more than forty years, Dr T. Colin Campbell has been at the forefront of nutrition research. His legacy, The China Study, is the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. Dr Campbell is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University. His son, a 1999 graduate of Cornell University, Thomas Campbell is currently pursuing a career in medicine.

The China Study itself was the culmination of a twenty year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. It details a monumental survey of diet and death rates from cancer in more than 2,400 Chinese counties and the equally monumental efforts to explore its significance and implications for nutrition and health.

Now we are all taught to take things like this with a pinch of salt, although following a great deal of research into my HCRV diet, I avoid salt whenever I can. I just feel that when I come across something so potentially life-changing, like Nichiren Buddhism, it is my duty to try to inform others, or at least bring it to their attention.

I know that some of you will not go on to explore the information in the book, preferring to fall back on the accepted ‘truths’ we have all been taught. But if a single person reads the book, and having done so, alters their diet, or that of their children and that change averts the onset of any preventable disease, I will be satisfied that I did my bit.

The Right Choice

03 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , , , , ,

Keep calm and make the right choiceWell the weekend has been perfect for any kite flying aficionados living in Dorset, to say it has been windy is a huge understatement. Despite the breeze, I was keen to get out on the bike, having been unable to do so since last weekend.

Yesterday, I took myself off to Hengistbury Head along the promenade. There was a few piles of soft dry sand, blown from the beach, which made progress a little difficult in places, though the extra effort was nothing compared to that required to get back home against a nasty breeze.

So knowing the obstacles, I decided to have a later start to a repeat trip this morning, and spent a couple of hours reading Dr Douglas Graham’s book which discusses his 80-10-10 diet, the basis of his own, and my adopted eating regime. And very thought provoking it is too, arguing strongly and convincingly just how unhealthy the western diet has become of the last few decades.

Just reading the forward to the book makes one sit and think. So I thought I would share it with you, so you decide whether you might want to read the book, to help you make the right choices for your own dietary decisions …

As an Ironman triathlete, ultra marathoner, and holder of nearly 1,000 race first places, I know how important the right diet is. It dismays me to see how much dietary misinformation is being spread with the main goal being to make money. Because so many people are misinformed about the proper diet, obesity is at the highest rates in history, and as more people buy into these money-making schemes, obesity and its associated diseases are going to continue to increase at horrendous rates.

Over and over again, I hear people saying they’ve tried “everything” to lose weight — low fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, low protein, high protein, all kinds of pills, shots, powders, and shakes — you name it and they say they’ve tried it. The main cause of their failure is misinformation.

There are reasons for each of these dietary failures. What they were told was “low fat,” usually 30%, actually is not low fat at all, and they have no idea how to get to an effective low-fat 10% as described in this book. High-fat diets can be dangerous and put you at risk for the diseases that most Westerners die from prematurely. Low-carb diets are also dangerous, and most people have no idea that the ideal diet consists of 80% carbs. But, it must be the right carbs.

High-protein diets lead to osteoporosis, kidney disease, and lack of energy for exercise. Most people think that low-protein diets will never work, having been convinced by the meat and dairy industries that the more protein you eat, the better — and nothing could be further from the truth.

As for pills, shots, powders, and shakes, these gimmicks will never give people the health they really seek. What they don’t realize is that obesity is actually a symptom of eating the wrong diet. The same is true of most of the other diseases we suffer from, for example, heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, colitis, constipation, osteoporosis, acne, erectile dysfunction, dementia, and even vision and hearing problems. These are all symptoms of the diseases of consuming the wrong diet.

You are holding in your hands the book that will give you the dietary information we all need to have. You don’t have to be an Ironman triathlete or even want to be one, but you owe it to yourself to read The 80/10/10 Diet!

Ruth E. Heidrich, PhD
Author, A Race For Life

I’m not trying to sell the book for Dr Graham, I’m not even suggesting that any of you folks change your own diet, but I do think it would be wrong of me to keep this information to myself. If you do want to read it, this is a link to the book on Amazon, if you decide you think the diet is for you.

Slight Change Of Tack

01 Nov 2013 3 Comments

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , , ,

Tipping The ScalesIt’s exactly six months since the start of my dieting and cycling regime and I’m pleased to be able to claim a degree of success. On May 1st I weighed in at exactly 100kg, 15st 11lb in old money or 220lbs.

I knew I had put on weight, but seeing those figures was the short sharp shock I needed to do something about it. So here we are six months, or 185 days later, I’m down to 81.7kg, 12st 12lb or 180lbs and I’m feeling a whole lot better for it.

It’s been a long ride, literally at times, but over the last week I’ve changed the way I’m doing things. I was limiting my calorific intake to around 1500kcals per day, about 1000kcals lower than the recommended amount for a man, and basically slowly starving myself, albeit via a carefully controlled method.

At the same time, as you will have read, I’ve been getting out on my bike a lot over the summer, averaging around 500km per month, and so burning off yet more calories. But my body, and my mind to a lesser extent, decided that they had had enough it it.

Out bodies are really smart. They know how to look after us better than we know ourselves. So having allowed me to lose the excess weight I was carrying, my body decided, that not having enough calories on a daily basis, it would take over and stop me losing any more, and my weight has bounced up and down for a while

Our western diets are packed with calories, mainly from processed sugars and fats, particularly the fructose sugars that are fermented from waste corn and maize and then added to everything from soft drinks to cereals, bread to ready meals. We are eating it all the time, whether we realise or not.

Now I have been a vegetarian for a long time now, so deciding to move to a high carb raw vegan diet (HCRV) is not much of a change for me, though it does mean that I won’t be eating cheese, drinking milk or munching on roast vegetables if there was any oil involved.

Basically, I’m going to be living on fruit, vegetables, rice and corn pasta from now on. I’m looking at it as a life change rather than a diet, as it’s something that is sustainable and, in the long run, will be a far healthier way to live.

It’s very early days yet, I only made the change a few days ago, but it’s already having an effect. Not only has my weight started to drop again, even though I haven’t been able to get out on the bike very much in all this wind and rain, but my body fat is reducing too, and that is more important in the long run.

The determination to keep going is something people have mentioned over the months, but the alternative of quitting and going back to my clinically obese self is not an option. I would like to say that I’ve cheated a bit, my faith and chanting has provided an inner strength and will continue to do so, but it’s open to anyone, so it’s not cheating really.

With the festive season fast approaching, it will be interesting to see what challenges that presents, but the effort continues and it will be interesting to see where I am in another six months.

Next Newer Entries