Veg Out (in a good way)

Eat (mostly) plants!

Yes, you’ve heard it before, and here it is again. This is nutritionally sound, research-validated, high-level wellness, powerful anti-aging advice.

The healthiest, longest lived people on earth, the ones with scant heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s, the ones with keen hearing and sharp eyesight into their 9th decades, the lively, sprightly ones – those ones – are from different cultures and live in different corners of the world. But they have a few core habits in common, one of which is their mostly plant-based diets. This doesn’t mean that they consume no animal products. It means that their diets are built on vegetables, fruits. beans, seeds and nuts with animal protein as addendums.

What these so-called Blue Zone folks are doing is eating the way the best informed, least faddish, most anti-aging savvy nutritional researchers say we should all be eating: High nutrient density/ low energy density (aka caloric) foods packed with fiber and rich in phytochemicals. Veggies top this list. I don’t have to tell you what’s on the bottom, do I?

Just how good is a (mostly) plant-based diet? Let me count the ways.

An uncomplicated, whole foods, plant-based diet may reduce (or prevent) heart disease, coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity and a number of digestive ailments and illnesses. This is pretty much a laundry list of what ages us from the inside out. There is evidence that a plant-based diet may help prevent everything from gallstones to macular degeneration, may have a positive impact on oral health and allergies, and may be tied to improved cognition. One study suggests that this kind of clean eating devoid of processed foods and stingy with animal products can turn back the (biological) clock 14 years. Here are links to the research on all these studies.

And here’s a bit of the text of an article written for physicians about nutrition and health. These are researchers talking to doctors – not diet-of-the-month hucksters trying to sell books, not food faddists jumping on some bandwagon.

“Research shows that plant-based diets are cost-effective, low-risk interventions that may lower body mass index, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. They may also reduce the number of medications needed to treat chronic diseases and lower ischemic heart disease mortality rates. Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients.” (italics are mine)

And note this conclusion to the article: “The future of health care will involve an evolution toward a paradigm where the prevention and treatment of disease is centered, not on a pill or surgical procedure, but on another serving of fruits and vegetables.”

Or, as Hippocrates said almost 2500 years ago: Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

But I want to add, although I really hope I don’t have to, that eating this way is not at all like taking medicine. It’s not about limiting options but expanding them. It’s not about deprivation but surfeit, about flavors and colors and textures that make counterclockwise eating-for-wellness also eating for pleasure.