Some members of the nutrition world, medical community, scientific field and general public struggle with the idea of eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet.
In this part 1 of a 3-part series, join Dan Cho as he interviews Dr. Neeta Hillman, an internal medicine doctor from the United States, and Beverley Haines, a registered dietitian from British Columbia, Canada, on the benefits of eating a plant-based diet.
Do I need to cut out both meat and dairy? Can I occasionally eat a little bit of meat and dairy?
Can we really get all of our nutrients from eating plant-based foods?
We know that red meat is bad, but can I eat chicken and fish?
We’ll explore the answers to these common plant-based eating questions in this episode!
The recording is from Lifestyle MED LIVE, a series of free online events on today’s most important health and lifestyle medicine topics.
Links
The Lifestyle Is Medicine podcast is produced by Pathways to Wholeness Lifestyle Medicine in Toronto, Canada and Lifestyle Is Medicine.
Pathways is a group of clinics in Toronto that prevents, treats and reverses disease using evidence-based lifestyle medicine. Pathways provides compassionate, evidence-based care at three locations in Toronto: North York, Junction, and Scarborough Learn more at: www.pathwaystowholeness.ca
Lifestyle Is Medicine is a not for profit that shares the principles of lifestyle medicine to help individuals and families prevent and reverse today’s leading chronic conditions. Learn more at: www.lifestylemed.org
Music credits
Positive
Akashic Records
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Episode Transcript
Dr. George Cho: Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle is Medicine podcast. In this episode, we listen in to a Lifestyle Med Live event answering the common questions and objections about plant-based eating. We’re joined by Dr. Neeta Hillman, an internal medicine doctor who’s worked at several lifestyle medicine immersion programs in the United States, and also by Beverley Haines, a registered dietitian from British Columbia. They’ll be answering questions such as:
● Isn’t plant-based eating extreme?
● Shouldn’t we eat everything in moderation?
● Isn’t chicken and fish good for us?
This is the 1st in a 3 part series. Let’s listen in!
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Dan Cho: Alright! Dr. Hillman, Beverley, should we get started? Are you ready to go?
Beverley Haines and Dr. Neeta Hillman: Yes.
Dan: Okay. I just want to welcome everyone to this Lifestyle Med Live event! We’re really glad you could join us. We’ve been holding these events throughout these past few months, and we’re really happy you could be with us today!
My name is Dan Cho, and I’m with Lifestyle is Medicine. I just want to start with a few housekeeping items. Please do note that this event is being recorded and also we are live streaming this on Facebook. So I just want to welcome those who have joined us on Facebook!
Please do adjust your videos accordingly. Just be aware of that.
So tonight’s going to be a really fun and interactive session where we’ll be going through some of the most common questions and objections that people have about plant-based eating. We want to answer your questions as well. So this is going to be very interactive.
In lifestyle medicine, we promote a whole foods, plant-based diet as the most optimal for disease prevention, treatment and reversal. But as we know, many people, sometimes they struggle with this idea of going on this type of diet. This includes many in the nutrition world, many in the wider public, many in the medical field, scientific field, etc. So, we just kind of want to go through those and try to answer some of them and maybe you have some questions as well.
We’d love to answer your questions, so we’re going to go through some set questions we have and we encourage you to put your questions into the chat box. You can even put your thoughts on some of the responses into the chat box. We want this to be very interactive. Those who are watching on Facebook as well, please put your questions in the comments and we’ll try to get through as many as possible following our main discussion.
To help us navigate some of these questions, we are joined by Dr. Neeta Hillman and Beverley Edward-Haines.
Dr. Hillman is a physician, an internal medicine doctor, in the US who works as a lifestyle medicine doctor. Beverley Edward-Haines is a registered dietitian and also a raw culinary arts chef who works with Interior Health in British Columbia. She’s hosted health programs on television networks across Canada. So, I just really want to thank Dr. Hillman and Beverley for joining us today.
Beverley and Dr. Hillman: You’re welcome! Absolutely.
Dan: Great! So let me stop sharing my screen here… alright! So let’s go through some of the...what we think are some of the most common objections. And Beverly I’m going to start with you first.
Beverley: Great.
Dan: One thing that we often hear is that going on a plant-based diet sounds a bit extreme. Do you really need to cut out what many understand as 2 big food groups. Dairy and meat. It’s like half the human diet it seems. They say, “It sounds a bit extreme.” What would your response be to that?
Beverley: Well, the primary objection to eating plant-based, cutting out all meat and dairy, goes back to that erroneous belief that plant-based eating is inferior to animal-based eating. That we can’t get all the nutrition we need by just eating plants! And there was the belief that animal-based protein was far superior because it had all the essential amino acids, the iron, the zinc. And that dairy products have all the calcium.
Well, we’ve since come to realize that, through all the research that has been done, that in fact the truth is completely the opposite. We find the well-designed, whole food plant-based eating is going to protect us from a whole host of diseases and promote well-being in a far superior way than animal foods ever could. So it depends on what level of health you’re after for yourself, for your family members and for the planet.
Do you want a little bit of better health or do you want vibrant, fantastic health for yourself and for the planet? Because in this instance, we can have both at the same time!
From the research, we know that there are so many health risks associated with eating meat and dairy. And there are so many advantages to cutting out all meat and dairy from our diets. This includes not only prevention of a number of diseases, but also treatment and reversal of those diseases including things like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancers, gout, arthritis, obesity. Even things like menopausal conditions for women.
There are so many doctors today who are advocating they’ve done all kinds of research over the past how many years on their own clients. They’re advocating for this healthy way of eating! So we’ve got people like Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Anyone know of him? You’ve all heard of him. T. Colin Campbell, John McDougall, Kim Williams, Dean Ornish, Michael Greger, Neal Barnard, Michael Klaper. Dr. Neeta, sure! All these doctors are advocating for this way of living. So that’s one thing. It’s going to make us healthier!
Another thing: Living peaceably and compassionately with other species. It makes us a kinder and gentler society when we aren’t killing other species. And especially when we’re not killing them because we don’t even need that type of nutrition for us to live better. In fact, we do better without it. When we’re killing other species for no good reason at all, that’s just not a good thing at all.
As well, we’re going to be leaving a smaller footprint on the planet. We have all the evidence that shows us that animal agriculture is ravaging the Earth’s resources in so many ways. Including our water supply! For example, the Amazon Rainforest, the air that we breathe, all of these things. So when you look at all of the advantages of cutting out meat, it just makes-- meat and dairy-- it just makes a lot of sense!
Dan: So basically what you’re saying, with so many benefits, it’s not really extreme.
Beverley: It’s not extreme in the least! And I think it was Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn I heard one time. He was saying, “You know what really is extreme? Taking an artery out of your leg and putting it in your heart for heart surgery!” That’s extreme as opposed to changing the way we eat. Which one is more extreme do you think?
Dan: Yeah we had Dr. Esselstyn for a previous Lifestyle Medicine Live event.
Beverley: Fantastic!
Dan: Anyone who is interested, you can go to our Facebook page and search “Lifestyle is Medicine” and you’ll see the livestream recording there. You can check it out there!
On a related note, what if somebody says-- and Beverley I’ll direct this to you too. Someone says, “Okay, but everything in moderation. A little bit of fruits and veggies of course we all know that’s good. But maybe a little bit of meat sometimes, maybe a little bit of dairy.”
It’s a similar question but coming from a slightly different angle. What are your thoughts on that?
Beverley: Yeah, absolutely. Well again, we have all of the research that shows us that even moderate amounts of animal products are detrimental to our health. Moderate amounts of alcohol are detrimental. Moderate amounts of smoking is detrimental. Which says to me that the everything in moderation thing really is a false premise because to begin with, not everything is good.
So I would suggest instead of saying that, we think all good things in moderation is a much better way of living! For example, water is fantastic! It’s essential. We need water, but if you drink too much water at one time, it can kill you. So, you know, all good things in moderation! Not everything is good for us, so we really shouldn’t--if things aren’t good for our system, step aside! Just walk away.
Dan: And Dr. Hillman, Bev was mentioning all of the benefits, the clinical benefits, in terms of disease. Just wondering, in terms of your clinical practice, what are… Do you see a difference between someone who tries to go plant-based fully versus somebody who tries to ease their way into it? Maybe a more moderate approach? Are there clinical benefits for these 2 different approaches? What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Hillman: I appreciate everything that Beverly has shared so far and that idea… so I guess I’ll start back… For a period of 3 1/2 years I had the chance to work at an in-patient lifestyle program. During that time period, I had a chance, and this is just over an 18 day period, [to] see the difference [of a] completely plant-based lifestyle. What impact it had on a patient’s life and health.
What was neat was being able to follow these patients over a period of time, and some of them would go back and dabble in that little moderation or little bit of the, you know, animal products again. And they themselves would be able to tell you, there is a significant difference. So let me mention a couple of them.
One of the things that we talk about is disease reversal. Bev mentioned this before. In moderation, animal products in moderation do show disease cessation if you decrease the amount or to kind of plateau disease, but do not show disease reversal. The only way or lifestyle that has been shown to reverse disease completely [is a] plant-based diet.
We’re talking about taking an artery out of the leg… If you want to see plaque reversal in arteries that are causing blockages to the muscles of the heart and to the brain and to the lower extremities. Plant-based lifestyles show reversal in those arteries of soft plaque. You do not see that in moderation even in “healthy moderation of smaller amounts of animal products.”
The other thing is autoimmune diseases. When we look at our patients that have rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus. Those patients who [were] completely plant-based, you would see a significant decrease in the inflammation as compared to patients who were… you know, had a little bit of animal products.
In fact, what you would see, in my patients who had autoimmune diseases, pain is one of the more significant symptoms that they have. They would tell you that even when they would take small amounts of dairy here and there. They would notice increases in their inflammatory markers. Those are objective signs, but then also in pain and their ability to live from day to day.
Another area that we see this is in diabetes, diabetic populations. Same thing. You can lose weight and see a decrease in the blood sugar numbers, but if you actually look at insulin resistance, you do not… you actually will sometimes see, slower rise. You don’t see complete cessation but slower rise in insulin resistance when you have just a moderation of animal products. When you’re on a completely plant-based lifestyle, you see insulin resistance actually completely reverse the other direction.
And even, what is so amazing is actually even for those who… it looks like they completely burned out their beta cells, their ability to be able to produce insulin after having been a diabetic for such a long time. Plant-based lifestyles are the only lifestyles that have shown to increase and bring back functional beta cells which is really profound.
I can go on and on even with cancer, it’s the same thing. In turning on and off and this is one thing that stopped people. This is something that Dr. T. Colin Campbell had shown. For literally you can take very small amounts of animal protein and you can turn on and turn off so kind of unfold and fold genes that will predispose a person to actually having cancer.
This is just tiny, very very tiny small amounts. Again, it just depends on your goal. I always tell my patients. What is your goal? Are you wanting to reverse cancer or prevent cancer? Are you wanting to reverse your diabetes or are you just wanting to slow the progression and eventually still see the results? You choose what you want to do and then choose the lifestyle that will get you to your goal.
Dan: That’s great! So, Beverley, going back to you. So you know, often we hear that, “Okay, I get it. Beef, processed meat-- I’m going to cut those down.” But what about chicken and fish? Those are good, healthy fats, omega-3. They’re white meat, if I’m not mistaken. They’re not the red meat. So maybe Beverley we’ll start out with you. Any comments on fish and chicken as “healthy.”
Beverley: Yeah, you’re right. Most people will say, “Yeah, I’m just eating the white meats now. I’m not eating the red meats. So much healthier!” But you know, what? It really isn’t.
In fact, people will say, “I’m taking the skin off my chicken now. But we find that so much of the fat is within the muscle itself not just right under the skin there. So there really isn’t such a big change by you just taking off the skin of your chicken. There’s so much disease in animals today.
Factory farmed chickens, fish farms, the density of all those animals together and they’re just infecting each other. When it comes to fish, the waters are so polluted. Lead and other heavy metals that are just, you know, staying in their bodies there. All of the antibiotic use. It’s said that animals for agriculture--there’s more antibiotics used for animal agriculture than there are people taking antibiotics. It’s just so much use there.
Genetically engineering that’s happening with respect to animals and fish. All these things are just so foreign to our bodies. Our bodies just reject these things, and then we see the diseases coming on from all of these alien things that our bodies aren’t supposed to be having in them.
So I would just have to say: You know what? Fish, chicken, if it has a mother. You know? If it comes from something that has a mother, it’s not the best thing for our bodies. Whether it’s white meat or red meat or whatever it is. It’s not the best nutrition for our bodies. You could do so much better.