Forks in the road 51. Hypertension

Forks Over Knives - Forks in the Road

by Innes Hope

Forks Over Knives - a nifty way to say ‘Ditch hacking at meat. A fork is all you need to enjoy optimum health by eating plant-based foods.’

Innes Hope works in the arts, crafting thoughts into words, verses and recipes for a better world.

Thanks to the world’s science researchers, it is now clear that eating plant-based is home-based climate change mitigation 101. As such, it can also help make the planet healthier.

When the wholefoods plant-based movement began, the focus was solely on personal health. Renowned nutritionist, T Colin Campbell, PhD, had joined forces with Cleveland Clinic heart surgeon, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn to support people starting out on the plant-based road, as outlined in the documenary Forks Over Knives.

Other doctors, like John McDougall, Neal Barnard, and Joel Fuhrman, were doing similar work. Dr Esselstyn was guiding his patients to reverse their heart disease through diet. Dr Dean Ornish was too, his most famous patient being President Clinton, who also reversed his heart disease. All the doctors had a slightly different approach. I call such options ‘forks in the road.’

These professionals are still walking the talk, giving due consideration to each other’s ideas, and disagreeing on some points. They respect each other’s work. I like that. True to the scientific method, they know the road to health is complex. There’s always more to discover, and circumstances change. And change they have.

Climate scientists have been warning us for years that if we don’t halt the warming of our planet, we’ll face the 6th mass extinction. Yes. The end of the road! We’ve been hearing again, and again, ‘the way we live must change.’ But what action have we taken?

So little that we must focus now on our very survival. Not only will we face an increasing number of floods, droughts, and hurricanes, etc, but major food shortages will result as currently farmed fields become unproductive. Civil unrest is likely to ensue when people can’t get the food they need. From this moment onwards, we absolutely must pull out all the stops.

The stops are different, though, because we’re all different. Collectively we can make a significant difference eating plantbased. But our environments and cultural traditions vary. Our finances, work and social situations range from poverty and deprivation to the limitless indulgences of the mega-wealthy. Food availability varies. Our genes, hormones and micro-biomes are unique. We have individual strengths and challenges. This is no one way street.

Luckily, with each fork in the road taking a different direction, the wider public has options. No one diet suits everyone. Evangelising, making sweeping statements, or bickering about what diet is the best, is totally counter-productive.

Considering the threat to our very existence, encouraging the move toward towards plant-based food in general is of utmost importance. It’s the big picture that matters.

Let’s look at where we’re at now, and how far we need to go. The Food Freeway

Eighty to ninety per cent of Australians and New Zealanders are currently cruising along the Food Freeway, with many traditional eaters saying, ‘no way will I give up my meat, butter, eggs and cheese.’ Some are eating more veges since starting their own gardens. Others are trying plant-based burger patties and sausages, especially at social gatherings, and the public is buying more plant-based foods. But with current recommended levels of protein being unnecessarily high, many people fear they won’t get enough protein without animal foods.

Taste and convenience also matter. Until plant-based foods are as high in protein, until they taste as good to meat-eaters, and are just as convenient, there’ll be no mass transit into the plant-based lane. Pre-packaged plant protein foods will also have to be cheaper than meat and dairy.

When these factors come into play, more people may start to transition. Highly refined plant-protein foods with a similar fat profile to meat will be what they go for. Guaranteed. Healthier options like tofu and lentils have always been available, but punters avoid them. Corporate food giants know this and are providing highly refined alt-meats that increasingly fit the bill. We can be thankful for that, as any uptake of plant-based foods

helps improve society’s carbon footprint.

Competition for market domination could make plant-based food affordable for everyone sooner than we imagine. And when the majority of people take that fork in the road, plant-based will become the highway. At which point, the focus might move away from ultra-refined, towards healthy options. People, and the planet, will have a chance to recover.

The term, ‘plant-based’ appeals to those who still want animal food on the menu, because it can be interpreted to mean ‘mostly plants’ instead of ‘only plants.’ And some want to distance themselves from the term, ‘vegan,’ which they associate with radical extremist animal activists. Nonetheless, despite veganism being totally about cruelty free, the default term in society so far, for those eating totally plant-based, is ‘vegan.’ The Vegan Highway

Vegan food delivers the taste and ‘mouth feel’ people are used to, (in many ways, addicted to); fairly high levels of fats and oils, sugars and salt. If you’re a manufacturer, add ‘natural’ flavours, and not only will customers get more, say, strawberry taste than they’d get with real strawberries, but you can bulk up your product with cheap fillers. Not exactly healthy. But as healthy as the foods people are currently eating. Of course, there are healthy vegan options too.

Vegan is the new vegetarian. But though around 10% of the Western world is now vegetarian, only about 1% are vegan. That 1% includes all forms of totally plant-based diets.

It took decades to reach this point. Nonetheless, stunning developments are happening in this miniscule decile. Since science revealed that animal foods pose a significant problem in terms of GHG emissions and the destruction of crucial ecosystems, the vegan diet has become the base statistical low-carbon-food-footprint reference point, the new ideal. With ‘vegan’ you know you’re getting plant-based and lower carbon emissions.

This is why the market trend is vegan alt-meat, not vegetarian, (which may include cheese, eggs, maybe fish, etc). A Climate Cuisine article in NZ Consumer magazine advances the vegan ideal to ‘Waste-free Vegan.’¹

But there’s an even more promising ideal in the low-carbon food-footprint world. The Wholefood-Living Corridor

Eating wholefood-plant-based lowers our carbon footprint even further than waste-free vegan. With no highly refined foods there are lower transport emissions, lower factory emissions, and fewer added ingredients. With wholefoods being healthier, there are fewer healthcare-service emissions. Add ‘waste-free’ to that, and ‘locally grown,’ and the future is looking brighter, more hopeful.

There are forks in the road on this corridor too, as people find workable ways to limit their ongoing intake of sugar, salt, oil and highly refined foods. After all, if plant-based food doesn’t appeal, people aren’t going to eat it. I repeat, no one diet suits everyone. We have to have various inroads.

Many health professionals now work under the wholefood plant-based umbrella, each with a different approach. Climate scientists and environmentalists are also advocating the move towards plant-based eating, because the bigger picture involves more than just personal health. Their advice to the general public to ‘eat less red meat,’ is working. We have a long way to go, and I feel impatient, wanting to put my foot on the accelerator. But sadly, I find I can’t talk with most of my friends about the way I eat. They don’t want to go there. All I can do is respect our differences, (which I do), and try to maintain hope for the future of humanity. There are many roads to home.

I’m grateful this magazine presents various views. That the editors, not shying away from serious issues, ensure that we hear from researchers, ordinary people, and others in the plant-based and vegan communities. Forks Over Knives it is, and together we work towards a better world.