This book is a MUST READ!
Of all the books that I have read and reviewed in our Viva*Sparkle quest for understanding and furthering health, nutrition and longevity, this book stands above and alone for its unifying of all of these areas. While other books are particularly effective in dealing with some aspects of those fields, Lisle and Goldhamer, in this illuminating presentation, bring all of those aspects together to provide the solution to our pressing health problems and a blueprint for the personal empowerment to achieve that solution.
Christine and Kenneth Scott (in the Viva*Sparkle T’s) with co-author Doug Lisle at Plantstock 2016
This exciting book addresses the greatest health problem of modern times. For the past many decades (going back at least as far as the 1950s) we have seen an ever decreasing level of health in our modern societies. We now have epidemics of premature deaths from cardiovascular diseases and cancers which kill upwards of 75% of our populations. Other diseases are increasing, too, so that upwards of 90% of our population dies from disease, prematurely.
The solution to reversing this ever increasing death rate has been known for several decades and increasingly understood since at least the 1980s. The epidemics that cause these diseases are known to be due to nutritional errors. We are eating the wrong foods and it is killing us! The food we eat, the so-called Standard American Diet (a diet high in animal protein, sugar, salt and processed foods) needs to be changed
And we do know what foods we should be eating, what is increasingly called the Whole Foods Plant Based Diet (a diet based on fruits and vegetables with no processed foods, added sugar, added salt or added oils). Why, with this knowledge, have the epidemics not been stopped and eradicated? This is the great issue that the authors address. Their presentation deals with providing a solution that works at the individual level – it will provide you with the knowledge that you need to achieve health and to avoid the modern diseases that plague our society, diseases such as heart disease, cancers, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis . . . More importantly it shows the changes that need to be made to nutrition in our society so as to greatly improve the quality of life of our older citizens and significantly decrease the massive expenditures on our medical and pharmaceutical systems.
The authors explain how it is that humans, unique among all species, have created an environment in which the foods that we eat counteract our natural defenses against disease. And then they lead us through the steps so that we can understand how to avoid such destructive ‘nutrition’. It is a fascinating journey that will empower the reader to significantly improve their health and to likely ensure that they do not succumb to early death.
The solution they provide is based on a foundation of psychological understanding of how our bodies respond to nutritional stimuli. We are naturally wired to want the fats, animal protein, sugar, salt and processed foods – foods that were scarce throughout biological time, until the last 50 to 100 years or so. And our food processing industry builds on this natural desire to addict us to such foods – foods that cause the range of ‘modern’ diseases which kill us. Understanding these responses can give us the tools that we require to counteract bad nutrition and a variety of various kinds of addiction – the ‘Pleasure Trap’ of which they write.
Read this book to regain your health, your life, your future. And keep re-reading it until it works for you!