We have nutritarian friends everywhere! Meet our friend Rose. In this photo, we're making whole wheat flat breads from organic whole wheat flour and water. Those are the only two ingredients!

They're so easy and they are really good with soups and salads or stuffed with veggies like a sandwich or wrapped up with beans and veggies like burritos. They're versatile and tasty and inexpensive to make. You should try it sometime!

Rose has been studying Eat To Live and recently decided to make a life changing commitment by renovating her diet. And she's going to allow us to share some of her journey here on our blog. In fact, many of our friends are making huge and remarkable changes in their diets and each of them agreed to answer questions and share their experiences with us and you too. So you can look forward to reading about friends and family members who see the value in changing their eating practices.

In the past few weeks I have been moved to tears to see how active our friends have become in embracing a nutritarian diet. I have been truly inspired and my life has become even more rich here in France as we are now able to share more meals together, cook together and share ideas.

I have never had an experience like this and feel a sense of true community developing. It's the start of a new paradigm in a new world and I don't think we should underestimate the political voice these activities have. We're not only taking our health care into our own hands, we're creating a new community based on delicious, festive recipes prepared with friends on a regular basis.

Each person who eliminates meat from their diet, is one less person perpetuating factory farming. That means one less person buying foods which are packaged or highly processed, which means one less person making pathogenic garbage which will be thrown into the landfills. But most importantly, it means more people to share your delicious recipes and ideas with.

Seriously, eliminating risk for disease and helping to save the planet. How can you refuse this change my friends? And when you're ready, we're here. And there are so many others now to support your truly powerful decision. As powerful as your vote, maybe more so, is your decision to change your diet. It doesn't have to be personally political but if you've been inspired to improve your health by changing your diet, you will inadvertently improve the health of your nation and that is as political as anyone really needs to be.

Shredded Veggie Soup #1

Add the following to a large soup pan

2 shredded carrots

2 shredded zuchini

1 shredded eggplant

1 shredded red, green and yellow bell pepper

2 diced onions

2 minced garlic cloves

1 bunch of fresh basil, minced

Cover the veggies with water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer the soup for another 30 to 40 minutes. Add 3 humongous handfuls of sliced fresh spinach, chard or bok choy, cover the pot with a lid and turn the heat off. Allow the greens to wilt and then garnish with dried onion flakes and slices of avocado. Go make this recipe right now and eat it with a huge salad and tell us what you think.

Assignment, should you choose to participate: Go to your kitchen right now. Throw away your salt and anything in your refrigerator with salt in it. Go on, be brave.

And until next time,
Be Well Little Cell

The Thin Man

In January 2008, Ruth and I were listening to public radio in Long Beach when we heard an interview with author Mike Anderson. He referenced Dr. Joel Fuhrman and his book Eat to Live. We went out and picked it up at a bookstore and never looked back. Two years later, we are still enthusiastic followers of his advice on diet and lifestyle. The change was by all means huge. Even though we thought we were eating a good diet at the time, we soon discovered some important clues that would tell us otherwise.

I have always been thin. Since I was a kid I've hardly carried a pound of excess weight. On the contrary, I always had to work hard to put on even a few pounds of muscle through exercise and weight training. I ate whatever I wanted, absolutely anything, without ever putting on weight. Some people said I was lucky, but for me it was just my reality.

I was alway an athlete too. From the age of 6, my life was a balance of homework, practice, sports camps and summer leagues. I played college baseball and rowed crew at Long Beach. I was active and thought myself a model of health. But as I mentioned, there were subtle signs that I had been ignoring all along.

From at least the age of 18, my first year of college sports, my blood pressure had always been in the 135/85 range. Although I had no idea at the time, this was not only well above the recommended reading of 120/80, it was on the border of certified hypertension, which is defined as anything above 140/90. Doctors would sometimes ask if I had any history of hypertension in my family, but I had no idea and none of them pushed the issue.


It was only after reading Eat to Live in 2008 that I realized just how serious a threat my high blood pressure was to my overall health and longevity. It turns out they don't call it the "silent killer" for nothing:

"Truly "normal" blood pressure readings should remain below 115 over 75. A recently published meta-analysis pooling the results of 61 studies demonstrated that for every incremental increase of 20 mg of systolic blood pressure above 115, heart attack death rates doubled. High blood pressure is also associated with an increased risk of heart failure, kidney failure and strokes (CVA – cerebral vascular accidents). It also predisposes to dementia and heart arrhythmias."

In other words, my healthy waist-line measurement was just a cover for what was a serious long-term health risk. One that if left untreated would have doubled my chances of suffering a fatal heart attack or other cerebral vascular accident. I also can't help but think that at its root, my so-called "luck" at being able to eat rich, high-fat foods without fear of weight gain was almost certainly a factor in helping promote my dangerously high blood pressure:

"Over 90 percent of adult Americans who die in car accidents show atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries on autopsy. The unfortunate reality is that if you eat the Standard American Diet you will have a 90 percent chance of developing high blood pressure when you get older. You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect. The Standard American Diet is simply heart attack and stroke causing."

I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across a doctor like Joel Fuhrman. Because of the numerous doctors I'd seen for sports physicals throughout my late teens and twenties, not one raised more than a slight concern at what should have been seen as a dangerously high blood pressure reading. But this is not abnormal as it turns out:

"You may have been told in the past that, if your blood pressure is below 140/90, it is normal. Unfortunately, this is not true. It is average for those above the age of 60, but certainly not normal. Being average in America means you are heavily diseased...The only reason the 140 over 90 figures had been used in the past is that it represents the midpoint of blood pressure readings of Americans older than sixty. The risk for strokes and heart attacks starts climbing at 115/75."

So to paraphrase, I had a normal blood pressure reading for a diseased American senior citizen. And this since the age of 18. How's that for a wake-up call? Needless to say, it was more than sufficient motivation for both Ruth and I to completely revolutionize our diet.

And now more than two years later, I can say that not only has my blood pressure returned to a truly healthy level (around 110/70), but I live a richer and fuller life in every way because of it. Our food is truly more delicious and nourishing than it ever was before. The lack of a future heart attack or stroke is simply one component of a new, happier and more vital life with my best friend Ruth.


Current readers of our blog will know that we've been blessed to spend the last year and a half living in the Normandy region of France. One of just a long list of dreams we plan to realize before this wonderful adventure we're sharing is over. All the more reason to stay strong and vital each step of the way. That's why we said no to heart disease and stroke.

"In the United States, about 400,000 people a year suffer from strokes. Forty percent of these strokes may be fatal, but the 60 percent that live are often doomed to a life of suffering and disability. The cost of strokes is not just measured in the billions of dollars lost in work, hospitalization and the care of survivors in nursing homes, but the major cost or impact of a stroke is the loss of an independent lifestyle that occurs in 30% of the survivors. After a stroke, a self-sustaining and enjoyable lifestyle may lose most of its quality as the person can no longer walk, feed, or express him/her self normally. The family members find themselves in a new role as caregivers; it is a true tragedy. What makes these events even more heartbreaking is that they never had to happen in the first place."

Just remember, it never has to happen for you either. Because there's a big, wide world out there that awaits you. So until next time, be well little cell.

Matthew and Ruth

Hope for a New World - 2010

When the clock struck midnight to bring in a new decade, Matthew and I toasted the new year with a champagne glass full of water and an organic orange. We savored each juicy morsel too. And though the 12 day fast was uneventful in the way of excitement and glamor, the benefits for our bodies' immune system and all the other 10 intimately connected body systems and our spirits will continue to surprise us for a long time to come, I'm certain.

I don't really want to go on and on about the fast except to say that I am thankful we've had the experience and I know my body is still carrying on the good work it started during the fast.


I'd like to speak on the topic of trusting our bodies. I haven't always trusted mine to do what I wanted it to do or what it is supposed to do. But I've not always put my body in the best possible position to do so either. Say, for instance, heal. But over the course of the last two years and a drastic change in diet, my body consistently reveals its own miraculous healing mechanisms to me. And I'm learning to trust that more and more.

I had a knee surgery in 2005 that was "routine". It was routine for the surgeon, not for me. He performs these surgeries on a regular basis. And on elite athletes. The Lakers, even. My knee surgeon is a God [sarcasm]. He is handsome, articulate, confident and talented. I trusted him and he performed the surgery. My knee was scheduled to return to 100% "normal".


And now almost 5 years later, I'm just now getting used to the idea that I was knocked out and then my knee was sliced open and fixed by a stranger. I'm amazed at the technology. I'm dumbfounded by the level of skill it takes to remove part of a ligament from one area of my body and then afix it to the injured area, replacing the damaged ligament and then closing my knee up to heal. It took months of rehab and I'm just now beginning to feel balance in my body.
Why am I talking about this?


Because the surgery was not life threatening. Because I had time to choose. Because, I thought long and hard about whether or not I elected this process and then I decided yes. But the surgery was not at all routine for me. The surgery was traumatic. The surgery was frightening. Going under anesthesia was unnerving. All of it. Not routine. At all. It had an impact on my physical body and mental well-being. That was an elective surgery.

And I think we should consider heart surgeries elective surgeries as well.

So what does this have to do with high nutrient eating? Well, I was thinking how we come to trust our doctors, surgeons and pharmacies more than our own instincts. I was thinking, in the time I had while I was fasting that we've become rather complacent in our own problem solving. I mean we're rather sophisticated humans in this day and age. I hear folks talk all the time about open heart surgery with the language used by a surgeon. The routine nature of it. The necessity of it all.

I beg to differ, my friends. The routine nature of the surgeries are for those brilliant mechanics that perform them. Brilliant and skilled? Yes, indeed. Necessary? Most often and in even the seemingly most deadly of cases, NOT necessary. Can you really imagine and let it sink in that a group of people you barely know will give you a risky pharmaceutical that will put you to sleep, then they'll skillfully, but unnecessarily, of course, "harvest" vessels from other areas of your body to graft or "sew on" to your own heart.

www.bem.fi/book/06/06.htm

Next, they'll have to slice through your skin, muscles, nerves to get to your sternum and then use a powerful jigsaw to cut through your sternum, a very thick bone designed to protect the contents of your chest cavity. Yeah, they'll cut that in half in order to access your precious life giving organ, hoist your chest open with a vice, while they re-direct your blood flow to a machine that takes over oxygenating your tissues while they STOP your heart, and then the real unnecessary work begins of attaching and fixing and clearing diseased vasculature.


Meanwhile, if you'd stopped to consider another less invasive option, you might've made some changes to your diet and avoided all that heart-stopping stuff to begin with.

Now given the option of the above described procedure or consulting with someone like Dr. Fuhrman or any other number of doctor's who are equally as brilliant and knowledgeable as the surgeon and who aid in the reversal of this condition with what you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'm going with the latter option. How about you?

So, my question to you all is this: We manage to creatively solve thousands of problems in our lives. We've learned how to handle extraordinary tasks, jobs, families, stock portfolios, and businesses with all their obstacles and need for problem solving skills. Why is that when it comes to our health, we opt for giving all of our empowerment away to drugs and surgery?

Heart disease is reversible through diet - as is diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic headaches, depression, and a whole host of other disease that ail us regularly.


You don't have to your sternum or the sternum of someone you love sawed open and held that way with a vice while the beautiful heart organ is stopped. Not routine. Not necessary.

Until next time,
Be well little cell
Ruth and Matthew