VEGAN DIET - HEALTHY OR NOT

Almost everything you read or hear is that a vegan diet is in fact healthy for you...

Well not so fast, grasshopper!!!

The term "discriminating" means having good judgement. This is in fact essential when you construct a vegan diet. We must have good judgement when selecting what foods to eat, as well as how much too eat and when you eat it.

Here are a few examples to ponder. Let's go to the movies, buy your ticket and buy some vegan snacks... Here are a few vegan choices, popcorn (made with partially hydrogenated soybean oil, yikes), topped with vegan butter flavored GMO canola oil, oh oh, with a nice vegan sugar laden Pepsi, or maybe some Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, Red Vines or potato chips, all vegan. On the way home stop at the hamburg stand and get vegan french fries and a Coke for everyone. What a great vegan feast ...right?

As you can see all of these "food like substances, "(yeah right) are very unhealthy even though they are in fact considered vegan. This is where we must be discriminating. When converting to a vegan diet it is not enough to simply "not eat animals"or "animal products" but, we must discern between nutritious and non-nutritious (healthy and not healthy) foods.

Dr. Bernard Jensen taught three major rules regarding food selection. Consume your foods in the following 3 ways.
1. WHOLE
2. PURE
3. NATURAL

WHOLE - try to eat the food in it most unprocessed state. When you are selecting and preparing your foods  try to consume it in it's most unprocessed state. For example whole olives are better for us than olive oil, whole dates are better for us that date sugar, while a whole apple or carrot is better for us than a peeled one.

PURE - you know by now that organic means no herbicides, pesticides, GMO's. You know also that clean water not stored in BPA plastic containers is the best to consume.So as you see Dr. Jensen suggested we eat and drink as clean as we can

NATURAL - As much as we can we should try to eat things in their natural state, for example whole grapes more that grape juice, fresh raw sauerkraut rather that pasteurized sauerkraut and fresh raw corn on the cob rather that corn chips. Best to eat foods as close to their natural state as possible rather that processed. Of course some things must be processed to get the benefit, such as reishi mushrooms, but the idea is to do the best we can
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Dr. Jensen would always say that " it is what you do most of the time that really counts, not what you do now and then". Was a wise man.

So as you see a vegan diet can be extremely healthy, or not so much, based on the choices and decisions you make. If we consider Dr. Jensen's three rules we see that a vegan diet can be optimally healthy. I believe more so than any other diet on the planet. Dr. Gabriel Cousens calls a 70-80% raw vegan diet the optimal evolutionary diet for mankind and the planet. Many other leading doctors such as Dr. Esselstyn and McDougal agree with these concepts and eating philosophies.

So in summary a balanced variety of vegan foods put together in a thoughtful manner is YES INDEED, a very healthy diet practice. So be discriminating, keep it real , keep it as much as whole, pure and natural as you can and you will maximize your vegan eating plan.

May Peace Be With You...