Forks Over Knives (12 page)

DR. NEAL BARNARD is an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and a researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health. He is also the editor-in-chief of the
Nutrition Guide for Clinicians
and the author of more than fifteen books on nutrition and health as well as numerous journal articles.

Neal received his doctor of medicine and completed his residency at George Washington, then practiced at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City before returning to Washington in 1985 to found the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nationwide group of physicians and supporters that promotes preventative medicine and addresses controversies in modern health care. In 1991, Neal initiated the cancer project, which provides nutritional information for cancer prevention and survival, and later he founded the Washington center for Clinical Research, a center for nutrition-related studies.

While he was still in college, Neal decided to become a doctor. The year before starting medical school, he worked as an autopsy assistant at a Minneapolis hospital. One day, the pathologist in charge was attending to a man who’d died from a massive heart attack; he removed a wedge of ribs from the man’s chest and placed it on the table, pointing out to Neal the atherosclerosis (i.e., fatty buildup inside the arteries) visible in the heart. The doctor told Neal this condition was caused by Americans’ bacon-and-eggs lifestyle. At the end of the examination, Neal put the ribs back in the man’s chest and went to the hospital cafeteria—to find that lunch that day was spareribs.

“They looked and smelled just like the body I’d just seen,” he recalls. “I couldn’t eat them. It preyed on my mind, and the connections between what we eat and our health became clearer and clearer to me.”

Neal began to realize that “[although Western medicine is] good at diagnosis and treatment, it is abysmal at prevention. I felt it was important for doctors to become advocates and teachers. That’s why I set up PCRM.”

“Nutrition is critical for health. Many Americans are taking numerous medications three to four times a day, yet they haven’t changed the dietary regimen that made them sick in the first place. Most people are not aware that these foods are, if anything, more powerful than the drugs.

“If we cut our skin or break a bone, we take it for granted that the body will heal. But we can also heal from heart disease, weight problems, and diabetes—yet that will never happen if we do not we get away from the foods that are causing the problem and take advantage of foods that heal.

“Currently, conventional treatment for a person with diabetes or hypertension is medications; he or she might or might not be told about a plant-based diet as an ‘alternative.’ We should turn that around, addressing the diet first—after all, diet is often the cause of the problem—and then, if needed, adding medications. A plant-based diet has the power to reverse heart disease and diabetes and to restore people to health. The sooner it begins, the better off the patient is going to be.”

Changing your diet—whether that means starting on a new path of plant-based eating, simply cutting back on meat and dairy and adding more plant-based foods, or perhaps refining your habits to eliminate processed oils—takes commitment and dedication.

In his book
21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart
, Dr. Neal Barnard suggests an interesting approach for switching to plant-based foods: He recommends that you make a list of the meals you like the most, then go through that list and tweak it. For example, remove the butter from the toast and replace it with sugarless jam, take the butter out of the oatmeal and add blueberries, take the butter off the pancakes, and, while you’re at it, add whole wheat flour to the batter.

FOR BREAKFAST.
There are plenty of plant-based milk substitutes to eat with your whole-grain cereal, but don’t be tied to tradition. Smoothies make fantastic breakfasts, and you can make them out of almost anything. Leftovers can also make a wonderful start to the day. Many Asian cultures traditionally eat soup for breakfast. Why not give it a try?

PREPARING SAVORY DISHES.
Often the delicious smells and tastes that people attribute to animal foods come at least as much from the onion,
garlic, mushrooms, and other vegetables that they have been cooked with. Use vegetable broth, water, lemon juice, or other liquids for “sautéing” foods to get the flavor without the fat. Add chopped onion, carrot, and celery to cooking grains. Slow-cooking casseroles and stews can make it easy to achieve deep, complex flavors.

MAKING SAUCES AND DRESSINGS.
Mushrooms can be used to make extremely flavorful gravy. Soup can be used as a sauce on top of grains or baked potatoes. Possibilities for salad dressings are endless: Try using pureed whole fruit such as oranges or grapefruit to make them thicker without the oil.

MAKING SOUPS.
After cooking soup, blend at least part of it and pour the pureed liquid back into the pot to make a creamy base. The thicker texture will make it taste richer.

FOR SNACKS AND DESSERTS.
There are many delicious snack and dessert recipes in this book, but do remember that simple foods can be the perfect choice. Satisfy your sweet cravings or lift your late-afternoon lag with fresh fruit. Keep cut vegetables in the fridge and oil-free hummus and crackers on hand. Bring snacks like these with you in the car, to work, and on errands.

HERE ARE SOME
tools that will help you to prepare easy, delicious, healthy, plant-based meals:

BLENDER.
Handy for making smoothies or combining mostly liquid ingredients. Because of the toughness of kale and some other green vegetables, consider buying a blender with a strong motor, such as a Blendtec or Vitamix.

CITRUS REAMER.
Very useful if you like using juice from fresh citrus fruits.

COLANDER.
Perfect for draining steamed vegetables and rinsing berries or beans.