Taking Personal Responsibility for Our Health

There's only one diet that's ever been proven to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients—a diet centered around whole plant foods. So, anytime anyone tries to sell you on some new diet, do me a favor, ask them one simple question: Has it been proven to reverse heart disease? You know, the number one reason you and all your loved ones will die. If the answer is no, why would you even consider it?

The number one cause of death in the United States and the number one cause of disability is our diet, which has bumped tobacco smoking to two. Smoking now only kills a half-million Americans every year whereas our diet kills hundreds of thousands more.

What we eat is the number one determinant of how long we live. What we eat is what determines most whether we'll die prematurely. What we eat is what determines most whether we become disabled or not.

Plant-based diets may now be considered the nutritional equivalent of quitting smoking.

If you ask people how much meat they eat or how much greasy food, eggs, sweets, alcohol, butter, they claim to be eating less than the average person.

People rated their own eating behavior as healthier on average even when their actually eating habits were terrible.

Why do so many people continue to light up in spite of smoking's harmful effects to their health? For many of the same reasons people continue to eat unhealthy food. First, they convince themselves that they are less at risk than others who engage in the same behavior.

Of all the chronic diseases they looked at, cancers had the lowest genetic component. Again, only about 10% attributable to bad genes.

Certainly we are living in a world that pushes us to eat whatever we want regardless of the long-term consequences, but one of the major problems in getting people to change their behavior is the need to get them to recognize the need to change.