It’s Veganuary and not uncommon for many of us to review our goals, health and otherwise, for the new year. Some people are curious about eating more plants. With that said, over the last couple of years, people have asked me how my husband Mike and I transformed into a plant-based lifestyle, how we do it now, and how to make it last. So, here is the chronological version of how we transformed into a primarily plant-based lifestyle. We didn’t get to our new place overnight. Your journey may be shorter, or longer. It just depends on you, your motivation, your skills, your desire to learn, and how you manage change.
Where We Started - 2008 – 2012
In 2008, my mother died of pancreatic cancer and my Dad died six weeks later after 10 years of significant complications from cardiac bypass surgery. At this same time, my husband’s cholesterol levels were a bit elevated and we were also watching his PSA levels slowly elevate. Some of this may not seem important except that I also had an uncle and second cousin who all died of pancreatic cancer. So, my radar immediately went up on cancer prevention and after seeing my dad have so many years of serious post-operative co-morbid complications, it put my prevention radar into a high-screening mode.
During those years, we were reading books on nutrition and cancer and I decided we needed to add a lot more cruciferous vegetables to our diet. A lot. Like cups. So, we started adding two to four cups of cruciferous veggies every day specifically by using the sweet kale salad mixes available on the market. We did cut back some on meat but I still gravitated to selecting chicken, pork, lamb, or fish as the primary ingredient for a lunch or dinner meal. That is the way I grew up, I was taught, socialized for years at the table, and lived. I sautéed, roasted, or grilled, prepared a French sauce, assembled it with a few poorly cooked vegetables, and called it a meal.
Fortunately in 2012, (now that I look back) our cardiologist believed in patient education and gave us the books The China Study and How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. He also suggested we watch the movie, Forks Over Knives. Ten years ago, our cardiologist actually promoted a vegan diet – that it was the way to go! Wowza. At first, I was shocked. In my 35+ years in healthcare (and sadly, most of it in clinical cardiopulmonary health), I had never seen a cardiologist talk to patients about diet as a means to prevent and reverse heart disease.
A Bit of Background
In the 1990s, I coordinated and worked in a pulmonary and cardiac rehab program. We were able to get a dietician to share information about low-fat eating at patient education meetings that were not mandatory. Monitored exercise was key to our patients’ success. We introduced some stress management techniques (a bit too woo-woo for the times), focused on medication regimens, and of course, repeated medical interventions if necessary.
Fast Forward to 2012, my husband and I did all our cardiologist recommended regarding reading and watching the documentary. I bought in just a tad (not that much, really), partly because, as with many in my generation, meat was the mainstay at our table for as long as I can remember. I was still young and infallible. The diet fads were anything from high protein, low carb, bread, to butter is really good for you. I was always struggling with weight and willing to try every magic diet out there. But I’m not sure they were going to get me to 65 with cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
2012 – 2016
Our first attempt was just eating more cruciferous vegetables from ready-cut produce bag options. We did feel better and I felt that I was making some preventative gains against pancreatic cancer. Yet, other than cruciferous vegetables, we still did not make huge transformational changes in meat. We ate a lot more veggies. But I still loved to cook beef bourguignon and porchetta, and we loved our Texas beef BBQ and TexMex. Over the next few years, we started experimenting with frozen meat protein replacements made by Morningstar, Quorn, and Gardein. We were doing great regarding cruciferous vegetables but still loved to eat out and did not think of ourselves as primarily plant-based. We still drank milk and ate cheese. “Plant-based” was not in our vernacular (I’m not sure it was even a “thing” in our circles) thus, vegan wasn’t even on our tongue. Nevertheless, over time, though, I created over 21 recipes that we ate routinely with the salad mixes and I wrote my first cookbook, “21 Days of Sweet Kale Salad Mix Recipes.” At first printing, some of the recipes used meat or fish, meat substitutions were possible to use and it did get us starting to think about cruciferous vegetables first on the plate – a big mind-bender for us!
2016 -present
In 2017, my husband’s mitral valve worsened and he had it successfully repaired. His cholesterol levels were a bit high, a tad over 200 but dropped nicely within range with statins. His arteries were clear on the angiogram yet still, no cardiologist here recommended tightening up our diet, eliminating or drastically reducing meat, and certainly not milk or cheese. Nor in cardiac rehab classes.
Fast forward to 2018. My husband was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, much more advanced than we were prepared for. We met with an integrative medicine physician as part of our team during the initial diagnosis and treatment phase. Mike reread The China Study and we watched Forks Over Knives again. We YouTube binged on Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn, T. Collin Campbell, and Dean Ornish. Mike was convinced to make the change to full-on vegan. The data indicated casein and meat contribute significantly to cancer, especially dairy with prostate cancer. We needed everything to fight the cells that were floating around in his lymph nodes so they didn’t land in his bones. He came home for the oncologist appointment and announced he was going vegan overnight. Full-on no meat, cheese, or milk vegan.
I was still in shock from everything going on – diagnosis, treatment, and the future. I was upset that no one over the last four years in the medical establishment ever told us we could try to manage PSA and prostate cancer by eliminating dairy in our diet. I’m sure we read it and watched it in all the prior status book and video materials, but it didn’t sink in somehow from our medical professionals and we casually brushed it off. I didn’t know where to start. I knew I didn’t want to be a short-order cook, so I had to get over the agony and go all in.
Magically, (or through the algorithmic spirits) the searches I was doing on the Google search engine produced the Forks Over Knives online Rouxbe cooking class on my Facebook page. It was a deal at the time ($299 for over 150 lessons). I thought it would focus my attention on learning to cook better, healthier, and more beautifully. In the classes, I learned how to accurately cook vegetables, grains, and legumes without oil. The course started with knife skills, moved through steaming, blanching, and roasting techniques, and then on to sautéing without oil. We progressed to making vegan cashew cream and vegan cheese. It was not easy and was truly one of the hardest things I have done. There were grades, tests, videos to watch, and dishes to submit for a grade. For me, it seemed harder than my graduate degree work.
One of the benefits of the course was viewing the beautiful dishes the other 20,000 participants around the world were presenting for the task projects. Most importantly, the class created a better relationship between the harvest, the goodness of the earth, and myself.
I now have a lot of techniques in my arsenal. I am an avid reader of cookbooks, culinary experts, and researchers who parse out the preponderance of evidence such as Dr. Gil Caralho with Nutrition Made Simple. Recently, I completed another vegan chef certification through the Vegan Gastronomy Plant-based Academy and now teach others to push their boundaries of eating more plants and less meat.
How Long it Took for Us to Go Plant-based
For us, it took about a year to completely transform and think of ourselves as primarily plant-based. I use “primary” as I do eat meat on very rare occasions, for example at weddings, some very occasional wild-caught salmon (less than once a month), and a duck egg from a local source. Everyone finds what works for them based on skills, motivation, etc.
My purpose now is to share more plant-based dishes, create tools like the Your Plant-based Workbook, present workshops, and serve as a guide and friend to those who just want to know what they can do bits and pieces at a time. It may seem like a daunting task (I totally get that!) and it can be if you just follow someone else’s idea of a primarily plant-based lifestyle. Find your path.
Some people choose to keep an egg in their diet a couple of times a month, others may choose to celebrate with meat or fish occasionally. For health and the climate, any progress forward is a step in the right direction of better health and reducing carbon footprint. Others may decide that to be 100% for environmental reasons, reduce their food carbon footprint, animal rights, etc. That’s up to you. Once you eat more plants, and learn more about your food, the blinders come off.
And then, perhaps you don’t cook. Perhaps you have fears. Perhaps you fear you will lose your friends. Perhaps there any number of reasons that are preventing you from getting to 90% or more of your diet from plants. I hope our story inspires you to choose plants first this January. Give it a try. Follow anyone’s methods and then find your way. Eat like your health and earth depend on it.
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