Food Choices Page #7

know, the silver bullet,

the thing that's going

to cure all my ills.

When people go to that extreme,

I don't think there's a

product out there like that.

- I discourage supplements,

most of the time.

For most people.

And part of the problem

with supplements

is that supplements,

drugs, procedures,

they all have application

for specific populations.

So, the whole pitch,

if you will, is based

on the idea that you can't

get enough nutrients,

from food, you don't

eat the right diet,

so you can somehow,

make up for it,

by taking these

dietary supplements.

So it's become a 40

billion dollar industry.

The sales pitches worked,

people are doing it.

They're buying this stuff.

And the people who sell

it, they're hanging

on for dear life, and

they're not about to give

into the scientific truth.

But the reality is that

all of the nutrients

that you need are in

food, and they're in food

- in very specific and

complex combinations

that we don't really

even understand

all of yet.

And so when you extract

a single nutrient

and purify it, and

put it in a pill,

you're overloading your

system with something

that it's never seen

before, and is really not

adapted to deal with.

Much better to eat

smaller amounts of it,

in the food, and again,

I'll Grant that there

are exceptions,

and in my office,

I recommend

supplements sometimes,

but not to the

general population.

And that's the problem

in medicine, too,

we want to take

everything, and sell it

to everybody, because

that's how you make money.

- A lot of people have

done a lot of disservice

to many, many people,

trying to offer them a

magic pill, or a magic this,

or a solution in five days,

that's going to

change your life.

And the simple reality

is, is that you can't do

20 years of damage, by

ignoring mother nature's best,

the fruits, the vegetables,

the nuts, the beans,

the seeds.

You can't spend 20

years saying no to that,

and then expect

people in white coats

to come up with

something that's going

to solve that, in five days.

So what we have to

do is we have to see

the error of our ways,

which was turning our back

on mother nature,

and we have to turn

towards her, for a solution.

- Vitamin supplements

for example,

we've got a lot of data

that, when you take them

out of context, like that,

and use them that way,

in the short run, yeah, it

looks sort of interesting,

maybe they're looking

good for a little while,

especially in people

that may be really low

on them, but in

the long run, no.

You know, they don't work

and yet we're spending

32 billion dollars a year

on nutrient supplements.

- The most important

supplement for those

eating plant-based diets, is

a vitamin b12, a

regular reliable source

of vitamin b12, it doesn't

have to be supplements,

but they have b12

fortified foods.

This is very important,

it's critical

for everyone eating

a plant-based diet

to get a regular reliable

source of vitamin b12.

There's only two vitamins

not created by plants.

One is vitamin d,

created by animals,

such as yourself when you

walk out into the sun,

and the other is vitamin

b12, not made by plants,

not made by animals either,

it's made by little microbes

that blanket the

earth, so, you know,

it might've gotten enough

from drinking out of a

mountain stream, or well water,

but now we chlorinate

the water supply to kill

off any bacteria, so we

don't get a lot of you know,

b12 in our water anymore,

don't get alot of cholera

either, that's a good thing.

But because of the way we live

you know, in our, you know

sanitized, modern world,

got to get b12 from somewhere.

Our fellow great apes get

it from you know, bugs

during feces, but I prefer

a more sanitary route,

which is one 2500 microamps

of it once a week,

cost less than

five bucks a year,

or vitamin b12 fortified

foods everyday.

- We spend

more money on healthcare

than any other

country in the world.

Yet we have some of

the highest rates

of chronic disease

on the planet.

Fortunately, it seems

that some health insurance

providers including

medicare, are beginning

to embrace the concept

of disease prevention

through diet.

Instead of spending

millions of dollars

trying to simply

manage the problem,

when it might

already be too late.

- So medicare now

accepts for reimbursement

both the Dean ornish program,

for reversing heart disease

as well as the pritikin program.

And this is out of a

recognition that it's not only

safer, it's not only

cheaper, but actually

more effective than

kind of the traditional

approach, which is

very costly surgery,

and a lifetime of drugs.

And so,

I mean this is

great, from a whole,

I mean, the most

important things,

is reducing suffering

and saving lives,

but from kind of a

fiscal responsibility,

I mean, it's so much,

cheaper, so much more

cost effective, that, and

who's footing the bill?

Well, if it's medicare,

it's taxpayer,

so they're saving money by

making people healthier.

- For most

people, it is hard to imagine

that anybody could perform

well as an athlete,

without consuming

any animal products.

Not to mention being

a world class athlete,

or even a world champion.

- I am a professional

triathelete,

specializing in the

iron man distance.

I'm also the ultraman

world champion.

I have been racing for

triathlon professionally

for 10 years, I've

finished 66 iron man races,

and I love to train,

and race all the time.

- I'm an ultra-endurance

athelete,

most people have

heard of an iron man,

if you haven't, an iron man

is a very long triathlon,

during which, over the

course of a one day period,

you swim 2.4 miles, you

ride your bike 112 miles,

and then you run a marathon.

While ultra man is essentially

double that distance,

and in 2009, I was

the fastest American

and 6th place

overall in this race.

- I do believe that last season,

on a plant-based diet

was my strongest.

Than I've ever been.

I did a couple of

iron man races,

that were among the top five,

best performances in my career,

and I was able to win the

ultra man world championship.

- What you're also

seeing are atheltes like

mma fighters, they're

realizing performance gains

they're recovering more quickly

in between their workouts,

you see nba players, NFL

players, NHL players,

olympic athletes, all

kinds of athletes who are

starting to experiment

and explore this way

of eating, and

getting good results.

I've been doing this

for over eight years

right now, I've never

had a problem building

lean muscle mass, i

continue to get stronger,

fitter and faster,

and it's fine.

- For me now, the proof

is in the pudding.

I know that I am like

stronger than I've ever been,

without animal products, and so

I proved it really, like,

to myself and I've hopefully

proved to other people

that it can be done.

- I'm a neurofibromatosis

patient,

I'm an ambassador for a couple

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