Protein, Calcium, Prostate Cancer, Blood Pressure & Grass-fed Beef 

Protein, Calcium, Prostate Cancer, Blood Pressure & Grass-fed Beef 

In This Issue: 

• • The Protein Question
  • Where to Get Calcium?
  • Diet for Healing Prostate Cancer
  • Do You Have High Blood Pressure?
  • ECO-Desk – Grass-fed Beef?

You’ll Find More Fascinating Health Posts my Facebook Page –

facebook.com/HealItAll/ – and lots of great recipes in my

Whole Foods Plant-Based, Gluten Free Diet & Recipes Group

Message from Bernadette Wulf

Greetings!

Spring has sprung here in Sonoma County, CA. In a couple of weeks we’ll be setting our clocks forward and we might just run into Alice’s March Hare in our journeys through dreamland.

I don’t know about you, but I’m breathing a huge sigh of relief. We will probably get a few more frosty nights, but winter is essentially over. Bring on the sunshine! Can’t wait to start planting tomatoes and basil for summer pesto pasta meals.

Meanwhile we can stop worrying about protein and calcium as long as we are eating plenty of whole plant foods – read on to find out why. There’s also hope for preventing or even healing prostate cancer and relieving high blood pressure. You guessed it – all with a whole plant foods diet! And finally, a look at the problem with grass fed beef and why it is not the answer to the factory farming dangers we face.

Have questions or comments? Email Bernadette <— Please use this link and do not hit reply to this post, because I may never get your message that way.

To your health and happiness!

Bernadette Wulf

HealItAll.com & Plant Based for Life

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Where to Get Calcium?

Calcium is another nutrient that the dairy industry has hoodwinked us into believing we need to worry about – as if our bones are going to fall apart if we don’t drink milk or eat dairy products. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Here’s what Dr. McDougall had to say on the subject:

Human Calcium Needs Are Surprisingly Low

 As long ago as 1978 Paterson wrote in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, “Many official bodies give advice on desirable intakes of calcium but no clear evidence of a calcium deficiency disease in otherwise normal people has ever been given.

In Western countries the usual calcium intake is of the order of 800-1000 mg/day; in many developing countries figures of 300-500 mg/day are found. There is no evidence that people with such a low intake have any problems with bones or teeth. It seems likely that normal people can adapt to have a normal calcium balance on calcium intakes as low as 150-200 mg/day and that this adaptation is sufficient even in pregnancy and lactation. Inappropriate concern about calcium intake may divert attention and resources from more important nutritional problems.” And that is exactly what the talented marketing people in the dairy industry have done with the help of friendly government officials in the USDA: they have placed the spotlight on the nutrient, calcium, which is easily obtained in sufficient amounts from almost any diet—and at the same time, taken the beam of truth off of the fat, cholesterol, and contamination—the life-threatening components of dairy foods.

Not convinced? If you still want to up your calcium intake, go for veggies in the cabbage family. Collard greens are the highest in calcium, plus broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and their relatives. Beans and lentils are also great sources. Almonds and seeds are good too, but be careful about the fat content. Blackstrap molasses is really high in calcium – just 1 Tbs. provides 200mg of calcium! According to the Medical Medium, oranges are one of the best bio-available sources of calcium.

If you like gardening, you might want to check out this list of 40 high-calcium veggies you can grow https://morningchores.com/calcium-rich-plants/

Read more about your calcium needs here – https://www.drmcdougall.com/2007/02/01/when-friends-ask-where-do-you-get-your-calcium/

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Diet for Healing Prostate Cancer

Listen up men – and anyone who cares about male friends and family members! I recently sent this article to a friend who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and I thought some of my newsletter readers might also appreciate it.

Dr. Greger always seems to be up to date on the latest findings in the nutrition field. That is not surprising, since he has a whole team of researchers who read every nutrition study that comes out in the English language. They weed out the faulty studies and those paid for by special interests. Then Dr. Greger shares the good studies for free as his way of making the world a better place. If only we had more researchers like him!

From Dr. Greger’s nutritionfacts.org:

[Prostate cancer] Patients were “taught to increase intake of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and legumes and to decrease meat, dairy, and refined carbohydrates.” Of all possible lifestyle interventions, why a whole food plant-based diet? If you look around the world, there are huge differences in prostate cancer rates, as you can see at 1:42 in my video, and our We’re #1! USA! USA! rates are up to a hundred times higher than some places in Asia, for example—and it’s not just genetic. Within one generation of migrating to the United States, cancer rates shoot up, and the grandkids of the immigrants end up with the same top-of-the-pile “approximate US rates.” A whole range of lifestyle factors have been looked at, but diet appears to have the greatest influence.

Remember, prevention is always easier than a cure! Get those animal products out of your diet and load up on healthy whole plant foods.

Pass this article on to anyone you know who is dealing with prostate cancer – https://nutritionfacts.org/2021/02/04/treating-advanced-prostate-cancer-with-diet/

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Do You Have High Blood Pressure?

If high blood pressure is an issue for you, this article may be just what you are looking for. It covers how to reduce blood pressure with a healthy whole-plant-foods diet while admitting that occasionally that is not enough. Some people need medication, at least for awhile. Dr. McDougall covers the safest and most effective prescription drugs for keeping blood pressure in check.

The correct action for the patient to take is to decrease the resistance to flow by eating a healthy diet and exercising. Most people who follow the McDougall diet find their blood pressure decreases within a few days. Based on several collections of results from my clinic, the average reduction of blood pressure is about 14/11 mmHg in seven days, and at the same time medications used for treating hypertension are usually stopped.  My customary protocol is to stop all blood pressure-lowering medications the first day of the Program, except for beta-blockers, which I slowly discontinue by cutting the dosage in half every two to three days. Unfortunately, not every patient experiences the reduction in numbers they desire. Despite their best efforts some people may need medications.

My sense is that the medications will become less and less necessary the longer you stick with a healthy diet, but some people may have permanent artery damage or some other issue that will require long-term medication.

Read more about lowering your blood pressure here – https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/nov/bp.htm

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Eco-Desk – Grass-fed Beef?

Did you know that 94% of all meat consumed comes from factory farms where animals are cruelly mistreated as if they have no feelings? That number is even higher in the good ol’ USA.

Some people, out of compassion for animals or concern for their health or the environment, choose to switch to pastured and free range meats. That is a better choice in some ways, but it has its own downside as you will see below. Plus, there is no way that everyone can make that choice. There is simply not enough land on the planet! Even at the rates of present demand (6% of the meat supply) we are already seeing massive destruction of our few remaining forests.

From foodrevolution.org:

Even Brazil’s government, whose policies have made the nation the world’s largest beef exporter, and home to the planet’s largest commercial cattle herd, acknowledges that cattle ranching is responsible for 80% of Amazonian deforestation. Much of the remaining 20% is for land to grow soy, which is not used to make tofu. Most is sold to China to feed livestock.

Amazonian cattle are free-range, grass-fed, and possibly organic, but they are still a plague on the planet and a driving force behind global warming.

Although well-managed grass-fed cattle might be able to sequester carbon in the soil, and they can be raised on natural grassland instead of freshly destroyed rainforest, they still contribute to climate change in other ways. The greenhouse gas methane, which cattle produce in staggering amounts, is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year time frame. With the higher fiber content in grasses than grains, cattle may produce even more methane than grain-fed ones. And with grass-fed cattle living up to twice as long as feedlot cattle, they produce methane for longer, too.

Much as people might want to rationalize continuing to eat meat, it seems like the only solution to rainforest destruction, animal cruelty and climate change is for just about everyone to stop eating meat, particularly beef. Good thing nobody really needs meat once they transition to a healthy whole plant foods diet. They will even be doing themselves a favor by raising their odds of living a long, healthy life without degenerative diseases.

Read more about the dangers of grass-fed beef – https://foodrevolution.org/blog/grass-fed-beef-2021-update/

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