The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (11 page)

But don’t get seduced by convenience too often. Let’s face it: Anything coming out of a box is pretty lifeless. Yes, it’s great for a party or at the end of a really hectic day, but your best health and deepest happiness will come from fresh, real, whole foods that you prepare yourself.

Congratulations! You’ve just learned some of the most important information of your life. By getting to the truth behind a mirage of misinformation, you now have the opportunity to improve your health, make significant changes in the world, and live in a much more empowered way. I know some of that information wasn’t pretty, but that’s it. We’re done. We’re moving on now to the good stuff. Get ready for Kind Foods and how they will love and nourish you on every level for the rest of your life.

Artificial Sweeteners

Saccharin (in Sweet’N Low) and aspartame (in NutraSweet):
In terms of safety, a history of controversy surrounds them both (neurological damage, bladder cancer, etc.), but I like to think of it this way: Neither of these substances was handed to us by nature. They were both synthesized in chemistry labs—one as a derivative of coal tar, and the other as an experiment to create an anti-ulcer drug. They just
happened
to be sweet and have no calories. The newest kid on the block is
sucralose
(in Splenda). This is a noncaloric byproduct of actual sugar—chlorinated sugar, to be precise—and many experts question its safety. In fact, it is following the exact path its predecessors did: failing safety tests, being approved by the FDA anyway, and now producing ever-growing anecdotal evidence of its ill effects.
³
But we’re so obsessed with squeezing into that miniskirt, we don’t seem to care.

My final question is, In what foods are you getting these sweeteners? Diet soda? Sugar-free gum? Pies that can sit on a shelf for a month? Chances are they are coming alongside a bunch of other chemicals, which make them even more unattractive. Remember: The closer we stick to nature, the closer we stick to good health and our true selves.

Caffeine: Would You Like Some Coffee with That Sugar?

Caffeine is the most popular drug in the world, used in every country and consumed by 87 percent of American adults and 76 percent of their children
⁴
every day. Whether it’s from downing an energy drink, a soda, or an espresso, everyone’s pretty jacked up these days. But all this speediness comes at a price. Caffeine stresses the immune system and your heart, reduces your ability to feel safe and peaceful, and can mess with your fertility! It also steals minerals from your blood and bones and dries you out, causing wrinkles! Caffeine sucks . . . literally! The one thing the coffee people will acknowledge it causes? Breast cysts. But who cares? They’re just breasts!

You may be attracted to caffeine and coffee drinking for a number of different reasons:

• If you use it to stay awake or because you’re just addicted, try black tea, green tea, or yerba maté instead. They’re much easier on your body. Green juice can also be a good waker-upper. By the way, after a while on the Kind Diet, you shouldn’t feel the need for stimulants.
  
• If you simply like the ritual and the smell of that morning cup of joe, go for a water-processed decaf, Teeccino (or any other grain coffee), or decaf tea instead.
  
• If you’re just looking for that pause in the day to indulge yourself, take a real moment out of the hustle-bustle: Go for a stroll, pet your dog, or meditate for 5 minutes. I understand that indulging in a coffee break seems like self-love, but how kind are you being if you’re never really at peace, never settled in your true self?
  

He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician.

—Chinese Proverb

5

Kind Foods

When diet is wrong medicine is of no use. When diet is correct medicine is of no need.

Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb

I hope it’s obvious by now that the chronic ingestion of nasty foods has gotten us into real trouble and far away from Hippocrates’ sage suggestion to use foods to keep us well. Luckily, in the East, his words aren’t wasted. You see, in traditional Oriental and Indian medicine, the human is considered a whole entity—body, mind, and spirit as one. Health is the beautiful, dynamic interplay of all organic systems, governed by nature rather than a stethoscope or a pill. The body is studied and treated as a whole rather than as a bunch of bits and pieces, and a fundamental life force called “chi,” “ki,” or “prana” is believed to run through it. Medicine is generally the practice of supporting this chi, strengthening it naturally and helping it flow when the river of energy gets stuck. Traditionally, an Eastern doctor’s job was to support your inherent
wellness
—bringing you back to center as subtle imbalances arose—as opposed to fixing your illnesses. In fact, if you became ill in ancient China, you
stopped
paying your doctor because he was clearly slackin’ on the job.

Furthermore, in Eastern thought, food is a big deal. It is understood that, because we eat three times a day every day of our lives, food is the biggest factor in health, or illness. If you question whether food is truly that powerful, I ask you: If you’re willing to put a little pill in your mouth, trusting that it will change your whole body . . . why not a carrot? Why do you consider the carrot to be neutral or powerless over your body and mind? Maybe the things you put in your body—day after day, month after month, year after year—are a whole lot
more
powerful than the little pills you take to solve problems. Maybe Hippocrates was on to something.

If being healthy has meant, up until now, feeling “okay,” let’s try a new definition: What if health means feeling strong enough to do whatever you want to do, flexible enough to roll with life’s blows, being peaceful inside, connected with your intuition, experiencing spontaneous bursts of gratitude, and feeling a very real sense of connectedness with all of life: nature, the universe, and all the living beings in it?

It’s not difficult to achieve this new paradigm; by eating whole grains and vegetables, you will begin to feel more centered and balanced. Your blood will be strengthened, which will, in turn, support all of your vital organs. You will become more sensitive to imbalances, eventually correcting them intuitively. You will begin to experience some of the trippy, positive aspects of the Eastern model of wellness. And you will become happily responsible for your own health.

I’m here to remind you that eating is the most important thing you do. It determines how you look, how you feel, and even how you behave. Every meal drives your day in one direction or another. Food is the foundation of your life.

You are about to be introduced to an amazing cornucopia of natural foods, gems from the earth that not only taste good, but will make your body deliriously happy. And I’m not just talking lentil loaf. Get ready to meet the beautiful, delicious, God-given foods that will rock your world. Welcome to the Kind Foods.

In It for the Long Haul

Not only does this diet restore health and tighten waistlines, there’s evidence it extends our lives as well. The U.S. National Institute on Aging did a study of the longest-lived peoples in the world and found the people of Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia, and Seventh Day Adventists are among the longest lived on earth.
¹
Of course, this begs the question: Do they have common secrets? Yes, and they are:

• They eat lots of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains.
  
• They don’t smoke.
  
• They are active every day.
  
• They stay socially engaged.
  
• The Adventists also eat lots of nuts and beans.
  

Superhero: Dr. Dean Ornish

While his colleagues were performing angioplasties and open-heart surgeries, Dr. Ornish decided to figure out if diet and lifestyle changes could impact heart disease. In his study called the Lifestyle Heart Trial, published in 1990, he proved scientifically that a diet centered on whole grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruit (combined with supplements, light exercise, and stress reduction techniques) can reduce—and even reverse—coronary blockages. Before Dr. Ornish’s work, this kind of heart disease was considered irreversible. His results are so uniformly positive, and his regimen prevents so many future cardiac events, that more than 40 insurance companies now cover all or part of Dr. Ornish’s program.

I have become convinced that the most overlooked tool in our medical arsenal is harnessing the body’s own ability to heal through nutritional excellence.
²

—Dr. Mehmet Oz (Yes, Oprah’s Dr. Oz!)

KIND FOOD #1: WHOLE GRAINS

Whole grains are your new best friend and will be an essential part of your daily diet—ideally at every meal. These amazing little seeds are literally full of life and contain a pure, essential energy that we don’t get from most other foods. Grains will keep you balanced, centered, energized, and focused in the midst of life’s action. They are your new, perfect fuel. Grains will make you glow from the inside out. There is no substitute for whole grain.

Making whole grain the center of your diet may seem like a leap, but it’s really not so weird. Since the dawn of modern agriculture—when people started farming, about 10,000 years ago—whole grain has been the centerpiece of the human diet. You’re actually going with the flow of human history.

Correction: not
recent
human history. Although Americans have always liked their meat, grain products were not completely eclipsed by meat until after World War II, when North Americans had enough money, fuel, and refrigeration devices to make meat a daily food. In fact, in many households, animal flesh started showing up three times a day: Bacon at breakfast, a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch, and a steak at dinner are considered a normal—even necessary—part of our affluent lifestyle. But all Asian cultures—elegant and sophisticated—were built on rice or millet; South and Central Americans were sustained by corn and quinoa while they built their amazing Incan walls and Mayan temples. Native Americans lived in harmony with the land on corn, wheat, and wild rice. Africa, rich with tribal history and tradition, grew up on sorghum, cassava (not a grain, but a complex carb), millet, and the tiniest grain of all, teff; while in Europe, wheat, barley, oats, and buckwheat were all traditional staples. So throughout all of modern human civilization, meat has been but a side dish to the nutritional superstar we call “grain.”

Most people eat grain in the form of flour, but I’m not talking about bread and noodles when I say “whole grains.” I mean wheat
before
it’s ground into flour. And grains of rice
before
they’re stripped of their hulls to make white rice. By eating the grain in its whole form, you get the full impact of its natural oomph and medicinal powers.

Whole grains include: brown rice, quinoa, wild rice, farro, millet, barley, whole oats, and more. You’ll also find flour products made from whole grains including bread, noodles (whole wheat, quinoa, soba, and rice), and whole grain couscous. They’re great to eat now and then, but you’ll get the most dramatic benefits from keeping whole grains at the center of your plate.

WHAT’S WITH ALL THE CARBS?

But don’t all these foods consist primarily of carbohydrates? And aren’t carbs the root of all evil, especially for people trying to lose weight? Poor carbs. Diet books have given them a bad name. I’m talking about the good carbs here—the ones you
need
in your diet. All carbohydrates fall into one of two categories: simple and complex. Simple carbs—like white sugar and white flour—break down in the body really quickly, so your blood sugar spikes through the roof and then crashes. Complex carbs—like those in whole grains and vegetables—break down slowly, raising your blood sugar gently, and providing sustained energy over a long period of time, until you’re ready to eat again. Complex carbs are awesome and totally necessary for your body to function.

In fact, let’s get something straight: Those popular high-protein, low-carb diets are just plain bad for you. I’m not saying that you won’t lose weight on them—at least for a little while—but you can lose just as much weight eating complex carbohydrates, and keep it off easily, without doing serious damage to your precious body. Ironically, a study funded by Dr. Atkins himself, a man synonymous with low-carb diets, found that, on his diet, 70 percent of people got constipated and 65 percent developed bad breath!
³
You see, eating so much animal protein with so little fiber is a recipe for heart disease, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, and overworked internal organs; hello bad breath, constipation, dull skin, wrinkles, kidney stones, gout, and heavy energy! Yet many people have really convinced themselves that cutting back on carbs is the only way to lose weight, and plenty of new diets are happy to feed into this belief, betting you’ll choose that bikini over your health. I’m here to tell you that you can have both.