Flying and bad food don’t mix – but not in the way that you are thinking. I just sent a letter to the editor of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) responding to an article on diabetes by Jonathan M. Sakier, MD. Since I own and fly aircraft, this article particularly resonates with me. There are two things a pilot must have in order to legally fly an aircraft as pilot in command. One is a valid license and the other is a valid medical certificate. Once your medical is revoked, it is very difficult to have it reinstated, if not impossible. A diagnosis of diabetes will cause your certificate to be revoked. For a commercial pilot, that can mean a career ending event.
Dr. Sakier did a good job of explaining what diabetes is and how it is typically treated within the medical community. He explained the process you must go through to attempt to have your medical reinstated and the necessary treatment protocol. He mentions therapy is directed at reducing obesity, a cautious exercise program, special diets and monitoring portion sizes along with oral medications. He gives the typical standard answer from the medical community for diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, and other preventable diseases. He describes a treatment protocol designed to manage the symptoms and which completely fails to address the cause. Recognizing, our good health is critical to maintaining our medical certificate and the use of our pilot privileges, and in most cases, there is no one to blame but ourselves for losing our medical certificate to type 2 diabetes, and even heart disease. Our dietary choices determine for most of us (regardless of genetic predisposition) whether we will suffer from these diseases.
There is a plethora of evidence and peer reviewed published literature demonstrating that type 2 diabetes, arteriosclerosis and attendant heart disease and strokes are diseases directly caused from eating the standard American diet (SAD), consisting of processed refined food products, and animal products which are high in cholesterol and saturated fats. This is an eating style composed of foods that are devoid of micronutrients and phytochemicals. Dr. Neal Barnard, (president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), demonstrated that type 2 diabetes can be avoided and even reversed by changing from the typical diet to a plant based diet, rich in micronutrients and phytochemicals. He has written an excellent book titled “Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes” that examines the results of the study and explains the dietary protocol required to achieve these results.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic who has researched the relationship between diet and heart disease for decades often states that heart disease is a paper tiger that need never occur, and can be reversed through dietary change. He has an entire program at the Cleveland Clinic dedicated to reversing heart disease, totally eliminating the need for stents, angioplasty, and by-pass surgery through dietary intervention alone. He has published a book on this subject titled “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.”
Diabetes and heart disease are avoidable and are even reversible. If you fly please check out the above books, along with those by Drs. Joel Fuhrman, John McDougall, and Dean Ornish. You can also visit PCRM.org for more information. Pilots are responsible for their passengers when they fly, and we all need to think about our families, co-workers and others who are dependent upon us to maintain our good health. A healthy vegan diet goes a long way towards ensuring that we are there for the people who count on us.
The Holistic Holiday at Sea (Taste of Health Cruise) was a great experience for us once again. This was our second time and we already plan to do it again next year. It is an unmatched opportunity to enjoy memorable vegan cuisine, see informative lectures from world class experts, exercise your mind and body, visit new places, and meet interesting and inspirational people.
One evening at dinner we were sitting with Dr. Neal Barnard of PCRM and Christy Morgan, The Blissful Chef, having a conversation about the various ideas and tactics that the vegan community uses to spread it’s message. There is a level of dissent that can be troubling at times, and Christy in her blissful wisdom likened the players to the spokes of a wheel. They may not all line up perfectly, but they are unified in trying to accomplish the same goal. Moving things forward. Creating progress. We may have different ways of getting there, but we are getting there.
T. Colin Campbell, in one of his lectures, expressed optimism that we may now have reached the tipping point - and I wholeheartedly agree. We are so much further ahead of where we were just a few short years ago. Our message is reaching people, and whether we choose to stress health, compassion, religion, or the environment, the end result is the same. The more we influence others to adopt a plant-based diet, the better off we all are. The synergistic benefits of a vegan diet are potentially world changing. We may be idealist, optimists, cynics, or critics in our approaches, but we can all agree that our goal is a better world, one that may soon be within reach.
Let’s keep that wheel turning and we’ll get there someday.
When we travel we try to always find out if there are local vegan eateries, and we often go out of our way to dine at them. We consider it both a joy and an adventure. So when we returned last week from Ecuador, where – in Quito at least – it appeared that every vegan restaurant in the city was either closed for Carnival or shut down for remodeling (a phrase that usually indicates closed forever despite its claim) we were already salivating at the thought of visiting one of our favorite places in Miami on the way home. We landed, went through customs, checked into the hotel to drop our bags off and since the room wasn’t ready headed straight there.
Om Garden is the kind of place that you may not notice from the street but you never forget once you’ve been there. The food is creative and delicious and you always run into interesting, friendly people, including the owner and staff. Dining there made us doubly happy to be back in the US. We love to travel but we also always love coming home. Especially when you find a place that serves raw broccoli capable of making you swoon. We don’t even like raw broccoli, but Om Garden’s broccoli salad is transcendent. It defies the laws of flavor and physics simultaneously.
Many of our culinary finds abroad have been equally delightful, such as the wonderful surfer owned Natural High Cafe in Puerto Rico and the gastronomic wonder of Joia in Milan, Italy where they even serve a vegan green egg. Check out their amazing cookbook to see for yourself, but you’ll have to buy it there – since it’s not available online. Closer to home we stumbled across Lovin’ Spoonfuls in Tucson Arizona when we were in town for the Gem & Mineral Show. They serve delicious food that you can actually even order online from BuyKind and have delivered right to your door almost anywhere in the USA. All of BuyKind’s featured restaurants have great food and it’s brilliant the way they package and send it.
We want to support these places because we enjoy them and we need to support them because otherwise they could go the way of a wonderful vegan restaurant that we discovered in Paris, La Victoire Supreme de Coeur (Supreme Victory of the Heart). It has been replaced with another ubiquitous Parisian foie gras tribute cafe. Both the food and the ambiance were incredible. Dining there was a pleasure for all of the senses, and yet, it failed…
It is a sad loss, but one that will continue to happen if we don’t do everything in our power to support and endorse the businesses that deserve our patronage. So go to vegan restaurants and stores whenever and wherever you can. What better way to honor the memory of La Victoire Supreme de Coeur than to try and create the supreme victory of the heart that they dreamed of. Enjoy delicious new flavors and encounter like minded people, while also receiving the satisfaction of knowing that your support is helping to perpetuate businesses that are striving to make our world a better place – with both kinder and healthier hearts.
January 20th, 2011 |
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