The Plant-Based Cure

Disease is a wide spread concern in today’s time, correlating to some of our biggest concerns: poverty, hunger, lack of drinking water, etc. Particularly, a strong connection exists between diet and the risk of developing disease. By rejecting our present animal-based menu and processed foods, the diseases that afflict us can be controlled and potentially reversed. Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at Cornell University, discusses a life-changing discovery in the documentary Forks Over Knives, revealing how individuals consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based products were much more likely to develop liver cancer. While, on the other hand, Dr. Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, found that many of the disease he routinely treated were unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed. Moreover, supporting this theory, one of several groundbreaking discoveries that took place in China concluded that diseases such as: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented—and in many cases reversed—by adopting a whole foods, plant-based nutrition plan. Ultimately, countless studies exhibit and support the shocking finding of food used as medicine. Nevertheless, if this concept of exchanging one’s animal-based diet with a plant-based diet could potentially serve as a preventive measure for some lethal diseases like cancer or heart disease, why isn’t this theory promoted and applied more often? It all comes down to economic interests and motives. In juxtaposition, buying a 10-piece chicken nugget at Mc-Donald is largely cheaper than purchasing organic fruits, vegetables and/or grains. Yet, those who try to save a couple dollars by buying animal-based foods will have to invest in the long run on medical assistance and treatment for the illness that correlates to the animal-based dietary lifestyle. Furthermore, some doctors treat their patients with highly expensive consultations and medications, than to apply this simple, economic plant-based diet; “the doctor of the future will no longer treat the human frame with drugs, but rather will cure and prevent disease with nutrition.” – Thomas Edison