Ok , so I was a vegan for the most part , for the first 16 years of my life due to having PKU. I could not eat any animal based food as it would adversely affect my brain development most importantly and a wide range of other side effects. I mostly adhered to the medically required veganism, granted I cheated and ate things I was not supposed to. I mean come on being a kid on your own out there with friends and having to explain that I could not have pizza , or a hamburger, or hot dog because of a genetic disorder I was born with got old fast, and after tasting that first slice of pizza it was game over! I had been eating bland canned veggies, what kid likes fruit all the time? It was really hard not to cheat after I tasted what I was missing. So through my childhood I would say I was probably a 70% vegan. Fast forward many years of eating meat and dairy I watched some documentaries on Netflix about factory farming, and was so disgusted that I went as cold turkey as I could to complete veganism. The hardest things to give up were dairy for me. I still yearn for a good piece of pizza today, every second of every day actually. But after some hard days I was able to leave dairy in the past as well. I am happy to say I am completely vegan and have been for a few years now.
What I didn’t see was the immediate health benefits I was hoping to see as a beneficial side effect of going vegan. I felt tired, still packed on the pounds, still battling high blood pressure, and many other aches and pains. What was happening here? Why was I not seeing the same weight loss as others on a vegan diet? Well I found my answer by way of a book that my loving and concerned wife bought for me. “The Starch Solution” written by John A. McDougall MD. People I tell you now I recommend you read this book, even if you don’t plan on going vegan please give it a read. My eyes have been forced wide open. I cannot stop reading this book, discovering these hidden nutritional misnomers and realizing that there are more things at play here than the eye can see. The overall message of the book is that we have been told lies about a balanced diet ever since the early 1800’s. Big Agriculture, the government, doctors you name it they are all feeding us dangerous information about what we should be eating, and all for the mighty dollar for the most part. The book covers everything under the sun, the corrupt government and the USDA, the effects of our diet on our environment, the misinformation we are fed on all fronts. But the biggest and most important part of this book is shedding light on something that if your really think about makes total sense, but because of over a century of brainwashing us into thinking an animal based diet is the only healthy diet to adhere to. A balanced diet as we are told over and over again includes a heaping serving of beef, chicken, pork, and dairy. What you don’t know is that this diet is what is slowly killing us. We don’t understand because it takes 40 years to see this devastation on a personal level. We don’t believe this until it hits us straight in the face as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and even early mortality. Dr. McDougall has been practicing his Starch Solution Diet for over 40 years with amazing success. As I read this book everything I am reading makes so much sense to me. The principle being short and sweet is that beef, chicken, pork, and dairy contain tons of poisons 5 major poisons that affect our overall health adversely from the first bite, never mind being compassionate to animals and not adding to the mistreatment through our countries horrible factory farming practices, but we are actively poisoning our bodies day in and day out. In addition we are making ourselves fatter by the minute. Animal based foods are destroying our entire ecosystem not just the animals , but moreover our own mortality. Dr. McDougall’s solution in a nutshell, eat a starch based diet, all from plant based foods, no animal foods at all. More over overload on starches potato’s, rice, buckwheat, and the like. Now don’t get me wrong it all sounds very extreme for sure, but I was a vegan already and have been for some time so the transition for me has been pretty seamless. I don’t expect all of my family and friends to read this book and immediately drop everything and go from a happy meat eater to a Starch Solution Beast, but I beg and plead that you please pick this book up , start reading it, and make informed decisions that will affect your health , the environment around you, and your loved ones for years to come.
So, my journey started around 16 days ago. I started slow as I did not have the food to adhere to the diet completely straight from the start. I would say I started at around 70% adherence to The Starch Solution. When I started I was in a rough state health wise, I was always tired, and just overall unhealthy feeling, aches and pains in my joints, swelling in my feet and an overall feeling of swelling and malaise. Over these 16 days the biggest difference I have noticed is the way I feel. I sense a marked improvement in my overall health, more energy, less swelling, clearer thinking, and tons more improvements. I basically eat lots of rice, potato’s, recipes from The Starch Solution book, tons of fruits and veggies. You can eat as much as you want and get the same results. You see the foods you are eating are starch based and the body processes starch as energy, it breaks down into useable energy and the body burns it off, even in a state of inactivity the body will burn it off by expelling heat through your skin! How cool is that? Where as eating beef, chicken, pork and dairy this gets broken down into fat and stored for later. As Dr. McDougall says , you wear the fat you eat! How much sense does that make eating pure energy that your body burns off at almost a 100% rate, why would we even think of eating meat? Well the answer is we are told to. We have been told to for over a century, and told that plant based eating will never meet our nutritional needs, WRONG AGAIN! Read the book!!! Your eyes will be tooth picked open finally as mine have been. Plants not only have the vitamins and minerals we need to survive, but they have an over abundance of them, and to boot they will not adversely affect your overall health or the environment. WIN WIN EVERYONE!
If you do only one thing from this bolg post, please check out the book “The Starch Solution” by John A. McDougall , give it a read and make your own choices. Even if you come away from the book more informed and start having a veggie day once a week, that’s a win for everyone.
If you are still not convinced read my blog, I will be posting once a week and sharing my Starch Solution Journey to all those interested enough to read.
I know this was long, so thanks for reading it to the end, and hopefully I have a few of you thinking about the food choices you make, and for goodness sake READ THE BOOK!
My Starch Solution Journey 