All language subtitles for Eating.You.Alive.2016.he_auto2

than to your heart
and that's what why

we typically see those symptoms
develop first.

Most people don't realize

that cardiovascular disease
is a systemic disease process

that means
if you have a heart attack

you're at risk for ED
and peripheral arterial disease

and stroke and dementia

and so in short people
need to realize that

when they have a stent
and they fix one little area,

it does not cure the problem.

It simply solves
one little spot

and so ED is no different.

It's kind of
a warning signal that

well, that's not working well.

And if that's not working well

we know you're not getting
the oxygen supply

to your brain
and to your heart.

Where cardiovascular disease
has its inception

is when we progressively
destroy

the capacity of our lifejacket
and our guardian

which is the inner most
layer of the artery,

the endothelium.

The damage to the endothelium
begins

when an excess LDL
cholesterol is absorbed

The resulting
inflammatory response

triggers immune cells
called macrophages.

They enter the vessel wall

and begin to gobble up
the excess cholesterol

creating these foam cells.

Now, these large cholesterol
laden foam cells accumulate

resulting in plaque build up
from the inside out

causing a pimple like area

to bulge into our artery
passage ways.

Over time, the covering
of these pimples can rupture

triggering a blood clot

that can block
normal blood flow

to an area resulting
in a heart attack or a stroke.

Back in 1900, we consumed about
4 pounds of oil

per person per year,
currently 74 pounds.

So, we have added a tremendous
amount of oil to our lives.

All oil is a 120 calories
a table spoon,

and most Americans consuming

between 250 and 700
calories of oil a day.

You're taking the oil,

removing it
from the original item

whether it be an olive,
whether it be a Soy bean,

whether it be a coconut

and you're isolating
that oil out.

When you isolate that oil,
you have 100 percent fat.

Fats in oils
are a major contributor

to blocked heart arteries,

high blood pressure,
high cholesterol,

heart attacks, heart failure.

Oil injures endothelial cells.

Olive oil, corn oil,
Soy bean oil, safflower oil,

sunflower oil, coconut oil,
palm oil, oil in a cracker,

oil in bread,
oil in a salad dressing.

So I have a number of people
even on a plant based diet,

that will come in and say

Dr. Stoll,
I'm eating really well

but I'm still gaining weight.

And my first question to them

is well, how much olive oil,
coconut oil etc

are you using in your diet?

When they start to add it up,

sometimes they're adding
five, six, tablespoons a day.

So, here we are, you know,
600, 700 calories

they're adding to their diet
and they don't realize it

because they're adding in oils
that they assume are healthy.

There aren't some special oils
you can buy

that are health promoting.

They're all processed foods

with almost no levels
of micronutrients

and phytochemicals
in them, with no fiber.

Coconut oil
is 90 percent saturated fat.

Lard is 43 percent
saturated fat.

The coconut oil miracle

is that it's still
on the market.

And so when we just

hear little clips
on the news,

maybe on the internet, it says
olive oil is the way to go.

We grab on to that

and unfortunately
it's bad information.

Here I am,
I'm just out of recovery

from my heart catheter

and he looks at me
and says, you know,

"I think I'd like you to meet
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn,

he was my mentor
at medical school.

Sure enough the next morning,
he gave me a call,

he said,
"I want you to read this book,

Prevent and Reverse
Heart Disease

and call me back."

There is hard science out there

that you can halt and reverse
this disease with nutrition.

There is a common feeling

that, oh well patients
won't do that.

Well, nothing is further
from the truth.

I read it, within a few days
I called him back

and I said, "I'm in.

I'll do whatever
you want me to do."

When folks are willing
to change their,

you know, 50, 60,
70 year old worth of habits,

it's amazing watching cure

for the first time
in my career.

I really believe that
diet is the primary way

that we need to change things.

I've been now plant based
for almost three years.

What it's done is at that time
my cholesterol was 310,

today it's at 143.

Plant based nutrition

has allowed me to have
more energy

than I've ever felt in my life.

The body is a natural
self healing machine

and disease in unnatural,
avoidable

and in most cases reversible
with superior nutrition.

What I thought
I knew about healthy eating

almost killed me.

One moment, I was eating meat
with every meal.

The next moment,
whole food, plant based.

A very drastic change
overnight.

Within six months
my cholesterol was down to 115,

my LDL was 15, which was
as low as they can measure.

My triglycerides
had fallen to a 175.

The last time I had
my cholesterol checked,

it was 96 and my
triglycerides were 97.

And there's not a drug
on the planet that can do that.

That is solely through diet
and I'm just utterly amazed

that the human body
has the ability

to heal itself so quickly.

You know I abused my body
for 53 years,

I'm currently 59
and I feel better now

than I felt when I was 35.

Genetics is not our destiny.

Our genes can be directly
affected by the food we eat.

We know that you can
reverse heart disease

with plant based diet,
we know this,

you cannot do with medication,

but you can do it
with a plant based diet.

And when they ask doctors,

"Why don't you
teach people this?"

They say, "They don't think

people are going
to want to do it,

it's too difficult" Well,

let them be the judge of that.

I think it's too difficult
to go under the knife

and have my chest cracked open,

you know,
but give people the chance,

the opportunity.

Two weeks after starting

the whole food plant based diet
with no oil,

my angina had
all of a sudden stopped.

By the time I went back
to my internist,

my hemoglobin A1C
was coming down.

They took me off the shots,

they took me
off of the starlix pills.

Within a couple months later
I went off the metformin.

The doctor said,
I don't think you're diabetic.

I don't have
any arthritis anymore.

I'm enjoying life,

I love the food
that I'm eating,

I would say the bottom-line
to all of my health issues

is you don't have to suffer

with heart disease
and diabetes,

because it's food borne
illnesses,

and if food is what got you
into this mess,

food can get you out of it.

By definition, a mammal
makes milk for its young,

and so a horse makes milk
perfect for its foal,

and a human being makes milk
perfect for the infant,

and a cow makes milk
perfect for her calf.

The thing is that we have
different nutritional needs

when we're young
than a calf has.

They grow real fast.

A little baby calf grows
from 60 pounds to 600 pounds

drinking milk.

If you fed a baby calf
human milk,

the animal would
starve to death.

So when people eat
baby calf food

designed to
accelerated growth

they grow, people get fat.

We know the protein
from dairy casein

is a cancer promoter
on the DNA level.

It actually tells your DNA
go ahead and make some cancer.

The earlier you introduce
young children to dairy,

the higher their risk,
about 14 fold higher

to develop
a devastating disease

called diabetes type 1,
which is an autoimmune disease

that destroys the pancreas
irreversibly.

Dairy calcium is kind have been
made into a myth

that if I eat cheese
or I drink milk

and have a good calcium intake
from dairy

that I'll have strong bones

and that's actually
not been proven

in the literature at all.

When I look at people,

and they're drinking
all this milk to try to combat

the osteopenia
and osteoporosis,

I tell them that the countries

that consume the most dairy
have the weakest bones.

And they're like,
what do you mean,

I say "Well, most of Asia
didn't have osteoporosis

up until recent times

and they didn't
drink milk at all."

If you don't drink milk,

where are you going
to get your calcium?

Where do you think the cow
gets their calcium, right?

They have a thousand pound
skeleton, that's a lot it,

they get it from plants, right.

Start everyday

with milks' protein
and milk life.

The dairy industry says,
oh, milk does the body good.

We're believing advertising,
we're not believing truths.

In 1999,
I had that wake up call.

I was diagnosed with both
breast and cervical cancer.

So the doctor said

you've got to have
a mastectomy next week,

you got to have
a hysterectomy immediately,

you got to have chemo,
you got to have radiation.

And I was like a deer
in headlights

and I was like, there's no way.

All of the doctors
were pretty clear

that they felt that

I probably wouldn't live
longer than a few months,

because I had cancerous fluid

that had metastasized
from my ovaries,

all the way
up the pleural cavity,

on my right lung.

Until you've seen

a loved one get sick and die
in a hospital

or walk through the halls

or been to an intensive
care unit,

people don't know. I mean,
you drown death,

when you die with lung cancer,

I mean horrific,
horrific deaths.

The war on cancer
under President Nixon

started in 1971.

The incidents rate
that is the number of people

that get cancer
was one in eight.

The survival rate was about
27 percent, 28 percent

which means a little more than

70 percent
of the patients died.

Just a couple of years ago,

the National Cancer Institute
published their latest figures,

the incidents as much higher
and the survival rates

are basically unchanged
around 31, 32 percent.

It's a travesty

that people continue
to suffer and die

when we have the tools,
we have the knowledge,

we just the system is such,

it just doesn't reward
that kind of behavior.

It doesn't make anybody money.

I think that
the assumption there

is that there is a rational
helpful benign process

that's running the show
in government

and there isn't so
what's running the show

is a vicious free for all

and that nobody
is really interested

in helping
Americans get healthy.

Nobody makes any money
sending you home

to eat your vegetables
and drink your water.

And I think that's probably

the base root
of the whole problem.

In our morning rounds, how
where you live

affects your odds
of surviving cancer.

New government data shows
people in the south

have the highest risk
of dying from cancer.

Kentucky ranks number one.

Cancer
defined by modern medicine

is essentially
a wild, erratic cells

that's growing without control.

And it's very active
metabolically.

First up,
chemotherapy is standard

for most
breast cancer patients.

I think the whole
chemotherapy industry

is very sad.

It's based on an assumption
that I find to be flawed.

The way that cancer is assumed
to work

is once started
progressively gets worse

because of certain events
to come along like mutations.

Therefore,
that leads to the idea,

well, how do we treat
people with cancer.

We can't get those cancer cells
to go back to being normal.

What are we going to do?

We're going to kill them.

And how best to kill them

except to have
created some chemical

that can zap those tumors.

That's called chemotherapy,

but chemotherapy is not working
for the most part.

The focus on cancer
seems to be

early detection,
early detection

and we have breast cancer
awareness month.

I would like to see,
breast cancer prevention month.

And that could be
for all types of cancer,

not just breast cancer.

My mom and aunts
had had breast, cervical,

uterine or ovarian cancer.

They did the surgery,

the mastectomies
and the hysterectomies.

They did the chemo.

They did the radiation,
and I really saw what that did.

I saw that not only
did it not heal,

but it made the situation worse

and I was convinced
that many of the people

that I loved the most
in the world

had actually died

not as a result
of being diagnosed with cancer,

but as a result
of all of those treatments.

Why do chemo surgery
and radiation

not do well for the most part?

because they do nothing
to change the root cause,

the biological terrain

the culture medium
if you will that,

any disease will grow in
as not functioning properly

it's conducive to growing
a cancer cell for example,

conventional medicine looks
at the tumor and says,

okay, that's the disease.

I don't, I look
at the tumor and say,

that's the symptom
of the disease.

In our research, for example,
we showed 40 years ago,

we could have a model

and we could turn
cancer on and off.

And it doesn't have anything
to do with mutations.

I went to see Dr. Joel Fuhrman
who...

to my good fortune
was my primary care physician.

And he examined me

and we talked
and I just decided,

well it's not gonna hurt
to ask another person,

you know, if there is a chance
that I'm gonna get through this

and I said, "Do you think
I'm going to survive this?"

And he said, "Yes, I do."

And I said, "That's wonderful,

because you are the only one
who has said that."

You don't have to be sick.

You don't have to wait in line
for a terminal illness.

There is something
you can do about it,

and the time to start is now.

The motivating factor for me

to adopt a whole
food plant based diet

was I didn't want to die.

My wife had adopted the whole
food plant based ideology

for at least
two to three years.

And I did it really purely
as for health,

I had dragged family along
fairly successfully,

my husband was good
when he was at home,

and I was cooking for him.

We hear the term
always committing,

committing to something
100 percent.

And I think for me

adopting a whole food
plant based diet,

I wasn't fully committed.

He was diagnosed in November
of 2013 with kidney cancer,

turned out to be
stage four cancer.

I think at that moment

I never had to
nag at him again,

I never had to convince him,
he was completely onboard.

We were told
that given what it was

and the type of the cancer,
renal cell carcinoma

in a fairly aggressive one as
to what they were seeing

on the tests taken.

That it would be probably
a matter of months

that I had to live.

He went through a major surgery
to have the kidney removed

and many of the lymph nodes
around it

and you know,
they were pretty brutal

and they said that, you know,

that he might not even
survive the surgery

because it has gone
up his venae cavae

and they had to clamp that off
and he could bleed out

and so that was
devastating in itself.

And they explained that

chemotherapy and radiation
was not effective

in controlling or healing

or working
with renal cell carcinoma

and they said there was
current research being done

with respect
to immunotherapy drugs.

He recovered really well
from this surgery,

rather quickly,

he was accepted
into a trail study

and it was an immune
boosting therapy

and we went down
to Vancouver for that,

and after the third treatment,
it attacked his liver.

So they explained to us
that this liver attack,

the side effect from the drugs

and the rates that my liver
was battling right now,

it could be a fatal episode.

So he was dismissed
from the study

because it doesn't look good
to kill your trial patient.

So they basically sent us home
to recover from that.

There is no way.
I'm not gonna do surgery,

chemo or radiation.

He said to me,
"What do you mean, no,

you don't have a choice?"

He said, "You'll be dead
in six months."

I said, "Well,
I'll tell you what,

if I'm not dead in six months,
I'll come back to see you."

Conventional medicine uses

the term a five year survival
of a cancer

without a recurrence
of the same cancer,

you might have another one.

But, without a recurrence
of the same cancer,

is considered a cure.

For me, it really isn't.

For me, a cure is

when a patient lives
the rest of their life,

as along as they don't mess up

and start doing
the bad lifestyle choices

that they had.

We did a national wide survey
of a total of 6,500 families

and what came out of that

was supporting
what we had done initially.

And that was the moment,
in that process

we turned away from vegetables,
and fruits, and grains

which we learned
how to be the whole form,

the entire kind of form.

And we put in
all the animal foods

and all the processed foods.

We're making a big mistake.

Animal protein
can turn on cancer

and the protein
that we were using primarily

was the main protein in
cow's milk.

When you are eating
super inflammatory foods,

you're eating dairy products,
you're eating meat,

you're eating eggs,

you're eating all this
inflammatory foods,

processed foods,

all these oils
you shouldn't be eating

and then you add
to that pesticides

and all these chemicals

that we know
can potentially cause cancer.

Now you're
in the perfect storm.

So, I continued on

with our whole food
plant based diet

and he just got
better and better

and with each scan
things were reducing,

lymph nodes
were shrinking in size.

And initially they had said
it would be naive

to think that
this would not spread,

and it didn't spread
and it reduced.

And it kept reducing
to the point

where it was radiologically
undetectable.

At this two year period,

where you're told
plain and simple that

you're probably gonna die,
if you make that outset date,

you're probably got to get
sicker and sicker.

And I didn't.

And I got healthier
and healthier and healthier.

And at two years,
when he should have died

according to them,

he went back to work,
full-time.

I've never been this healthy
in my whole life and I just,

I'm carrying on,

what has brought me here
this far, this healthy

and the way I am,

has been adopting
whole food plant based,

there's no two ways about it.

My friends and family
didn't believe me,

they didn't approve.

My doctor didn't like it.

But when that six month
mark came,

I made that phone call.

I want an appointment.

When they ran all the tests

and I was completely
cancer free.

Some of the things
that I found

from those tests he ran,
not only did I not have cancer,

but rheumatoid arthritis

that I was diagnosed
at the age of 27 with,

that the doctors
had told me then,

"You could be crippled by this,

you could end up
in a wheel chair,

you're going to have
to take drugs

for pain management on this."

It was gone.

I had always had these problems
with eczema, psoriasis.

My skin looked better than ever
and from a little girl

I was diagnosed
with all kinds of allergies.

For the first time in my life

that I could remember
I had no allergy.

Like this is really something.

I realized that this lifestyle
had healed my body completely

from the inside out.

I'm Pamela Swallow, I just
turned 70 this summer,

but I've been 18 years
cancer free.

I was diagnosed in 1997

with metastatic stage four
ovarian cancer.

My prognosis was horrible,

but not everybody
is right all the time

and I was determined to live
and I have and so could you.

I have a major blockage
in my right thigh.

I have a lot of plaque in,
I guess in major artery.

I was trying to find solutions.

When I was shooting
Captain America in Cleveland,

I was going
to the Cleveland Clinic

and while I was there

the doctor asked me
about the blockage,

she started telling me
about this doctor

that could possibly help me

and we went to have lunch
with Essie and Ann

they're just such enthusiastic
and healthy people.

I had already read his book.

I was convinced
that I need to try this

and I decided
I was gonna jump right in.

I was little daunted by
the okay, no oil, no dairy,

no nuts, no sugar, no, the nos.

But I got to it
and I started it,

I was getting along fine
with the diet.

I was doing great.

In the middle of all this,

the movie
that I was preparing to do

in the spring, the director
wanted to see me,

because he heard
I was back in town,

and he wanted
to talk to me about the film.

When I left, I got a call
later on that evening

from my agent.

He was like, you know,

director was very concerned
about you, and they said,

"If you don't gain like,
20 pounds

between now and the time
that movie starts,

they're gonna fire you."

So, contrary
to my health needs,

I went back to flesh
and not just plant based diet.

I gained weight by like wham,

it just came right back
just the way, I lost it.

My leg cramps came back.
I started to snore again.

I don't pop up out of bed

as energetically
as I used to,

my regularity changed,

my susceptibility
for catching things

changed drastically.

I get tired after I eat
which is really trippy,

you know, it's the food
supposed to give you energy.

I eat now and it's kinda
like, I need a nap.

So my digestive process
is very different.

I know that at some point,
I'm gonna go back to it,

because I know how to do it,

and I know how I felt
when I was doing it.

Mainly because I know,
I could do better from myself.

Everything
that I was ever taught,

everything I'd ever read,
basically it was telling me,

"Hey Hispanics have a high
percentage of diabetes."

I was also lead to believe
it's in your genes,

it's just part of who you are.

I was a fast food junky.

My body was telling me,
you need that sugar,

you need that fat,
you need that salt

and so I was going

through the drive-through
all the time.

My family has been devastated
by chronic disease.

My mother was diabetic.

She had a kidney transplant.
She was legally blind.

Many, many years of dialysis,
many, many years of shots,

injections and pills
and ultimately passed away

at the young age
of 61 years old.

My oldest brother,

he was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer,

he passed in 2002.

My twin brother Joe,

he's been diabetic
over a decade

and just about four months ago
he had a heart attack.

And then the youngest brother
is Martin,

he was diagnosed with diabetes
at a young age,

in his early teens
13 or 14 years old.

He has had his
right leg amputated.

He has had a kidney
and pancreas transplant.

He's legally blind.

He does dialysis
three times a week,

and he takes 25 medications
every single day.

I was headed down
that same path,

at the age of 43 taking
two insulin shots,

two oral medications
for diabetes,

a high blood pressure
medication

as well as a high
cholesterol medication.

I even asked my doctor, I said

"Will I ever
get off this insulin."

And he flat out told me,

"No, you're gonna be
on insulin

the rest of your life."

I was very upset,

I was actually
quite pissed off,

because I'd seen what this
had done to my family

and now here I was.

Up until fairly recently,

people had a completely
wrong view of diabetes.

They thought diabetes is caused
by eating sugar

or eating starch
and eating bread.

And that was somewhat logical,

because the carbohydrate
in the bread

does release glucose,
it releases sugar.

And so it will make
the blood sugar rise,

but it turns out
that was never the cause of it.

Type two diabetes
is caused by the build up

of tiny microscopic
fat particles

in the muscle cells,
and what happens is

as the fat builds up
in the cell,

the insulin can no longer
bring the glucose inside.

So what's the answer,

the answer is get that fat
out of the cells,

the diabetes will improve.

Most of us have no idea,
where our food comes from.

I started to question,
where that food was coming from

and how that food was raised.

I never made the connection

really between
what was on my plate

and then that was once a living,
breathing animal.

Once I made that connection

I didn't want to have
any part of it.

I don't see animals
as food anymore,

I see it has complete suffering
and I want people to know that,

that animal didn't just
naturally die,

and then they package it,
and it becomes food.

That's not how it is,

the animal suffered
everyday of its life,

it was beaten,
it was tortured,

and then it became
food for you.

The plight of farm animals
is more than ever something

that really matters to me.

But what also surprised me

was how many basic human rights
violations exist,

with humans
in addition to what's happening

to the animals.

A lot of milk that we drink
actually has a lot of puss

or white blood cells in it.

Largely because a
lot of these animals

are not treated as well
as they ought to be.

You don't have to take a life
in order to sustain yours.

Every time
we're purchasing something,

we're voting with our dollar.

So, if you choose
to eat animal products

and you choose
to take your dollar

and vote for cruelty,

and harmfulness and death
you're part of the problem,

then you're not part
of the solution.

I knew right then,
and the other day

I didn't want to be
part of anything

that promoted cruelty.

Informing the public
to the truth

about what humans
are suppose to eat

is going to be vital
for the future of our health,

the future of the environment,
the future of animal welfare

and the future of the finances
of this country.

Sustainability is becoming
more and more an issue.

So it's not just
the health of people,

not just cruelty
to animals and what not.

It's actually
an issue of survival.

People are not making
the connection

that what they're eating

is really affecting
the environment.

Over a third of the landmass
in the world

is taken up
by livestock, agriculture.

If you look at
all of the animals

that are being raised
for consumption,

it totals around 70 billion.

Livestock are basically

black boxes
of inefficiency, right?

You pour in huge amounts

of feed, of protein,
of energy, water,

and these animals
have the audacity to breathe

and move around
and waste energy

and like, you know,
live their lives

and then only about
half of them

you can eat the rest is
the skeleton and skin.

I mean it's just like,
huge amount of resources

to get these
tiny kind of scraps from them

when we could just be
eating the food directly,

you know,
cut out the middle moo.

We're having a big water
shortage in California,

now they're rationing water.

Long showers
40 gallons of water,

short showers 20 gallons.

One burger is 4,000
to 18,000 gallons of water

to make a third
of a pound burger.

75% of the deforestation
taking place in the Amazon,

is because of
animal agriculture.

We're raping the land,

is really what we are doing.

We are taking everything
out of the dirt

that we want to have
in the dirt,

the microbes,
the organic matter.

We are headed towards
our dirt not being viable

to grow anything.

Most people
don't understand that,

the biggest contributor
to greenhouse gases

more than all transportation
combined

planes, trains,
boats, automobiles

is animal agriculture.

We need to do
something right now

to start reversing
global warming.

Well I can do something
about that right now

I can just stop eating,
stop eating animals.

So, when he start
thinking of world hunger,

and you start thinking about

all the water
that's being wasted,

and transportation,
not to mention the cruelty.

You start looking at it
from a bigger picture

and realizing
that your dollar

that you're voting with
doesn't just affect you,

it affects not only your fellow
human beings,

but also your planet.

So when you start
to educate yourself

not just about the way
that you feel,

and about the way
the people around you feel,

but when you really
start to take it all in,

and you've just
started to lean in,

oh, you're in all the way.

The formula is clear,

you want to eat the foods
that promote good health,

you want to avoid the foods
that contribute to poor health.

Basically we don't eat anything
with the mother or a face.

Like most people like,
kind of walked away,

from there going, what do you
eat? you know.

So what is whole food
plant based?

It's a food
that comes from the ground,

it's less altered by man,
it's less processed by man.

Like fruits, vegetables,
whole grains and beans

you know, and nuts and seeds
to a lesser extent.

We're not talking about
unhealthy plant based eating.

We're talking about
whole foods.

I take away all their meat,
and all their dairy,

and all their oil,
and they look at me,

they go "Dr. McDougall,
I got nothing to eat,

there is nothing for me
to eat at all, nothing."

I say, "Yes, there is."

And then I show them the key
which

you have to know,
or you'll fail."

I show them the starch.

I say,
"Well, do you like potatoes?"

"Oh, I love potatoes."

Beans, and lentils,
and vegetables

you didn't even know existed

and even fruits
from other countries.

Turnip, collard,
mustard, kale...

Greens, beans, onions,
mushrooms, berries and seeds.

Black beans, brown rice,
salsa, avocados, quinoa.

Bok choy, swiss chard, kale,
collards, collard green,

beet greens, mustard greens,
turnip greens, napa cabbage,

brussels sprouts, broccoli,

cauliflowers, cilantro parsley,

spinach, and arugula,
and asparagus.

You got it.

Always eat too much,

stuff yourself
on those berries.

They feel good,
they feel good in you,

they give you energy,

you don't have to drink
anything,

they got so much liquid
in them, they feel great.

That's one food I love.

Spinach or collard greens,
you ever think

you'd ever say collard greens?
I say collard greens.

Mustard greens.

Where's Jeb? Where's granny?

All of a sudden,
Elly May Clampett.

You start saying things
like that, Clampetts,

when you eat like this,
you know,

I'll have some mustard greens,
some collard greens,

three pounds of those steamed

and then like this much
apple cider vinegar.

The first thing people
say is, I don't have time.

When somebody says to me,
I don't have time,

what I really hear is,
I don't want to.

If tomorrow I'm going to be
diagnosed with cancer,

I don't have time for that,

but I will have time
to do chemo, radiation,

surgery, recuperation.

The hardest part about changing
your diet and your health

is just deciding to do it.

Oh, plant based diet,
I don't think I'd like that.

Well, you think
that long enough,

you probably won't try it.

Don't you remember
when you were little

and mom put
something on your plate

and said, well just try it,
"No, I don't want to try it."

Well, just try it.

It's like riding a bike,
you know, you like the idea,

you want the outcome,

you can read about
the technique

all day long but at some point
you just got to get on the bike

and find your balance.

And once you find your balance

you just glide
and it's so freeing.

So, I started and I started
very seriously.

I started every meal,
three meals a day,

which consisted mainly
of fruits and vegetables,

some nuts and seeds,
and it just worked.

And in about six months
I lost 120 pounds

and then over the course of
maybe another six months,

I lost another 100 pounds,
so I lost 220 pounds.

The diabetes went away
within weeks

and the hypertension
also went away.

I started to feel great.

I can't she's got
so much energy today,

I can't really keep up with her,
to be honest with you.

Recently I was lucky enough
to have an echo

done by my coworkers,

and she was overwhelmed

by what she saw
on my echocardiogram.

There were no blockages,
there is no plaque,

the elasticity in my heart
is excellent and she said,

"We don't really see
hearts like this."

The number one thing
that she said was,

"Susan, I'm convinced.

I see what you eat everyday,

but this for me
as a echocardiogram sonographer

this is what sells me."

I have reversed disease,

the damage that hypertension
does to your heart,

and type two diabetes,

it was reversed in the last
five years from eating this way.

The first thing I noticed was

that I didn't have
all those greasy dishes,

and then I noticed that
my food bill was lower,

and then I noticed
that I felt better.

After all if you have
all those greasy dishes,

think what the inside of
your intestine must look like.

The vast majority of the world
subsists on rice and beans

for fractions of what
we pay for food.

The thing people
have to understand

is that it is not expensive

to eat a healthy
whole food plant based diet.

Sure if you go out
to restaurants

or buy vegan processed food,
it is

but where
I live in the ethnic markets,

in the area of Los Angeles
a pound of beans are $0.49.

And you get it, put it, cook
it in your pressure cooker,

you're done in 10 minutes.

For me I'm not
buying meat anymore,

I'm not buying dairy anymore.

When in season, I can go to
my local farmer's market.

And when I explained to them
they asked for like,

how can I do this really.

And I say well, you can
actually buy a 25 pound bag

of brown rice for 25 bucks.

You can buy a 20 pound bag
of whatever your favorite bean

is for 20 bucks, and a bunch of
fresh frozen vegetables

for $0.99 a bag
and you have meals for a month

for two people for 60-70 bucks.

And they look at me like,
"Oh, I never thought of that."

You're not eating the cheeses,
and the meats, and the eggs

and so the average family
is gonna save a lot of money,

plus you're not
gonna be in the line

at the pharmacy counter as much,

and if diet changes can start
to cut that down,

you're saving serious money.

We went in
and ransacked our pantries,

our refrigerators, our freezers.
Started emptying things out,

taking out all the things
with the oils, the sugars,

the processed foods,
got rid of the meats.

From one day to the other,

our lifestyle
changed completely.

We threw away
everything we had,

and we went to the store

and bought new food
and we started.

By the time we got

from the TV room
into the kitchen, he said,

"We shouldn't have anymore
animal products in our house."

I was like yay.

We just switched like that
and then there was a moment

where we said, "Well
what about the children?"

I said,
"It's not a democracy."

They're just along
for the ride.

I want to feel better.

Looking back at where I was
just 11 months ago,

I don't even recognize
that person.

I could not imagine
the drastic changes

that we've seen
in less than a year,

not only
the physical changes

of the weight loss,
but coming off medication,

I feel good on the inside,
I don't hurt anymore,

my knees don't hurt.

I feel better now than I did
when I was in high school.

Making this lifestyle change

to a whole food plant
based way of eating

is the absolute best decision
I've ever made in my life.

It's not so much about trying
to invent a new way of life,

but rather discovering
the foods that are right here

in front of you.

So it's about shopping
in the produce department.

It's literally about knowing
which aisles to walk down

in your supermarket,

which stuff to grab
and which stuff to just keep

walking right past.

The first priority is to eat
whole unrefined plants

and to avoid
animal sourced foods

and foods that are processed.

A fresh roasted beet,

I get really excited
about produce.

The foods that don't require
a label tend to be the highest

in nutrients and most
beneficial for your health.

Things like fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, beans, lentils.

However
there are a lot of foods

that do have labels,

I'm talking about
your frozen pizza

that's got a dozen
ingredients in the crust

and a dozen more
in the toppings.

My God, there are paragraphs
of ingredients.

You don't want that, especially
you don't want the mono

and diglycerides,
you don't want the added oil,

and there are usually four
or five or six different ways

that they're
stuffing sugar at you.

For example,
we'll pickup raisin bran,

and I'll show folks,

okay, "Tell me how sugar
is in that per serving?

And how much fiber
is in that per serving?"

They very quickly realize that
often they may be eating

for breakfast something that
is a bowl full of sugar.

You can pick up a jar
of spaghetti sauce

and it will have sugar in it.

Now that being said, there are
a plenty of packaged foods

that can be a part
of a healthy diet,

for example canned vegetables,
frozen fruits and vegetables.

However, the way
they're packaged

matters a great deal,

and the way
they're processed matters.

So in teaching people about
label reading, I tell them,

if it has a package,

turn it over
and look at the label.

So let's take a look
at this one,

'cause it looks
really promising,

it says 100 percent
whole grain,

it also says heart healthy,
and good source of fiber.

So let's take a look
at the ingredients

just to make sure.

Whole wheat flour,
water, sugar,

sugar is the third ingredient.

It's also got soybean oil
in it, and those mono

and diglycerides
that we don't want.

So again, it's so important
to read those labels.

With nothing to lose,
we decided to just try it out

and see how things went,

and so we decided
to do it for a month

and the pounds just started
to fall away,

I think I lost 14 pounds
that first month.

So over the course
of the next 18 months,

I proceeded to lose
half of my body weight

for a total of
about 130 pounds.

It's never too late
to feel young, to lose weight,

to feel energetic, to enjoy
your family, your children,

your grandchildren,
your great grandchildren

and be able to help
heal yourself with food.

I eat amazing food that tastes,
smell, and look amazing.

I'm not eating grass.

I am so satisfied,
I love my food.

I just, I eat so many
different things now,

and I try new things

like I never
would have tried Indian,

or Ethiopian, or Thai,
and they're my favorite.

And I would have missed those
had I not become plant based.

With plant based cuisine,
we can create all the flavors,

textures, satisfying, feelings

that you always
want from a meal.

Let's demystify this notion

that if you are
a plant based eater,

you are giving up everything.

If food tastes good,
food tastes good.

It's because of what
it's made of.

Hi, good morning.
Hey, doc.

Good to see you, welcome back.

- Hi, how are you, Yvonne?
- Good.

When I first heard about this,

I thought it was a bunch
of malarkey, you know.

And then the challenge
was made, you know, try it,

what does it hurt?

So I tried it.

Without medication
your cholesterol was 300 range.

Yes, previously.

Okay, and now,
without medications

and making some changes
in your diet,

your cholesterol is at 171.

- Really?
- Yeah.

So it's almost half of
what it was before

on no medication.

Your triglycerides have dropped
another 20 points.

Both your cholesterol
and your triglycerides

are safely in the normal range.

Sweet.

On no medication.

That is proof to me.

You can't lie in the numbers

and you can't lie
with shedding the weight,

and I felt great.

So we kept on going
with it and it's working.

I was told, and I was convinced
by my doctor,

you're gonna be on this
for the rest of your life,

cause you're just genetically
predisposed to be this way.

And it took this to prove to me
that's not true.

I'm eating plant based
whole foods

and my cholesterol
is no longer an issue.

I feel as good as I did
when I was 20.

A lot people think that
when they go plant based,

it's gonna be really difficult

and the cooking
is going to be really involved

and involve 15 to 20
ingredients, but it's not.

One of my favorite things
to make

is my garlic alfredo sauce.

It's just seven ingredients,

basically just start out
with chopping some onions,

chopping some garlic,

throw it in a little bit
of vegetable broth

on a pan,

sauté it for about
eight minutes

until all the broth
is evaporated

and then you just add it
to your blender.

And you're gonna want to add
the cooked vegetables...

the remaining broth
which is another cup.

I have a half cup of cashews.

Now if you don't have
a high powered blender,

you're gonna have
to soak your cashews

for about five to six hours,

otherwise,
they're gonna turn out gritty,

and you don't want that
in your sauce,

you're gonna want it
thick, and creamy, and smooth.

A quarter cup
of nutritional yeast,

that's gonna give it
a depth of flavor

and a little bit of
cheesy undertone,

quarter teaspoon
of black pepper,

a half a teaspoon of salt

and one tablespoon
of lemon juice.

Blend it up and you got some
delicious alfredo sauce.

You can pour it over some
cooked pasta,

and everybody
is gonna be shocked

that there is no dairy,

and there is no butter
or cheese in it.

It's really, really delicious,

it's just as rich
as traditional alfredo sauce,

but it's actually good for you.

It's about just being creative,

it's about not so much
seeing road blocks,

but rather seeing
the opportunities

that come with these
new aspirations

that you may have.

There are three reasons
to eat out.

One, you don't have to do
the dishes, two, the ambience,

three, companionship.

You never go out to eat

to further destroy
endothelial cells, okay.

Everybody says,
well, gosh doctor,

Dr Esselson it's so hard.

Aren't they gonna have,

some of these places, have oil?

Yeah, all of them.

When the waiter or the waitress
comes to your table,

you turn in your seat,
take your glasses off,

look them
squarely in the eye.

You must understand

that I'm deathly allergic
to a single drop of any oil.

Now you get creative.

Can I have part of this item
on the menu

mixed with part of this
and put it together?

Then the chefs
are really actually,

if you just ask the question,

they're very excited
to create something for you.

We have to be that change,
we have to be the ones to ask,

and hopefully soon enough
demand that we have organic,

plant based foods
in restaurants

across the country.

We'd adopted this lifestyle
on December 3rd of 2011.

Within days, three to four days

I start to see
my sugars plummet

and I'm seeing my weight
drop anywhere

between five to seven
pounds per week.

My psoriasis went away,
my heart burn,

I've not had heart burns
since I adopted this lifestyle

and I'm Mexican,
I love spicy food,

I eat jalapeños
and spices, Indian food.

And lo and behold,
by the end of January 2012

so not quite 60 days later,

I was off all five
of my medications.

Four to five months in,

my erectile dysfunction
went away,

so here we are three and half
going on four years later,

my health continues
to be normal.

My A1c levels,
my cholesterol levels,

my blood pressures,

I'm healthier than I was
even 20 years ago.

So when my wife and I adopted

a whole foods
plant based lifestyle,

we basically changed

the trajectory
of my family's future.

So we're gonna make
the cauliflower hot wings,

which you're just gonna love,
they're really easy.

So you start with
a head of cauliflower,

or you can cheat like me
and buy pre-cut florets.

Just set those aside
and whisk together

one half cup
of plant based milk,

such as soy milk
or almond milk,

one half cup of flour,
I'm using chickpea flour today,

but you can use any flour
that you happen to have,

whisk in some garlic powder
or some onion powder

or even cayenne
if you want it to be hotter,

or little nutritional yeast,

then pour your almond milk
into your flour

and mix it
so it forms a batter.

Take each floret
and dip it into the batter

and shake it off
just to coat it.

Put it on your baking sheet,
bake it for about 12 minutes

at 450 degrees, just until it's
golden and fork tender,

and then when you're done,
toss it with some hot sauce,

or teriyaki sauce,
or barbecue sauce.

Just mix it together

and then you have your
hot wings ready to go.

When we're looking at this
plant based nutrition data,

it's more than heart disease
and risk factors,

it's actually a lot of cancer,
lot of inflammatory diseases,

such as lupus
and Sjogren's syndrome,

and rheumatoid arthritis

and so you know
plant based nutrition

and good lifestyle are good
for a variety of things,

not just heart disease.

At the time my husband
was working for MTV,

and he was helping
recording artist,

get really fit for videos,
you know,

and I said I want
to look like one of them.

It was purely vanity.
We're gonna go to Maui,

we're gonna get married
and I just want,

I want to look as good
as I feel emotionally.

And I want to do it
in a healthy way

and that's what he did.

It wasn't about starvation,

it wasn't about
hurting your body,

it was about learning
how to take care of your body,

learning how to nourish my body
in a way that would

cause me to have
a fast metabolism.

And most people think about
fuel in terms of,

these big building blocks

like protein and carbohydrates
and fat,

but that's not what it's about.

It's about vitamins,
and minerals,

and phytonutrients,
and enzymes,

and things that
your cells actually need.

I had to eat so much food,
more than I'd ever eaten before

and drink all this water
and take, you know,

do all this, eat more
than I ever had before,

and he told me
that was going to make me

actually lose weight.

So even though I was skeptical
I did it,

and in the four months
not only did I go

from the size 10 to a size 3
but I was really fit

and I felt the best I'd ever
felt in my entire life.

I had no more aches and pains,
my joints felt great,

I was energetic.

When it was time to get my
blood test and everything,

I didn't really think
it was going to affect them,

because that was impossible,

I just, you know I thought
this was just something

that improved how I felt.

And so I told my husband, well,
whatever this is that you did,

I'm gonna eat this way
from now on,

because I feel so good.

When I got my next round of
blood test a few months later,

all the lupus indicators
were negative.

The doctor had a medical
student with him and he said,

this woman alleges
to have lupus,

but we are not finding
any evidence of it.

Maybe there is just
an error in the test.

Go have your wedding, come
back and we'll test again.

And we tested again
few months later

and now even the antibodies

for the clots were
completely negative.

And my blood pressure
was coming down

to that of an athlete, and my
"genetically high cholesterol"

that I was told that
I could do nothing,

but blame my parents,

that's what my doctor
told me as a kid,

that was completely normal
and in fact optimal.

And that's what's
happened ever since then

and right now I'm sitting here

and it's been 10 years since
that first negative blood test,

and there has been
no sign of lupus coming back,

in spite of me continuing to go
on and not only expose myself

to those things they said I
shouldn't like

going out in the sunshine
but also having two children.

I have continued to actually
get healthier and stronger

as the years have gone by.

You know, I think
we all love process food

for their convenience.

But what if you could have
the convenience

without the processed food part.

You know, one of my favorites
is macaroni and cheese in a box

which I grew up with like
everybody else

and used to love.

So I've come up with a vegan
version that's whole foods.

It's something you can keep in
your pantry in a jar,

pull it out and take
a little cup of it

and just mix it up
with some non-dairy milk

and just pour it
over some noodles

and you got
an instant easy dish.

Comes together in
about 30 seconds,

so you better watch
carefully or you'll miss it.

All right, first I've
got a cup of cashews,

they go right into
my food processor,

along with some
nutritional yeast,

and some herbs and spices.

Put it in your food processor,

you just let it whirr
for about three minutes

and that's it,
that mix is ready,

good to go in your pantry,

ready for you
anytime you want it.

Free.

At 43 years old, I am free.

I spent a decade
and half trapped.

My body I thought was my tomb,
this is where I'm gonna be.

I have no way out, there's
no escape. And then to find out

that not only can I escape

but I can come
out on the other side,

like a whole
different person.

This doesn't take a lifetime.

You can fix you.

In the first three months,
I lost 70 pounds.

I was too big to do any
kind of rigorous exercise,

I was 15 minutes on
a flat slow treadmill,

because that was
all I could do.

By the six month mark,
I was down 107 pounds.

If you'd told me from 60 plus
inch waist to 30 inch waist

in less than two years.

I had to say no way.

I didn't just lose weight,
I'm not just thinner,

I'm healthier,
completely healthy.

The thing about Dr. Stoll
that set him apart

from every other doctor,
he sat me down and said,

"Let me write you
some recipes"

and him writing those recipes,

he was more willing to
write the recipes first

before the prescriptions

and it changed everything.

There are doctors
that are waking up,

because you can't deny

the result,
I'm just one person,

but there's millions
of me out there,

that are experiencing
the same results

that we didn't
receive on meds.

I look in the mirror
now and I think that

we're not talking
ten years ago.

We're talking 20 months ago.

And I don't even
know that person,

when I see those pictures.

It's a lifestyle.
And that's the key thing.

People ask me all the time, so
how long are you gonna do this.

And I tell them, planning
on living to about

Because I'm never going
back, I'm never going back.

After about two weeks
the things I noticed was I had

a lot more energy,
I could walk a lot further

and I could walk a lot faster.

I dropped a bunch of weight.

My cholesterol
dropped like a rock.

Everything seemed to
come back into line.

He now rides a bike.

I mean we go for
long bike rides.

When I got out
of the hospital,

I don't know how
many medications I had,

and I'm off all that now.

He walks miles and it's
giving Greg back to me.

There's all kinds of diets,
but this is a way of life.

Most wives take for granted
what a gift a husband is,

and to be able to do those
things with their husband,

and I'm telling
you, I'm so thankful.

Doctor called me at home

and he says, "Hey, I
just got your blood work

back from the lab and I was
reviewing your results,

and you are
no longer diabetic."

That was really good.

Sorry.

We've had this astonishing
experience

that we've lived through

and it's kind of
shaken us awake

as far as what's
important in life.

That's what so many of us
in healthcare want

is to make these
changes in peoples' lives.

It's the most effective
and powerful way

to treat the broad
range of illness

that a primary care
doctor confronts.

It's just a easiest thing you
can do to have better health.

It's low hanging fruit
literally and figuratively.

I did not know how bad
I felt, until I felt good.

I'm sure there are times
in my life

when I was younger
that I felt better,

but there is no time
I remember feeling better.

You will lose weight,

you will lose your
high blood pressure,

you will lose your diabetes,
you will feel better,

you will lose your risk
for stroke,

you will lose your risk
for dementia,

so there are side effects.

Dr. Esselstyn
entered in my life

at the worst time in my life.

And I felt like
he was a God send.

My life changed,

it's the single best thing
I've ever done, by far.

I believe that my chance

of getting coronary
artery disease is zero.

Whole food plant
based nutrition

is indeed the answer

to the healthcare crisis
in America.

It's all about sustainability
of the mind, of the body

and of the planet.

Change doesn't come
from the leadership down,

leadership only changes

when people wake up and
demand it. Demand that change.

You know today
is a different day,

today is a new opportunity

to live the life
that you want to live.

Not just the one
that you're living,

but the one that you truly
really want to live.

Two weeks, three weeks,
all you got to do is try it.

There are people in the world
that do it for ethical reasons.

There are people that do it
for health reasons,

and there are people that do it
for environmental reasons.

And ultimately
it doesn't matter

why you do it,
because it's a win, win, win.

Finding the plant based diet
gave me freedom.

Freedom that all the other
fad diets and gadgets

and even my doctor
didn't give me.

I've been on medicine
for over 30 years,

and for the very first time,

I can truly look someone
in the eye

and I can say, I can heal you.

Realize that there are people
who love you,

who need you to do this,

because they need you
in their life as well.

It's the best thing
that ever happened to me,

it saved my life,
it saved my marriage.

I am very proud of her.

This is progressive medicine,
this is correct medicine.

This is where
medicine should be.

The vegetables, and the fruits,
and the whole grains,

and the beans,

those foods have power
that you never imagined.

And It's time to put it to work.

Come on, what's on your plate?