Dear Doctor, Why?

I have spoken many times about all the medical issues I faced before starting my journey to self-healing and weight loss.  It was pretty grim.  Over the last few decades, I (and my insurance companies) have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make my life bearable.  In all those years, I found pretty much zero help or relief.  I just got progressively worse and worse.  The answer to many if not all the problems I was having was as simple as changing my grocery list.  Yes, I spend a little more on groceries now but, recall that "hundreds of thousands" I mentioned?  Not hyperbole folks. So there's expensive and then there's expeeensive.  And there is more than one sort of "cost."  Basically, what's it worth to you?  Expensive is a relative term  A $50k house is a bargain basement find!  But a $50k car is expensive!  What's the value of the thing is a a better question that what is the cost.  So to me, my new diet is not expensive.  For it's value, it is quite cheap.  How much do you spend on perscriptions?  What if your food was your food and your medicine?

First off, I find it laughable when people say to me that they can't afford all this "expensive" produce but it is actually a serious issue for many so let's talk about that for a moment.  I understand tight budgets.  No really, I do.  We have been on the nothing-but-ramen-noodles-all-week diet more than a few times.  I know from broke.  But most of the time in recent months, before becoming whole foods/plant based and juicing (WFPB from now on) we spent around $125-175 per month on food for the family.  We also ate out at least once, often two or three times every week.  It was our payday ritual.   We usually got pizza or Sonic or Arby's or Taco Bell.  Taco Bell and Little Caesars are cheap for those weeks we had a more limited food budget.  But that was an additional $15 to $60 per week or more.  And then let's add up all the stops at Quick Trip for soda and a "snack."  Am I the only one who would routinely spend $5 on #%$!* every time I filled up the gas tank of my car?  I think not.  So I was spending $150-200 per week on crap that was killing me.  Literally.  Literally crap and literally killing me.  Not to mention the money I was spending on medications I no longer need. Nowadays, I routinely spend $180 a week on food.  I haven't spent a solitary dime on fast food, packaged junk or convenience store snacks in 4 months.  Yup, that WFPB diet is just too expensive.  Still think it is too expensive?  Check out Ellen Jaffe Jones.  You can find her on facebook and youtube.  I am not sure if her website is working but she also wrote a book called Vegan on $4 a day.  And then there is this blog: http://homelessformyhealth.blogspot.com/.   Go read it.  Seriously.  AFTER reading that blog, you come tell me that a healthy diet is too expensive.

Now, on to the things that are really on my mind today.  A couple of things I have been hearing lately really have me pissed.   Both have to do with doctors.  First off, why the holy heck in all the years I've been to doctor after doctor, spent many weeks in hospitals and had dozens of very expensive tests done and been lectured about my weight continuously, has no doctor ever, once suggested that I had a leaky gut or gluten intolerance.  Never once has any of them suggested I try eliminating sugar or dairy.  Not ONE medical professional has ever suggested that people who eat primarily a plant based diet have little to no heart disease, cancer or diabetes.  You know why?  Because they know squat about nutrition.  Seriously.  They can't tell you what they don't know.  There is, of course,  the problem of  the bought and paid for research they are being fed by USDA, FDA and Big Pharma plus there is the absolute absence of any real education.  In medical school, our future physicians get a few hours of training in nutrition.  Hours.  NOT class hours or credit hours.  As in your history class counts as 4 credit hours.  No.  A few actual clock hours of their entire education.  Don't believe me? Check this out:

The approximate time devoted to nutrition science over the first two years of my medical education is a measly 6 hours....  James Haddad  [http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/12/nutrition-taught-medical-school.html]  After the first two years they are in actual medical settings as interns and residents.  With live patients.

Your doctor was not taught nutrition unless he went out on his own time and dollar and researched it himself.  Since doctors in training have all that.. ya know... spare time.  And since becoming a doctor, he is consistently fed the SAD conventional wisdom that is killing us all by degrees.  So when people ask me if my doctor is on board with me going WFPB and all the juicing, my response is, "I don't give a rat's tail."  My nutrition is up to me.  

The other thing that set me off was several instances of hearing that what few doctors actually got the memo that WFPB diets can prevent a host of diseases dropped the ball anyway.  Mostly.  There are those few voices in the wilderness but your average physician in your average town or city?  Well, the prevailing attitude seems to be that they don't bother recommending any radical change in diet because patients will likely find it too challenging and won't follow through.  Changing your way of eating is too hard.  Why bother when weight loss surgery is so much easier.  And heck, many insurance plans are starting to cover it now too!  Bonus!  (In case you missed it, insert heavy sarcasm there.)  So if even one doctor over the years looked at me and thought, "Damn woman!  All you need to do is make salad the main dish!  Throw out the cheese and the bread and eat some veggie stew instead."  he or she then decided that I couldn't possibly have the physical or mental fortitude to deal with such advice so they just scheduled the next MRI or bone scan, filled out another perscription and sent me home.  We are being treated like idiots and fools by the people we trust with our lives.  Weak idiots and fools.  Sure lots of people say, "Oh I couldn't do that!"  But the problem is that they don't really believe in it.  If our doctors were educated enough and committed enough to our health to really teach it to their patients, a LOT of them would say, "It will actually give me my health and energy back?! I can do that!"  Some wouldn't.  So for them, doctor, go ahead and schedule that next scan and write that next prescription.  Do what you can to prepare them for the fact that their lives will be shorter and more painful and miserable.  But at least learn what you need to know to give as many of us as possible a shot at real health.  I know the first rule is supposed to be "do no harm" but shouldn't that be closely followed by "do as much good as you possibly can?"