Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen – Enlightened Eating
Lisa Berry: One thing that you did write, and I want to say this is that it’s about the word waste, wasting, wasting life force and wasting food and energy and things like that. I read that Americans waste 30 percent of all edible food produced, bought and sold in the country, that’s one way of looking at it. But, then you reduced it further, and you said the average American wastes 1,400 calories a day or about two full meals.
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: Right. We do throw away a lot of food. We throw away a lot of food. And there are 1 billion people in the world that are hungry and starving. And, when we eat animal products rather than plant-based products, the grain is diverted. Grain is diverted to feed animals rather than growing to feed people. And so, by eating plant-based, you can work against that. You don’t have to be a part of that.
You know, if one swaps out peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a hamburger, you can save 24 feet of rainforest from being destroyed to grow food for cattle. You can save 130 gallons of water and 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide with one peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Lisa Berry: That’s incredible, oh, my gosh. And I’m very aware of how we are wasting in this world and how we can save; it’s shocking how much can be saved by small changes. . Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: Yes. And, you know, that’s the thing is when you eat plant-based when you eat more vegetables, fruits, grains, you’re not only helping yourself, but you’re helping the world around you. So, you’re not participating in the climate change; you’re not participating in the killing of animals for food. Americans eat 1 million animals an hour, 1 million animals an hour. So, when you eat plant-based, you’re not participating in that. You’re not participating in world hunger. These little changes ripple out and have such a profound effect.
Lisa Berry: That’s profound, I think that was the big one. I love that you also wrote ostensibly about it and that it’s not always about even a spiritual commitment. But I confess, I don’t like a million animals eaten every hour, killed every hour.
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: So, when you eat more vegetarian or vegan, you feel lighter. You know, you have more energy. And not only that, you know, The China Study is a book that studied the relationship between diet and cancer. And so, what they found was animal proteins, animal fats and casing, which is the protein in milk, increased tumor production and increased cancer risk. And conversely, not eating that stuff lowers cancer risk, lowers tumor production.
The person you’re talking about in Enlightened Eating is Bob, and Bob became a plant-based eater 30 years ago to try to overcome a family history of heart disease and illness. And he did not want that history that his family members had. He understood that food trumps genetics. Food is more important than genetics. Plant-based food encourages telomerase, which is an enzyme that increases your lifespan. So, eating plant-based increases your lifespan.
Lisa Berry: That is shocking. And I was lucky enough to have read The China Study and watched the documentary that was made with, Forks Over Knives, which by the way, did not know that was about that until I was in like going, gosh, I feel like I’ve seen this before. Telomerase. If you don’t ever hear the word, you only read it; you never know how to say that.
And literally, this is so shocking to me because there are so many diets out there that say, no, no, no, you know what, cut out all the carbs, and they’re thinking starches and plant-based things like this, and really go heavy on the meat, not just dairy but like actual meat consumption. But, yet, when we stay away from the meat and the dairy and animal products or foods that we extend the very structure of our bodies and our lives.
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: Exactly. It takes three months, and within three months, you have extended your lifespan.
Lisa Berry: Oh, ooh. I can do it for three months. That’s manageable. What’s the first thing you tell them to kind of ease their mind?
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: So, it depends on why they need a plant-based diet. If someone comes in, and they’re overweight, and they want to lose weight, I don’t encourage them to eat a lot of grains. I encourage them to eat more vegetables and fruit and legumes and eat a small number of grains. If someone doesn’t have a weight problem, then I encourage more grains.
But, the basics are going to be the vegetables, the legumes, and the fruit.
In Enlightened Eating, Butch’s wife Darlene talks about, after she had been doing this plant-based eating–and for Butch, no fat, you know, no fat eating, she noticed that her attitude towards food had changed. She didn’t want the things that she had wanted before. The cravings for various foods disappear. And that’s what people find because the foods that are addictive, like the foods that are high sugar, high fat, high salt, you’re not eating those foods anymore.
And so, the desire for them drops completely. And as you stay on plant-based eating, what you want to eat is healthy, nutritious, whole foods. Everything changes.
Lisa Berry: Yeah, and that’s where the enlightened part comes about, you do feel enlightened. You can see clearer, and you can move when you have the energy, and you’re not so tired. And one thing I highlighted on one particular part of your book was the bringing up of feeling isolated when now you eat so differently than anyone else, and it’s socially challenging.
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: I feel so good about what I eat. I just feel blessed no matter where I go because I know I’m doing the very best that I can do for my body, for my health, for my future, and for the world. And so, I do not feel deprived in any way. And if I go to a restaurant, I can always figure out something on the menu. You know, I can either get a no cheese, no sour cream tostada, I could get a tofu vegetable dish, I could get pasta with tomato sauce, I could get a big salad. I mean, I want to have a good healthy life.
Lisa Berry: If you could you help explain what is high cholesterol, bad cholesterol, and what does that have to do with plant-based eating and meat-eating or animal eating?
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: So, there’s been a level determined for healthy cholesterol. Depending on what you read, if you have total cholesterol of 150 or lower and you have bad cholesterol of 80 or lower, you will not deposit cholesterol in your arteries. Now, when you eat a lot of fat when you eat animal products, there’s saturated fat in those. So, cholesterol only comes from animal products, and that cholesterol that you eat can get deposited in your arteries.
So, once it gets deposited in your arteries, it narrows your arteries. So, it increases the blood flow so that it can give you high blood pressure.
When it narrows enough, you could form a blood clot; you could either have a heart attack or you could have a stroke. So, what you’re trying to do with plant-based eating is lower the cholesterol to a healthy level. The other thing plant-based eating does is it decreases inflammation. Inflammation works against you regarding increased risk for stroke and heart attack because it affects the lining of the blood vessels and makes them kind of more sticky.
And so, eating a plant based in the opposite. It lowers inflammation. Over a period of eating plant-based, the plaque can regress. So, you could do good for yourself. Even if you’ve eaten animal products most of your life, once you make the switch and you stick with it, the plague in your arteries can regress.
Lisa Berry: Telomerase is the anti-aging again here. We are shrinking the plague and not just stopping it from forming and building up. And inflammation’s huge with all things.
Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen: I mean, the change in the diet helps everything. So, if they’re on prescription medication, what may very well happen is they may need less medication. So, say they’re diabetic and they start eating plant-based, and they lose weight, and they stop eating all that sugar, then very likely, they’re gonna need less medication. And some people will even need no medication.
Continue to page 3 of the Interview with Dr. Cassandra Ohlsen – Enlightened Eating
