Dr. Dodge: Passion for Health

Enjoy Awesome Foods 

The second secret of exceptional health is to eat an abundance of awesome foods. These foods are a great source of vitality. They boost good health to a greater degree than any other foods. What are these wonder foods? They are plant-based foods: the vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and nuts that you find in every grocery store in our country.

All our food comes from either plant or animal sources. Plants convert sunlight into food energy by the process of photosynthesis. Animals do not have this capability. Plants are the source of energy for all other forms of life. They give us vitamins and the thousands of anti-oxidants that are important for our immune systems and for overall health. They deliver these micronutrients to us in ideal ways that no man-made system can duplicate. 

Plants provide us with the fiber in our diets that is essential for optimal health. Other food sources do not provide fiber. Partly because of the rich fiber content of plant-based foods, they have relatively few calories in spite of their bulk. What this means in practical terms is that one can eat large volumes of them with little danger of gaining excess weight.

Plant-based foods supply more than enough protein for growth. When one amino acid is missing, it can be provided by another vegetable. This is how vegetarians get complete protein without eating meat. Any doubts should vanish if you consider large herbivorous animals like elephants, whose mammoth bodies are maintained entirely by eating plants.

In short, plant-based foods provide consumers with many advantages. They supply good nutrition. They are excellent boosters of the immune system. Their legions of anti-oxidants disarm millions of free radicals every day, defending the body against many kinds of inflammation and cancer in a powerful way. Their fiber and low calorie contents offer good protection against excess weight gain and related complications.

Meat eaters wishing to obtain these benefits can move toward plant-based food intake and still eat meat. People who plan their meals around meat may panic over the idea of having meals without meat. Many fear they will have limited choices and boring meals. I had similar fears when we moved toward vegetarian eating over twenty years ago.

My fears evaporated years ago. Our meals are more varied and nutritious now than ever before. My personal practice is to eat plant-based meals mainly, adding fish or eggs only occasionally. My goal is to eat nine or ten servings of fruit and vegetables daily. This healthy eating pattern is not hard to achieve, and I enjoy it greatly.

My book will include my daily meal diaries for a week, which may be helpful for anyone wishing to increase their plant-based intake. I do not have enough space to do that here, but I will feature such a diary in the health blog on my new website. 

Summing up, plant-based foods provide us with the best benefit/risk ratio of any foods we can eat. Plants carry the purest form of life energy available to us. For anyone desiring exceptional health, these are truly awesome foods. Enjoy them abundantly.