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All the world is nuts about
The Nut Gourmet
October 1, 2004 -- Vegparadise News Bureau
Restore Your Health
With a Diet to Really RAVE About
Filmmaker Mike Anderson was a witness as members of his immediate family and close friends were dying from complications of diseases that could have been avoided. His father died of cancer. His stepfather succumbed to heart disease. His mother broke her hip and was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis. His sister-in-law has diabetes. A close friend was diagnosed with cancer and then had a heart attack. The question he kept asking himself was: "How can I avoid going down the same road myself?"
After spending two years poring through thousands of articles in newspapers, magazines, and journals to find an answer to his question, Anderson concluded that all of these degenerative diseases could be prevented if people would embark on diet and lifestyle changes.
The information had such a profound effect on him that he adopted a low-fat vegan diet and in six months shed 35 pounds. Seeing the benefits in improving his own health, he decided he wanted to share his information in a film simply called Eating that first appeared in 2003.
"The project was born out of anger," says Anderson. " I was already in my 50's when I came across the full range of arguments for a plant-based diet. Quite frankly, I was stunned and angry because the arguments were so powerful, yet virtually unknown in the mainstream. I was also angry because of what I had been doing to my body, the environment, and the animals I was eating. Like most Americans, I never made the connection."
RAVE stands for---
In Eating, Anderson devised the acronym RAVE that embodies the key features of this diet that helps prevent and even reverse chronic degenerative diseases. RAVE is broken down as follows:
- No Refined foods
No Animal foods
No Vegetable oils
No Exceptions
& Exercise
The film features interviews with individuals who have benefited by switching to a RAVE-type diet. Dr. Neal Pinckney was scheduled for triple coronary bypass surgery recommended by four heart specialists, but instead opted for a dietary solution to his medical problem. After seven months on this diet, he was running in an 8.2 K race. One year later only one of the four cardiologists was still alive. Meanwhile, Pinckney was not only alive and well but had also lost 40 lbs. and reduced his waist size from 38 to 32.
Ironwoman Ruth Heidrich tells of her challenges with breast cancer. She agreed to surgery but rejected chemotherapy and radiation. Fortunately, one of her five "second opinions" was from Dr. John McDougall who advised her to change her diet. After going completely vegan, she has had no reoccurrence of the dreaded disease.
Dr. Joseph Crowe, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, suffered a heart attack at the age of 44.
Surprising to him his cholesterol of 156 was no protection from heart disease. Following the advice of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn also of the Cleveland Clinic, Crowe began a low-fat, plant-based diet and reversed his heart disease in 32 months. Crowe, who takes no medication, now usually has a cholesterol reading under 100 and has no heart problems.
Film Gains Positive Feedback
The film has received numerous favorable reviews including one from the American Library Association. In Booklist, July 2003, the reviewer described the documentary film as a "compelling and often shocking look at the standard American diet."
In April 2004 Anderson released a revised second edition of Eating. Meanwhile he was working on a companion book that could be packaged with the DVD version of the film.
"The reason I decided to put this information into a film and a book is to present an easy-to-digest summary that will motivate people to change their diets and realize the dramatic health benefits that can result from such a simple, although profound change in their lives," says Anderson. "All families in America are being torn apart by diseases caused by the foods they eat. These diseases can not only be prevented, but also be reversed by simply changing diet," he emphasized.
In The Rave Diet and Lifestyle, Anderson has combined the book and a DVD of the film and is selling the package for $19.95, the same price originally charged for just the video or DVD of Eating.
It Takes Just 21 Days
The book provides Anderson with the opportunity to share much of the research that could not be included in the film. The cover trumpets, "Just 21 days to a new you--naturally." It also calls the book "an antidote for the Atkins diet, heart disease, and our common cancers."
Those 21 days, Anderson points out, are the time span needed to reeducate a person's taste buds away from refined foods high in fat, sugar, sodium, and chemical additives and toward natural unprocessed plant-based foods. By shunning animal foods, refined foods, and vegetable oils and increasing the amount of exercise, one will be able to prevent or reverse numerous degenerative diseases.
Anderson summarizes the diet by offering the following tips and tricks:
- Always eat foods as close to their natural state as possible.
- Always eat whole foods.
- Eat a variety of colorful foods.
- Try to eat at least half of your food uncooked, without any dips or toppings.
- A salad is an ideal meal.
- Never cook with salt.
- Take a multivitamin.
- Avoid packaged "snack" foods like the plague.
- Water should always be your beverage of choice.
- A tablespoon of ground flaxseed should be a part of your daily diet.
- When eating out, order whatever is on the menu, but ask them to leave out the bad stuff by following the RAVE diet rules.
To assist readers who are anxious to adopt the diet, the author provides a variety of supplemental information. Most helpful are his lists of ingredients to avoid, substitutions for oils, seasonings, sauces, salad dressings, condiments, and sweeteners that are devoid of oil, sugar, and salt. The last half of the book is devoted to over175 recipes that fall within the parameters of the RAVE program.
Mike Anderson does not display an M.D. or R.D. or any other initials following his name, but he reveals an extensive body of research to demonstrate the efficacy of the RAVE program. The RAVE diet is not entirely his original creation but an amalgam of lifestyle changes advocated by Drs. Ornish, McDougall, Barnard, Esselstyn, Fuhrman, and others. All of these doctors have shown that this type of lifestyle program is effective in preventing and reversing heart disease as well as other degenerative diseases. Unfortunately, many physicians do not include this type of program in their repertoire for fighting chronic disease, but instead opt for pharmaceuticals and surgery to treat the results of their patients' poor lifestyle choices.
In his desire to help people avoid the path leading to degenerative diseases, a path lined with expensive medications and surgery, Anderson has created this remarkable book/DVD package. All of his information is universally accessible; it just needs to be brought to the attention of an unaware public.
"Change your life and seek long-term happiness from within by adopting a lifestyle that I guarantee will pay countless dividends throughout your life," says Anderson.
For more information about the RAVE diet, the Eating DVD, and the book The Rave Diet and Lifestyle visit
http://www.ravediet.com/
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