Read Food Over Medicine Online
Authors: Pamela A. Popper,Glen Merzer
PP:
Janet Triner is a schoolteacher in Chicago. I chose this story because as a teacher, she really cared about paying it forward. She had a gastrointestinal disorder—lots of diarrhea, gas, discomfort, nausea, and that sort of thing. We attract a lot of members who have GI disorders because so many have been helped after adopting our diet. Fortunately, Janet had not progressed to the point where she had had surgeries or been hospitalized, but she was plenty miserable.
And so it was just a nice clean deal. When Janet learned how to eat right, she found that she didn’t have these problems anymore. But Janet teaches in this elementary school and felt that the kids should have a different view of nutrition than they have. In the past when she’d raise the subject, her colleagues would make fun of her. All the same, she began to talk about nutrition to her kids and was willing to take the flak. I told her that what often helps us in the schools is somebody with some staying power who keeps pressing for nutritional changes until he or she gets a chance to have some influence. So she got herself appointed the wellness coordinator for her school. She called me and said, “Pam, now everybody has to listen to me.” She’s managed to train a lot of teachers; she’s teaching them about plant-based nutrition and is getting them to talk about it in the classroom. Janet has converted her own success story into one that has really influenced countless kids. They’re all experiencing a different view of nutrition now because Janet got well and became passionate.
JANET TRINER IN HER OWN WORDS
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I was a person who was very much caught in the medical mill that Dr. Popper talks about. I had a lot of GI problems and I had a lot of allergy problems. Doctors were always doing all kinds of tests; I would have CT scans and other tests to see what was going on in my abdomen. From about the age of twenty, I was having irritable bowel symptoms, and they just kept giving me medicine.
I heard Dr. Popper speak at a conference and I was just fascinated. Soon after that, I was diagnosed with asthma and I was put on inhalers and medicine and I was having abdominal pain. My OB/GYN thought it was endometriosis and she wanted to do surgery, and another doctor thought it was a hernia and he couldn’t see it on the test but he was sure if he could get in there he could find it. I called Dr. Popper’s Wellness Forum and set up an appointment and she talked to me on the phone. I thought I was eating a healthy diet, but she said, “I can see why you’re so sick.” I was eating tons of dairy and I was eating tons of sugar because I’m very thin and was able to eat stuff like that and not gain weight. She said, “You have to cut out sugar. You have to cut out dairy. You have to cut out gluten.” She described the diet I had to eat to heal my gut, and I changed my diet that day. I stopped that night and then I started eating the healing diet and taking a probiotic.
My asthma symptoms disappeared and then my abdominal issues eventually completely disappeared. I have not had to have more tests; I have not had to go back on medicine. I have a much better body. I am healthy, I am educated, I have been able to educate my family, and we’ve all gotten healthier because of that.
In addition to my own health issues, I’m a teacher concerned about children. I had received training on brain function through my school district, which included only a passing mention that protein was needed for brain function. But after taking classes from The Wellness Forum, I was convinced that children needed to eat a better diet in order for their brains to function well. I decided to attend The Wellness Forum’s conference on children’s nutrition and at that conference I met so many people who had made a difference in their school district and I realized that I wanted to do that, too.
I returned home and talked to someone in our central office who told me that we’d need to organize a committee to change school lunches. I am very shy, so I surprised myself when I said I would head that committee. During my tenure, we changed school meals, which meant changing food service providers.
Lunches definitely improved——kids were offered whole wheat products, rice, vegetables, and fruit. The food service provider even agreed to do food-tasting events for the kids.
We instituted a wellness class for kids and provided a training program for parents. I’ve given presentations to our teachers at teacher meetings. I, of course, use information on healthy diets in my own classroom and now teachers come to me for information on what to do in their classrooms.
I tell everyone who will listen that we are educators——we teach kids how to read, how to write, and how to do math; we should be teaching them how to make good food choices, too.
PP:
Some of the work we do is in employer settings. Employers pay for employees to take our classes in order to improve their health and lower their insurance costs. For example, the city of Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, is a client of The Wellness Forum. As with our other employer clients, we have had some incredible successes. One of those people is Larry Nicol. Larry decided to take our Wellness 101 class at work, and here’s what happened to him.
LARRY NICOL IN HIS OWN WORDS
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When I heard Dr. Pam Popper’s talk to our employees in early 2012, I thought she was talking directly to me. My numbers were barely good enough to pass the “Healthy by Choice” criteria at work, so it was time to make a change. Although my wife and I had tried other diets without much success, we thought this was worth a try.
When I told my wife I wanted to do this, her response was, “What are we going to eat?” Meat, dairy, and oil were staples of our diet. For a while, it seemed like all we ate was beans and rice. But gradually, we learned through the classes to make substitutions and how to shop for healthier options. We increased our consumption of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, and we decreased our intake of animal foods. We now eat meat only once or twice per week instead of every day.
We’ve found that plant-based recipes are easy to find and we’ve actually enjoyed experimenting with new meals and foods. The biggest challenge for my wife was eliminating dairy, but we’ve both learned to focus on what we can have, instead of what we can’t. And there are plenty of good choices.
Just eight weeks into the program, I felt better than I have in a very long time and I was fitting into clothes I had not worn for twenty years. I am not taking any medications and now food is my medicine. I will never go back to my previous diet——for one thing, I’m in control of my food instead of any food controlling me. And also I feel so good now and I never want to go back to feeling bad again.
Some people have told me they think the diet is drastic, but I tell them that everyone should look in the mirror and say to themselves, “No one cares as much about me as I do.” If you do that, then this program is worth it, and the benefits far outweigh the efforts.
GM:
Did the other participants in the Dublin program do as well?
PP:
Yes, they did. The compliance rate was over 90 percent for the group. After only eight weeks, eight individuals reduced or eliminated their medications for conditions like type 2 diabetes and hypertension, and two had scheduled appointments with their docs to discuss their meds. All of the overweight participants lost weight, and one person lost more than twenty-seven pounds. The city scheduled more classes for employees who became interested after seeing their peers get such incredible results. Just think if every employer in America offered this program—we could make employer-sponsored health care plans affordable really quickly!
GM:
What’s your best weight-loss story?
PP:
That would be Del, our Chef Del Sroufe. Del’s story is still unfolding.
GM:
I saw him on YouTube.
PP:
Well, now he’s even thinner. He’s down to 250 from 475.
GM:
In how much time?
PP:
In five years.
GM:
How tall is he?
PP:
About six-three. So at 210 or 215, he’ll be gorgeous. There are so many aspects of Del’s story that are interesting. Let’s start with the fact that he was a 475-pound vegan, living proof that you can be vegan and still be profoundly unhealthy. Being vegan doesn’t mean anything if you don’t do it right. Then there’s the fact that he was an emotional eater; his weight problems started when he was eight. It’s possible, after all, to overeat even healthy foods; he used to overeat both the right and wrong stuff because he was distressed. He just hated exercise; he wouldn’t mind me telling you this, but he used to cry at the gym and would call me the Daughter of Satan for pushing him to exercise.
Del had all of the typical struggles that obese people have. He had lost weight and gained it back, plateaued, gone back to emotional eating, eaten in secret, battled all of the demons associated with eating, and then set himself right again. But he never went back to animal foods. In all these years that he’s been dealing with his weight, he never picked up a piece of cheese and he never had a chicken wing. He tended to overeat pretzels and beer and potato chips.
GM:
So since he’s been on your program, has he had these relapses?
PP:
Oh, yeah. It’s never a straight line to success. I think Del typifies a lot of people who struggle with food because their reasons for eating are different than yours and mine. I mean, I love food and I love to eat, but if I’m not hungry, I’m not going to go gorge on something. And if you make me angry, I’m more likely to skip lunch than eat two lunches. Del, on the other hand, has always anesthetized himself with food; he’s had to learn new behaviors to not do it. And he’s also had to learn to prioritize because when you don’t like to exercise, it’s the first thing that goes when you’re busy. All your best habits go out the window. In the last year, he’s gotten to the place where he disciplines himself all the more to stay with the right behaviors the busier he is.
I’ve told Del that an alcoholic always has to get up every morning and remember how to avoid alcohol, but you can’t do that with food. That complicates the matter. An alcoholic is one drink away from disaster, and a drug addict is one pill away from disaster, but you can’t say that a food addict is one calorie away from disaster. So every day you’ve got to get up and remember your strategies for not abusing food and not anesthetizing yourself with food. You always have to be mindful because that’s the first place the demons inside you want to go. For an anorexic, the first place they want to go is starvation. For a food addict, the first place they want to go is overeating; that’s how they deal with life, so every day you’ve got to be mindful. He’s finally gotten to the place where it’s not such a struggle. It will always be more of a struggle for him than for me, but it’s not going to be like it used to be. So he’s overcome, and I have a lot of respect for him. Plus, as a chef, he works with food and has it in front of him all day long.
GM:
Has Del had other problems with his health that have gone away since he’s lost weight?
PP:
Yeah, he had gastroparesis. Del was a person who could eat breakfast at five in the morning and it would still be making him sick at eight in the morning—he might even throw it up. That completely went away.
GM:
And does he still hate exercise?
PP:
Not as much. He bitches and moans about it, but he basically enjoys the gym. He likes being fit and he likes the way it makes him feel. He now notices that you feel better when you do it than when you don’t. And sometimes you dread it the most when you need it the most. I’ve dragged my butt into yoga sometimes when I think I’m going to die, but that’s when I need to go more than ever.
GM:
I’m still trying to picture the scene when this guy comes in at 475 pounds and you decide to make him a partner in Wellness Forum Foods.
PP:
With two caveats. The two rules when he joined us were: One, he had to lose the weight. Two, he had to take the oils out of the food.
GM:
And his response?
PP:
He agreed, but he said, “Pammy, I’ll do a lot of things but I’m not giving up taste.” I said, “Well, you don’t have to give up the taste; just figure out how to do it without the fat.” And his food is amazing. This guy is amazing.
Now, Del already had a business. He had a large clientele of people for whom he was making food on a regular basis.
GM:
A meal-delivery service?
PP:
Right. We bought the delivery service and moved Del into the building. And he was nervous about one thing. He said, “Well, Pammy, what are we going to tell all these people I’ve been cooking for all these years when the oil comes out of the food?” I said, “Well, how about this: Why don’t we just not say anything? And then if someone complains, we’ll explain the health benefits of eating without oil.” This was back in 2005. And not one person ever said anything about the missing oil. Well, actually no, I shouldn’t say that. One person said, “Hey, Del, since you got hooked up with Wellness Forum, your food isn’t as greasy anymore!” The other three hundred people never noticed anything at all; they’ve never commented about it.
GM:
So he kept the same clients and they didn’t even notice the changes?
PP:
Exactly. So there’s another reason to get the oil out of the diet: not only is it high in fat and calories and contributory to cardiovascular disease but it’s also completely unnecessary; there is absolutely no reason to include it. We’ve never shown somebody how to make food without oil who three months later was saying, “Gosh, I really miss the oil. If only I could have some oil on my pasta dish, life would be fine.” None of them say that; they just don’t care about it. If you don’t miss it when it’s gone, if it doesn’t change how fabulous the food is, and if it’s detrimental to your health, then why include it? Del has become a master at showing people how to cook without added fat.