Feature Interview with PCRM: Eating Greens Can Save Your Life
The Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a well-known organization among people who subscribe to a plant-based diet and lifestyle, but the organization also reaches out to non-vegans/vegetarians through various outreach programs, like the 21-Day Kickstart. PCRM is no stranger to the Vegan Mainstream blog – some of the articles it has been featured in include one [...]
Joseph Gonzales, Photo courtesy PCRM
The Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a well-known organization among people who subscribe to a plant-based diet and lifestyle, but the organization also reaches out to non-vegans/vegetarians through various outreach programs, like the 21-Day Kickstart. PCRM is no stranger to the Vegan Mainstream blog – some of the articles it has been featured in include one on farm bills and another on school lunches. Today, at the end of our week focusing on the importance of Eating Your Vegan Greens, we talk to Joseph Gonzales, PCRM staff dietician and participant in The Cancer Project, about keeping ourselves healthy in the midst of unhealthy public policies.
Vegan Mainstream: How did you first get involved with PCRM?
Joseph Gonzales: I had known about PCRM for years. Maybe 12 years ago I was introduced to the idea of a diet avoiding animal products. I got interested in that when I was nearing the end of high school. I started to learn about the fact that diet affects heart disease, diet affects diabetes, diet even affects cancer. It sounded like a good career [path to take] as far as being a dietician. When I went to school, I interned with PCRM, got my R.D., and then I applied for a job with The Cancer Project because it fits my ideal of how nutrition can combat disease. I love what we do! I love the fact that we don’t sell anything, except maybe a book [laughs] about disease prevention, all through plant-based nutrition. That’s why I’m here and I love the work we do.
VM: Tell me more about The Cancer Project.
JG: We know that certain foods can help us do things like keep a healthy body weight, keep our blood sugars down, and keep our cholesterol blood numbers down. We know that if we have these healthy parameters, we can decrease our risk for certain cancers - like colorectal cancer and hormonal-based cancers like breast and prostate. What we do at The Cancer Project is look at the research that’s out there and how that research is geared towards how food affects cancer risk. We put out summary reports and do breaking medical news stories on recent articles, but the main thing we like to focus on is our cooking classes. We have a whole series of classes where we talk about cancer, we talk about diabetes. This next year we’re going to be having weight loss classes, classes to learn about weight management and appropriate steps you can take. It’s based on the 21-Day Kickstart, where you can try this diet on for size for 21 days. You don’t have to do portion control, you don’t have to limit anything, you just need to eat the right foods. We’re talking plant-based foods, vegan foods, low-fat foods. That’s the focus of The Cancer Project: our classes. We’re in over 30 states now, so we’re becoming very available to the public. [People who attend] can learn about these new foods, take them back to their families, and increase the health of their families across the board.
VM: What sorts of facilities do you use? Is it a traveling project where you utilize someone else’s space to do the classes or do you have people set up?
JG: We have local instructors, but they’ll go to whatever venue it is, whether it’s a YMCA or a church, or a local hospital or cancer center, which is ideal. That local instructor will work with whoever is in charge of that venue and work with them to hold those classes.
VM: How do you feel the Kickstarts benefit those who are transitioning or just starting out?
JG: It really depends on where you’re at with your diet, but if you have some weight to lose, it’s really dramatic what happens. After about 21 days, taste buds start to change. Even after a week, you can see some form of weight loss. In the research studies, it’s usually about a pound a week, which adds up to 52 pounds per year. That is really significant. [Other effects are] increased energy, increased bowel movements, because a lot of people don’t know what it’s like to go to the bathroom sometimes! They have all this fiber in their diet, all this fuel; they’re not eating as many calories as they think, but they’re full because of all the fiber. If they have high blood sugar or cholesterol, that tends to go down as well.
VM: What advice do you have for vegans who need to re-think eating right?
JG: Just to bring it back to nature. We all know what healthy is. Every human on the face of this planet knows that a whole food, meaning an apple or orange, something that grows from the ground, is better than something in a package. Focusing on the four food groups – fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans – the staple to the vegan diet should be just that. For those looking for an inexpensive meal, I really suggest buying bulk. You can buy bulk beans, bulk rice, quinoa, oats, any whole grain you want, just keep it stored. Then you can buy your other condiments, maybe soy milk which is a little bit more processed but not a huge deal. Still a very healthful option. Nuts and seeds are just fine as well. Not to overdo it is the key.
VM: Speaking of food groups, what was your opinion of the food pyramid redesign, the new MyPlate?
JG: It was great, they did a good job. The only thing they are kind of misleading about is the protein section and the dairy satellite at the top of the circle. It’s a better representation. Seventy-five percent of the entire plate is plant-based, so that’s good. You can even argue up to 85%, because that protein group includes beans and nuts. Even in the dairy group, they do say soy milk or non-dairy beverages are acceptable, as long as they’re fortified, and nowadays, everything is fortified. So we like it. But, some of the language they use in it is kind of misleading. For example, they say limit saturated fat, limit solid fat. Well, when I say solid or saturated fat to the average American, they don’t really think of meat or cheese, so it’s a bit confusing. They’ll say things in the USDA guidelines for Americans, that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. That makes sense to people, but reduce saturated fat intake? Reduce solid fat? Nobody really knows what that means. What we’re trying to get them to say is, reduce meat consumption. Reduce high-fat dairy consumption. Those sort of easy to understand words. So, we’ve got some work to do.
VM: What do you think it would take for the USDA to come out and say that?
JG: That’s a really good question. It would take a lot of push from individuals like ourselves, nonprofits. Harvard School of Public Health has done a really good job. They have their own style of pyramid and they’re pushing to get away from that whole dairy plate and go with a water section. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what would do it, because the very people in the United States Department of Agriculture that set these guidelines are in the business of agriculture, so they’re very much tied to their recommendations. It gets a little bit confusing and very political. But as long as we keep pushing and getting on the map for what’s important and what the right language is for Americans, I think eventually, as we saw in the change from the pyramid to the plate, they’ll start changing the recommendations for Americans.
[Ed. note: Joseph sent along some extra links on this topic. He says, "This link shows what I was saying; eat less red meat, eat less high fat dairy. Everybody knows this is a mixed message within USDA, where they say eat more fruits and vegetables and limit saturated fat and solid fats, however, the USDA tends to subsidize (heavily) meat and dairy products. Even some of the most dangerous foods like processed meat (known to increase colorectal cancer risk) are thrown into every lunch line in America. It is a mistake to be recommending these type of foods in moderation."]
VM: Coming back to the health aspect of veganism, what are some myths that need debunking, for the public and for vegans too?
JG: Ooh, that’s a good one. I’m trying to think of ones that are super enlightening. Getting your calcium from greens is the easy one. The amount of absorbable calcium that you obtain from a leafy green, or a brussel sprout or a cup of broccoli is enormous. You absorb about 60 to 70 percent of all the calcium that’s in the broccoli. However, when you drink a glass of cow’s milk, you’re only absorbing about 30 percent of all the calcium in that glass. The catch is, there’s more calcium in the cow’s milk, but it’s less absorbable. There’s less calcium in the broccoli, but it’s more absorbable. So it kind of equals out. There’s a great report by the Harvard School of Public Health, acknowledging this concept and saying dairy products may not be the best source of calcium. Plus, very few people know that there’s little evidence, if any, showing that milk builds strong bones, or protects you from bone fractures. It’s just very misleading; the [idea is pushed that] if we drink milk we can decrease our risk of osteoporosis and hip fractures, when the research is showing the exact opposite. The countries who have the most dairy intake have the most risk of hip fractures and osteoporosis, and wouldn’t you know it, prostate cancer. There seems to be this major link between cow’s milk and prostate cancer as well that we seem to be missing right now on the public health scale.
This is also very interesting. The American Institute for Cancer Research is a great nonprofit organization that does extensive work with cancer-related research and how diet affects cancer risk. Some of that research points to the calcium in milk decreasing the risk of colorectal cancer. Now that’s very interesting to me because [on one hand] we think we can drink milk and reduce our risk of colorectal cancer. But on the flip side, we know that drinking milk for a male increases the risk of prostate cancer. Now there’s even research showing that drinking milk can increase the risk of ovarian cancer for women. [At the end of the day] we need calcium for strong bones, but [if we get it by drinking cow's milk] we’re going to increase our risk of prostate cancer, so we might as well just eat the broccoli, kale and everything that has calcium, with no side effects. There’s no risk of eating those foods. If anything, it’s going to decrease the risk of colorectal cancer because of the fiber, and it has no bearing on prostate cancer.
Sorry for the huge tangent, but the milk myth is huge!
VM: We’re going to move on to some diabetes talk. What is the correlation between diabetes and diet?
JG: There’s a lot of things that are increasing the risk for diabetes. Processed meats have been linked. Diets that are high in fat. Obviously there’s a sugar connection, so a lot of refined sugar, like table sugar, pastries, cakes or candies. Those unhealthy vegan foods, that stuff can increase the risk. More than anything, it just seems to be obesity and overeating. Not overeating the right foods, but the wrong foods. The foods that are real calorically dense, with little or no nutritional value.
There’s this big diabetes-cancer connection, and we know obesity is kind of holding it all toegether. So if you’re obese, and you’re diabetic, you’re have almost double the risk of cancer. How do you get away from that? You want to lower the blood sugars, but you want to lower the weight too. Something we educate consumers on is something called Intramyocellular lipids. All it is is fat inside the cell. What happens is when fat gets trapped inside a muscle cell, for example, it affects the insulin sensitivity. So, not only do we have to worry about the sugar with diabetes, we have to worry about the fat, because all of that is affecting this insulin sensitivity. As we know with diabetes, insulin helps get glucose into the cell to be used for energy, so when there’s lots of fat inside the cell, it blocks off that whole necessary function that the body needs.
The key points for diabetes is getting the fat out of the diet, and the animal products out of the diet, and getting the fat out of the cell so the insulin can work again.
VM: I read in your bio that you took part in something called a diabetes lifestyle intervention program. What does that entail?
JG: That’s going to be a long answer! On the Marshall Islands - a little stretch of land located in the middle of nowhere 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii - there is a huge diabetes epidemic. The reason for the epidemic is their diet. When we look at their diet, it’s processed meat like Spam, it’s white rice, pancakes, white flour, sugar, soda pop. The common breakfast in the morning is a can of soda for a child, a Popsicle, and a packet of like Top Ramen, or deep-fried noodles, but they don’t use the seasoning, they put Kool-Aid on it. I’m not even joking. You could not invent a better diet to induce diabetes on this island. Everybody’s getting diabetes. One out of every two people over 35 will get diabetes. They’re not the richest island, so if you don’t have financial security, you really can’t get off the island, let’s say if you need dialysis, or something like that. Or to get your blood filtered when your kidneys shut down. That doesn’t occur, so it’s really frightening and a sad situation when someone does get diabetes, because you’ve essentially been given a death sentence. They’re going to die from diabetic complications.
So, we go over there, and I was interning at the time with a great dietician, Brenda Davis. [Ed. note: Read some of Brenda Davis's books on diet here.] What we did was put people on a low-fat vegan diet. We let them eat as much as they want, and completely reversed many people’s diabetes and lowered many blood sugars. The fact is, we went to a population that needed severe help and completely altered their diet, got better food in the stores, and got the population to come to our clinic. Once they started exercising and eating better, and doing the things you need for diabetes prevention, that’s what was working. Everybody was just so much happier after they started getting better.
VM: So, it’s reversible?
JG: I won’t say it’s reversible, I don’t want you to get the idea that everybody with diabetes will be reversed. I will say that eight or nine times out of ten that can definitely happen, but it depends on the aggressiveness of the lifestyle intervention and the dedication of the person, but we do know medications can be stopped. We took people off their medications and even off their insulin in the Marshall Islands. Even in some of our diabetes clinical studies here in D.C. It can be reversed. With research you can never make absolutes.
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So the message from PCRM? Eat your vegan greens! For more information on PCRM and their programs, visit http://www.pcrm.org/.
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