12 Steps to Whole Foods

Making Plant-Based Main Dishes
(SAD). Over 200 statistically significant correlations were discovered and published in The Oxford/Cornell
China Project. 1
Campbell’s largest study (examining eating habits of 6,500 humans for 30 years) documented that those who
eat 5% animal protein are leaner, more energetic, and have extremely low rates of all the modern diseases.
High rates of disease and being overweight were found in those eating a 20% animal protein diet, which
parallels the typical American diet. Campbell’s animal studies are even more compelling, since the researchers
could switch the 5% and 20% milk-protein diets and watch cancerous tumors grow or shrink and rats and mice
gain or lose weight, all dependent on the easily isolated, single factor of quantity of animal protein
consumption.
Anyone eating meat every day ought to take note of its implications and move toward a diet that follows the
China Study’s findings that have been duplicated consistently by other researchers all over the world: clearly,
5% or less animal protein is ideal for a longer, more healthful life. This corroborates ancient scripture from my
own faith, that meat is to be eaten “sparingly” and in times of “winter and famine.” Eating this ratio is both
easy to achieve and realistic, allowing for eating what is served at parties, restaurants, and Thanksgiving. For
an adult woman eating 1,600 calories per day, 5% animal protein equates to 80 calories, or 2 oz. of chicken.
This chapter endeavors to give you ideas to put hearty, substantive dishes on the dinner table that feature plant
food: primarily vegetables, grains, and legumes. I have found in teaching people about nutrition that many
people are very interested in eating more plant food and less meat and dairy—and they usually even know why
they should—but they simply don’t know what to make. Most people were raised with beef, poultry, or fish on
the plate every night for dinner.
Eating dinners using the main dishes in this chapter, plus a salad, will not take excessive time in the kitchen and
will leave you feeling satisfied but light. You will spend less money making these main dishes than other
dishes that require beef, poultry, or fish. All of my recipes in this chapter are quick to make, with reasonably
short ingredient lists. Best of all, these meals will not tax your body’s enzyme-producing organs or organs of
digestion and elimination. Further, forgoing standard American dinner food for these flavorful dishes will lead
you to your ideal weight.
Will I Get Enough Protein and Calcium with Plant Foods?
I’m constantly asked, “How do you get enough protein?” on my family’s plant-based diet. This is usually
followed closely by “How do you get enough calcium?”
The proof may be in the pudding: When I was tested at age 40, I had a bone density in
the highest percentage category—comparable to a 20-year-old. My diet has consisted
of less than 5% animal protein my entire life. I have never drunk a glass of cow milk
in my life. And according to some blood typing, metabolic typing, and ethnic origin
theories, I’m a “protein type.” Remember, before you believe “typing” philosophies,
that these are new, fairly untested fads in nutrition propagated by a charismatic few.
Blood typing has been articulately and soundly debunked by Joel Fuhrman, M.D., in
Eat to Live. 2 )
158 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw