Robyn's Blog

The late LDS (Mormon) prophet Gordon B. Hinckley was kinder than I was in my statement yesterday that LDS people are mostly “grossly negligent” in their observance of Word of Wisdom scripture.  He said this: “I regret that we as a people do not live [the Word of Wisdom] more fully.” 

The late LDS prophet Ezra Taft Benson said, “To a significant degree, we are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth, and lacking the energy that could be ours . . . We need a generation of young people who, as Daniel, eat in a more healthy manner than to fare on the ‘kings meat’—and whose countenances show it.”

In the Bible, Daniel and his men refused to eat the rich diet of the king (meat and wine), and instead drank water and ate “pulse”—fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds.  At the end of 10 days, everyone witnessed that Daniel’s group looked better and were stronger, and had more wisdom and understanding. 

We have a great promise in the Word of Wisdom if we follow its simple counsel (that only a small fraction of LDS people actually follow completely).  The promise is that “all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings . . . shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.  And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them.  Amen.”

Those are great promises!  They are the same promises made by courageous and outspoken medical doctors like Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish, John McDougall, Joel Fuhrman, Mehmet Oz, William Castelli, and Caldwell Esselstyn, to those who commit to a whole-foods, animal-protein minimized diet.  These are the same promises that you find in hundreds of studies authored by the greatest researchers of our time, including the Oxford/Cornell team led by T. Colin Campbell, PhD.  But in the case of the Word of Wisdom, God is the maker of the promises.

The LDS (Mormon) scripture known as the “Word of Wisdom” was delivered to Joseph Smith in 1833, at a time when virtually all men were smokers and drinkers, and no one knew those were bad habits.  The scripture says it is for the “weak and the weakest of all saints,” and it requires things of believers that few LDS people observe.  Most do avoid “wine or strong drink,” which we are told “is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father.”

Mormons are also good about avoiding tobacco, which is “not for the body, neither for the belly . . . not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill.” We’re told “all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man—every herb in the season therof, and every fruit in the season therof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.”

Nowhere does it say to adulterate those foods to eliminate their fiber and make them acidic, full of chemicals and dyes, and toxic to people and animals.   And most of my own people, modern Mormons, are grossly negligent with regard to the following counsel.  They often rationalize this scripture away by saying that now that we have refrigeration, counsel about eating meat sparingly doesn’t apply: 

“Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.”

 This scriptural injunction is essentially identical to what science has taught us almost 200 years later.  The huge, published body of work now known as the Oxford/Cornell China Project is a 30-year study following 6,500 people.  It documents with 8,000 statistically significant correlations that a diet containing only 5 percent animal protein prevents disease, whereas a 20 percent animal protein diet aggressively promotes disease.

Plenty of scriptural support for the use of grains is found throughout the canon of Christian scripture.  The idea of soaking and sprouting grain and drying it into bread comes from an apocryphal book of scripture known as The Essene Gospel of Peace that some say is the teachings of Jesus to a congregation of Essenes.  The LDS “Word of Wisdom” states, “All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth.” 

A rising gluten intolerance problem in this generation is likely the sad byproduct of genetically modified grains and not evidence that grains are not nutritious foods for humans.

Words of modern prophets confirm what I said yesterday, that God put plant foods on the planet to but nourish us and prevent disease.  Ezra Taft Benson was not only the leader of the 8-million strong LDS (Mormon) Church in the 1980s, but he was also a former head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. My grandmother told me when I was very young that he said that any time we alter our food source, we do it to our detriment. 

As an adult, I tracked this precise Benson quote down from a Brigham Young University devotional:  “In general, the more food we eat in its natural state and the less it is refined without additives, the healthier it will be for us.”  I watched my grandmother put this promise to the test, curing herself completely and permanently of third-stage cancer with an all-raw plant diet, in the 1970s when everyone around her, family included, thought she was crazy. 

I imagine Ezra Taft Benson would be appalled by the genetic modification, chemical fertilization and pesticide program advancement, and continuing refinement of the wholesome grains and plant foods he safeguarded in his career.

After all, as God created the world, in Genesis 1:29, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon all the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

The Biblical prophet Ezekiel, as documented in Ezekiel 4:9, once lived on a combination of 4 grains and 4 legumes for over a year—with robust health.  Some companies now sell Ezekiel Bread or grain mix based on this formula of excellent proteins, complex carbohydrates, and fats.  Every nutritional component needed by humans, except sunlight, is contained in that combination of grains and legumes.

I have noticed that many readers of my site are Christian, some of them born-again, some LDS (Mormon), others different denominations.  Many are devout followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles.  Scripture contains abundant references to the benefits of eating the plants God put on the earth for our benefit and healing.  We can add the canonized word of God to the massive and growing body of scientific evidence that a plant-based diet prevents disease and provides an abundant life in harmony with eternal law.

This blog report (to be eventually posted on the GreenSmoothieGirl.com site) mentions a number of scriptures corroborating this, including Biblical references.  Some of the scriptures are from the canon of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, additional to the Bible.  These books are known as the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.  Even if you aren’t LDS (Mormon), you may find these ancient texts interesting.  They were wise way before their scientific time had arrived!  Science has now proven the truthfulness of the counsel in ancient texts.

In Alma 46:40, the prophet Alma records, about 72 B.C., this interesting note: “And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land—but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases . . .”  Long before Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline came along, clearly God put whole plant foods on this planet not just to nourish us, but to prevent disease and cure illness!

More tomorrow . . .

Anyone think teenagers won’t drink green smoothie?  This is my son (on the left) who was shorter than me at the beginning of this year and, I noticed tonight, is now taller than me when I’m in heels.  (Who says kids fed a plant-based diet are scrawny?)  He brought his two friends over while I was making green smoothie today and asked me for some, for his friends to try.  Cool, right?

We visited a coastal area of China where the average age is 79 years old!  People very routinely live to be over 100 and the area has become known as the “longevity region.”  I asked the tour guide what they eat, and he said, local vegetables and fruit, and seafood.  I saw not one overweight person.  (I felt like I was visiting the China Study!)

Everywhere we went in Asia, the people eat YOUNG COCONUTS, like I advocate for in 12 Steps and recipes.  Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam.  They are plentiful and inexpensive, sold in snack stands at every tourist spot.  Purveyors just whack the top off with a machete (see photo below) and pour the liquid into a container to drink.  Or they’d just poke a hole and stick a straw in for you.  What incredible nutrition. 

Unfortunately, Coca Cola is also everywhere on the globe as you’ll see in the photo, competing with natural snacks like electrolyte-rich coconut liquid.  The sons of the ladies serving the coconut liquid were running around underfoot drinking not coconut liquid, but Cokes!  They were only 7 or 8 years old, but their teeth were black and rotted.  (After I saw them, I wish I’d taken a photo.  I taught them some Americanisms, though, like how to say, “Get OUT!” from Seinfeld and do “knuckles”).  I’m sure these people think, Coca Cola is from America, so it must be good, because Americans are rich and happy!  (Their exposure is limited to the mass media of glamorous celebrities, and tourists with pockets full of cash.)

What a terrible thinking error THAT is!

On the cruise, of 841 guests, fewer than 5 percent were Americans.  The vast majority were Europeans and Aussies, more than 50 percent of the ship from England.  (I know, I know—you’re mocking me for how much I love weird statistics, I get it.)

My friend Shari and I were each told once that we lack “diplomacy” by a Brit—because we were so hyper and excited to be there.  Okay okay, fine, it’s because we are loud Americans! We got off in 8 port cities to tour, and people paid about $100 USD for each tour.  I was astonished, repeatedly, that the Europeans with us routinely STAYED ON THE TOUR BUS at really cool sites, like Fort Santiago in Manila, full of scary dungeons and a real-life moat, where the national hero Jose Rizal took his last, incarcerated steps before being shot by a firing squad.

Why would these folks—literally a majority of the bus—not even get off the bus at many of the sites?  Wait for it.  It’s certainly not because the tour guides were bad, because they were great! At Marble Mountain in Da Nang, Vietnam, everyone got out to buy marble statuettes in the store where incredible artisans make gorgeous things from the marble mined there.  But they got back on the bus, or dropped out after the first flight of stairs, when we climbed 156 really steep steps of the mountain to an incredible Buddhist temple.  The tour guide at the top asked if we wanted to do more climbing to see even more cool stuff, and the three of us jumped at the chance.  An unbelievable view, and this temple in a deep cave where American bombs had opened a skylight as people huddled down there during the war.

Of a full busload, those who went on could be counted on two hands.  (The ones I cheerleaded on, saying, “You can do it!!” were up there with us, and I felt bad when it came time to go back DOWN the stairs—British Maureen, in her 60’s, was such a trouper.  My friend Shari and I let her lean on both our shoulders to get down, least we could do since I was the leader of the pep squad who conned her up the stairs!) So here’s the kicker.  The vast majority of these people who paid a mint for an amazing vacation and the MISSED IT were unable to walk short distances because of . . . a lifetime of poor lifestyle choices.  I would estimate that more than 85 percent of the folks on the ship (most of them retired) were overweight, many of them obese.

On display daily were plates full of bacon and eggs for breakfast, fish and chips for dinner, lots of coffee and booze, too much toffee pudding, lots of cigarette smoking—and raw vegetables and fruits too rarely. I feel bad for them.  They missed some cool stuff!  My tennis-pro friend Shari and my daughter Libby and I pumped up those stairs and would’ve wanted more except for the 90 percent humidity (Vietnam is the hottest place I’ve ever been in my life).

Taking 12 steps towards a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle isn’t necessarily so you can live forever. (Everybody will die sometime, yada yada, heard it a million times.)  It’s so that whatever years you DO live are great ones, full of vitality, learning, and positive energy.  In our case on this trip, finding cool buys in open-air markets, stomping through a rain forest, snorkeling in the South China Sea, boating through a mangrove looking for monkeys and crocs.  There’s so much to life, and it doesn’t have to end because of obesity, heart disease, and the other maladies currently destroying life for so many close to us.  If you’re in that boat, you can get out!  Degenerative disease CAN be reversed.  What I teach in my book and on this site is HOW.

This one hilarious lady named Jean in her 70s, was dancing, crawling around, jumping up and down, and staying up till 2 a.m.—she was thin, fit, and a total RIOT—everyone on the ship loved her.  I want to go out like a light bulb, like Jean, not a dimmer switch like the folks on the tour bus! Go make a big quart of green smoothie for yourself, and put a quart in the fridge for tomorrow, while you’re feeling motivated! 

You can enjoy eating on a cruise without gaining 10 lbs.  Don’t think I’m on my high horse here, because if I told you I didn’t indulge on the cruise, I’d be lying.  If I said I didn’t eat gelato for dessert occasionally (it was an Italian cruise line), you’d write me off as some kind of nut, and I promise I’m not.  But I gained a couple of pounds, rather than 10, and it’s half gone now with some seriously healthy “green” eating in the four days I’ve been back.

On the cruise, think of what you really enjoy eating that is GOOD for you but is kind of a treat, something you don’t often get at home.  Then ask for it. For instance, I love sauteed spinach and fresh garlic, with barely any olive oil, but I rarely make it.  I asked for it repeatedly at dinner when every other person at my table ordered a steak or lamb chops.  (It sounded SO good to me, probably because I’d been so long without my GS!)  Sometimes the staff indulged me, sometimes not.  When risotto was on the menu, I asked them to toss it with lots of steamed veggies instead of the seafood or chicken.  Think creatively when you order.  I confess I never ate any meat except for lobster night . . . and then it didn’t taste good to me with all the butter and bread crumbs, so I ate only a few bites.  I asked for the salad first, since Europeans seem to like it last on the menu.

By the way, Americans don’t have the worst diet—the British and Australians do!  Americans were only 5 percent of the cruise passengers, so we spent lots of time with Europeans and Aussies, and their diet, OY!   

You can always get a big bowl of fabulous fresh pineapple, mango, dragon fruit, kiwi, and beautiful exotic things in cruises anywhere near tropical places.  It’s a treat just to have it already cut up for you.  My daughter ate about a whole pineapple every day we were there because she asked for it three times a day.  I can’t believe she never got canker sores.

You can try different raw vegetables than the ones you eat at home.  When we got back from shore excursions, we were HUNGRY.  We went to the buffet and ate lots of raw, sliced fennel root and red curly kale in salads topped with no dressing except the three-bean salad, and a big bowl of fruit.  In Vietnam, they serve lovely salads made of the roots of the lotus flowers that float on the water.  This weekend I’m going to try to make a bunch of Vietnamese vegetarian fare (a cuisine I knew little about).  If anything’s really good, I’ll share it here. 

You can also let the restaurants and maitre d’ on the ship know you’re a vegetarian.  Even if you’re NOT technically a vegetarian, you’ll get wonderful food—variety, color, texture, flavor—asking for plant-based dishes.  I have never had more amazing food than I did in Vietnamese restaurants, where every dish was served with a pile of fresh mint, cilantro, and basil leaves.  I wrapped them in everything (wrapped a big lettuce leaf and lots of those herbs around spring rolls, for instance).  They make food so flavorful and unique—and different than what I eat at home!

Everyone at my table ignored the piles of mint and basil on their plates and just ate the other food.  The people sitting next to me at one restaurant were served a young Thai coconut, doused in some kind of alcohol and lit on fire, filled with some kind of beef thing.  They all ate the beef and didn’t touch the coconut until I told them how to get the coconut out, and how good it is for you!  I couldn’t help but think, as waiters would take away their plates, that in the U.S., that much basil and mint would cost $20!  In Hindu parts of town, throughout Asia, restaurants are mostly vegetarian.

Hello friends—I am back from touring 8 countries in the Far East.  Getting trapped by the landslides that had downtown Hong Kong under water the day we left was pretty exhausting.  Fortunately, they held the flight (and 150 others) for a few hours due to the fact that lots of the crew and passengers were missing.  Had we not been delayed almost an hour due to bureaucratic red tape getting off our ship, we probably would have been in one of the taxis floating down the harbor.

Instead, thanks to a lot of good karma, we were just in a taxi sitting on the freeway for almost 3 hours (a futile taxi ride that eventually dumped us in the subway and cost $650 Hong Kong Ding Dongs, which is what I called their money after giving up on keeping track of all the currencies we used).  We miraculously got home to Utah right on time.

I have to confess that thinking and studying about how to achieve ideal nutrition for my family and yours seemed indulgent and petty in the face of what I saw.  Whole families in the Phillipines living on top of flattened cardboard boxes in the median of the road.  Others living in corrugated metal shacks.  Very young boys out in the ocean next to our ship on dilapidated boats fishing, just for their families to be able to eat.  The Sultan of Brunei living in obscene opulence while his people go without.  A young couple who chased our bus for 2 hours hoping to sell us a t-shirt, just because I smiled at them as they sped along next to us holding up the shirts and signaling the price.

And what broke my heart in two pieces: crippled and blind people begging in the streets in Vietnam.  They told us not to hand out money or we’d get mobbed, but HOW CAN YOU NOT?  I cried every time I saw one of them.  Where is the fairness in the world that some of us get to overindulge on 8-course meals on a cruise ship, while others are in a third-world country, without arms and legs, begging for spare change?

I came home with renewed commitment to do more with my energy and financial means to help people in these circumstances.  Tomorrow about how to live low on the food chain, even on a cruise ship.  Consuming fewer resources helps everyone.

Recently, the biggest government entity, the Department of Health and Human Services (governing the FDA and CDC) finally settled one of many claims by families whose children have been damaged by vaccines.  This came after years of dodging and denying that Thimerosal (containing mercury) may cause autism.

 This is some of the evidence documenting a connection between mercury and autism:  1. Published studies from the U.S. and France showing that urinary porphyrins, a biomarker for mercury, are elevated in autistic patients. 2. A published Harvard study that found twice as much mercury and oxidative stress in the brains of autistics as in normal brains. 3. A U.S. study showing that increasing blood mercury levels are linked to increased risk of autism diagnosis. 4. Many published papers by independent researchers showing links between mercury exposure from vaccines and autism diagnosis. 5. Several papers showing that even low levels of Thimerosal in eye, brain, blood, immune, liver and/or muscle cells poison cellular mitochondrial pathways and causes cell death.  In 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Government Reform Committee concluded a 3.5-year investigation, linking Thimerosal to our autism epidemic.  The committee said the FDA and health authorities were guilty of “institutional malfeasance” in covering it up. 

Flu vaccines containing Thimerosal are banned in Europe and limited in 7 U.S. states.  Most of the U.S. is still administering these vaccines to pregnant women and infants, and I have found ascertaining whether Thimerosal is in any specific vaccine to be difficult at best.  My pediatrician did not know.  Be careful and wise in your decisions about vaccines.