All Hail Crucifer!
Is this clickbait?
Like so many of us, I am prone to what has come to be known as “clickbait”. The Internet in general and some social media websites have become the greatest purveyors of this nonsense. Give it a catchy title and you are more likely to get some clicks. “Top ten embarrassing sports photos EVER!”. Our politics has descended into the absurd accusations almost National Enquirer style. I am already beginning to well up with regret for my title today although I guess the more people I can get to read this, the more feedback I will get, and the better chance I have of improving. I think that is called rationalization. Perhaps once my writing becomes more polished, I will “be better”. Before I coax you to read further, today’s post is not about pagan worship practices.
About three years ago I was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. There are so many co-conditions and predictors of my diagnosis including obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol. Coupled together it sounds akin to aging in America. In my case, I did have some problems with my shoulder and I always felt that the pain I was dealing with led to a more sedentary lifestyle, and things cascaded. In the preceding spring and summer, I was making periodic trips home to visit with my mother whose health was in steep decline after living a long and wonderful life. We were approaching her twilight. I had slowly and methodically gained weight over the years, accelerating when I was laying off the use of my shoulder which led to increased weight and load on my joints. The period was stressful and at a certain point, before my scheduled physical around Halloween, I found myself looking at some photos and it became obvious to me that my face was getting “fuller”. I began to experiment with a new way of eating. For me, almost everything I try to do is based on evidence. I love to read and believe the scientific method is the root of nearly all the improvements we’ve made as we build “heaven on earth”. I had read a book titled “How Not to Die” by Dr. Michael Greger. The link will take you to a wonderful website description of the book named AbeBooks. One day I plan to write about AbeBooks and its connection to my favorite of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin. While I realized the title was hyperbole, the book was structured in a way that I was very comfortable with. This was not a “fad” diet of eating all the bacon you want or consuming grapefruit until your mouth became a large canker sore.
The structure of the book was quite analytical (if you know me well that is AKA comfortable) and organized into a planned set of logical chapters. Specifically, there was a chapter reserved for the fifteen most likely illnesses that humans succumb to and an introduction to the possible linkages to our behavior that may be causative. That was followed by the study-based observations of the impacts of certain classes of foods as medicines or problems and how they might mitigate diseases and chronic conditions. Lots of peer-reviewed citings, etcetera. My sometimes morbid sense of humor enjoyed that one of the chapters was dedicated to the propensity to die due to doctor care which is known as iatrogenic causes. That happens to be #3, yikes. The following is in order of likelihood to die:
coronary heart disease
lung diseases (lung cancer, COPD & asthma)
iatrogenic causes (aka doctors)
brain diseases (stroke & Alzheimer’s)
digestive cancers (colorectal, pancreatic & esophageal)
infections (respiratory & blood)
diabetes
high blood pressure
liver disease (cirrhosis & cancer)
blood cancers (leukemia, lymphoma & myeloma)
kidney disease
breast cancer
suicide
prostate cancer
Parkinson’s disease
The focus of this post is not a book review, however. Rather the broad conclusions were focused on the merits of eating a plant-based diet. There is a companion phone application for managing what you try to eat on a given day. The diet does not have caloric limits but rather has all sorts of things that you focus on getting in your diet daily. While there are lots of basic guidelines, like the food pyramid that says eat fruits and vegetables, there was a greater level of detail than that in a few areas. Some foods are touted as so important that you try to eat them every day (not egg McMuffins). Special attention to both berries and cruciferous vegetables is singled out as important. While you also are guided to eat vegetables and fruits, the berries and crucifers are carved out as special.
I am sure that the treadmill and a return to regular tennis have also been a factor in the changes in my health. However, I attribute it mostly to a different approach to eating. I still have the application “The Daily Dozen” on my phone. I rarely use it now as I know what I am shooting for to eat each day. Yet another post in the future will undoubtedly be about making lists. I have not counted calories and do not even count carbohydrates the way almost every diabetic organizes their lives. Here is a photo that I took this morning of my breakfast. As you can see I am never hungry.
I simply have an array of things that I eat daily. I know, frankly, even without measuring that our bodies were built to eat these things and I will just enjoy the results if I stick with it. There is nothing I do not eat as there is a time and place for everything. The other day at my writing group one of the members brought Abdallah Candy caramel apples. To not enjoy such a rite of fall seems blasphemous. Wearing a CGM allows me to know whether it is okay to have a few more bites since I was playing tennis after the meeting anyhow. In that way, I will never be a “vegan” or a zealot which to me has political connotations that do not interest me. My shorthand when people ask whether a plant-based diet is being a vegan, I answer, no, I wear a belt and don’t eat Oreos.
So today I decided to write about the crucifers (see clever title). What the heck is a cruciferous vegetable and what does that mean? Cruciferous vegetables are the edible vegetables of the cabbage family. The name comes from the fact that their four-petaled flowers look like a crucifer or cross. So for those of you looking for something else to click because you are not a big fan of cabbage, you might be surprised. For those of you that remember high school biology, living things are classified by their kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus & species. Humans are formally homo sapiens so our genus is homo. Brassica is the genus for cruciferous vegetables. As crazy as it may sound, we share about 1% of our DNA with cauliflower. I find some humor in that and suppose I know people whose hair reminds me a bit of a cauliflower floret.
I sense that I better hurry up or all of you will be lost to this post forever. Here are some of the most common and popular cruciferous vegetables. While not comprehensive, this is a pretty good list:: arugula, beet greens, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, broccoli sprouts, cabbage ( red is better ), cauliflower (purple is better ), collard greens, daikon (radish), horseradish, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, rutabaga, Swiss chard, turnips, turnip greens, and watercress. If I haven’t lost you altogether by now, you may have noted my editorial comments about cabbage and cauliflower. While I may have been fascinated by reading it the first time, I have found that the “search for anti-oxidants” that gets reported on all the time is a bit much for me. It has reached its zenith recently with the idiotic focus to eat pulverized beets in a drink or a pill. Generally, if I hear such nonsense advertised, I realize I am listening to a show that likely appeals to pulverized beet powder consumers. It would seem that such obsessiveness will lead to an uptick in false diagnoses of rosacea or that wonderful scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Rather, if I am going to eat an onion, cabbage or cauliflower, or a berry, the darker the better. Nature makes it so easy, “even a caveman can do it” as Geico used to advise. Things that are dark in color are simply better for you, it is that simple (Coca-Cola excluded). If you conclude something is good for you, eating pulverized powder of the same is inane. One of my favorites rites of summer is fading. I love the St. Paul Farmer’s Market and that is where I get the most beautiful vegetable of the summer and fall.
Without any doubt, the hardest habit to develop over the last three years is to eat one of these crucifers and a couple of other things every day! Until recently, for many of these I had either never or rarely had them, didn’t like them, or would never bother buying them. While I did not skip them at dinner, the thought that I might eat them daily seemed unlikely. Luckily I have always liked vegetables so at least the barrier was not too high. I have always liked horseradish but doubt that I can eat it in sufficient quantities to have a health effect. Despite my everyday habits, I still have never tried some of them. What, exactly, is kohlrabi anyhow?
The truth is, any habit, is established with repetitions. I have gotten to the point that I committed to the plan, learned to make the stuff in different ways that I like and now it is part of my daily routine just like morning coffee. I believe that I have now been conditioned and I have a reinforcing set of facts to prove it. The changes were amazingly effective. I started the changes a couple of months before my regular checkup. My doctor was impressed because I had begun losing weight and things were going in the right direction. It was during that checkup that I was unfortunately diagnosed as a Type-2 diabetic. I have continued my commitment to the diet I was already on. It is not exactly what the Standard of Care (SOC) diet might recommend but my doctor has worked with me. She advises that they do not recommend my diet to patients because people do not stick with it. I have lost 50+ pounds and feel great. My cholesterol level has dropped from about 160 to about 75 these days. The note I have on my refrigerator says “nothing tastes as good as feeling great”. The secondary effects of my diet extend past the diabetic thing. The secondary positive effects on blood pressure and cholesterol have bordered on amazing. I have been at this for about three years and counting. For me, one of the greatest benefits is I can eat grapefruits whenever I want as I don’t take a statin anymore. Hooray! I wish that I had come to more awareness about my actions, inactions, and their consequences. I hope that I can apply these lessons to other things for the rest of my life. Alas, much of the inspiration for my approach must be shared with our wonderful dog Denny.
Many years ago, our dog Denny, a cocoa-colored cocker spaniel was seriously overweight. It had been a particularly cold winter and the walks weren’t happening and too many table scraps were going his way with still a largely full family in the house. My wife “encouraged” me to take him to the vet. We knew they would have him hop on the scale and the mild scolding from the veterinarian would commence. Sure enough, Denny has a target weight of around 25 pounds and had reached 37 pounds. I am sure that a sensationalized version of America’s Biggest Loser would term him morbidly obese. Being serious, I remember the veterinarian showed me a chart with 9-10 dog shapes, each one becoming the tell-tale sign of where your dog was on the spectrum. The focus was being able to define the legs and tapering of the body at the front and rear. The bottom line was Denny had some work to do.
Our veterinarian for Denny is a wonderful woman. She brought experience from a rural area before practicing in our suburb. She was straightforward and told me there was no reason for a dog to eat dog treats and definitely rein in the table scraps. Just like humans, she mixed in some admonitions about exercise. It sounded shockingly close to what my doctor talked about six years later. The funny guidance from the veterinarian was to substitute raw vegetables for dog treats exclusively.
We were sure this would not work. However, we started with carrots which had a satisfying crunch and he seemed to love them. In the beginning, we used carrots in place of any sort of treats. Fast forward many years and now our dog will eat EVERY CONCEIVABLE vegetable including such things as roasted brussels sprout. He is most famous in the family for his incessant begging when a cucumber is offered. In a couple of unscientific tests during a summertime BBQ, I held chicken on the grill in one hand and cucumbers in the other. He rushed over, looked at both hands, and ate the cucumbers first! Few other things excite our now 16-year-old cocker spaniel than that time when I make a salad with everything conceivable in it. Almost everything he is game for, although, just like humans, kale is an acquired taste. Denny rapidly lost his weight and has maintained a svelte 22-24 pounds every since. One of these days when I am unsure what to write about I will fall back on Denny eating an ear of corn. He likes sweet corn “bigger than life” and we don’t need salt or butter to motivate him or me.
I make sure, whenever I make a big salad (I always include some crucifers) to share with him. He LOVES cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprout. Often, while he is crunching, I explain the health benefits but he does not seem to be listening. Friends, who are not big fans of one vegetable or another are often amazed by the food habits of Denny.
Well, I hope this was not too preachy and managed to keep it light. One post-script to all of this is that there is no need to brush my dogs’ teeth which I think borders on the ridiculous anyhow. Denny has pearly whites at his advanced age and has been trailblazing our family toward plant-based eating for half of his life.
Well here is the song about good eating and anti-oxidants which is also a tribute to some of the best creative music compliments of Minnesota. It is a bit of a stretch but I just like music so consider this the author’s prerogative. I hope that I have not driven any of you away while becoming preachy. That was not my intent. Enjoy a cheeseburger if that is what you want, just eat the tomato and ask for spinach instead of generic tasteless lettuce, and for God’s sake substitute that darn government cheese for something that actually originated with a cow or a goat. If you are a carb-counter, just try heirloom lettuce instead of the bun. Thanks to Ronald Reagan, ketchup counts as a vegetable nowadays. Progress.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read, and hope you come back.