Despite the power and money the animal food industries wield, a plant-only diet is steadily gaining traction. More and more people are discovering its numerous health benefits. One of the nation’s largest health insurance plans, the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, produced a very useful document called “Nutritional Update for Physicians: Plant-Based Diets.”’ It appeared in a peer-reviewed journal with scientific references to back everything up. The paper summarized research on plant-only diets.
Citing detailed, published, solid research, the Kaiser Permanente review focused on five proven benefits of plant-only diets:
The Kaiser Permanente update is packed with numerous cites from scientific literature underscoring the health benefits of plant-only diets. Imagine if a drug company developed a pill to make you lose excess weight, no longer require medications, and dramatically decrease your risk of cancer and heart disease. That drug company would make a fortune because everyone would want that pill! But you can get all those benefits and more by eating the Clear Skin Diet.
What should you do if someone you care about warns you that your new plant-only diet may be unhealthy? We’ve gathered questions we have heard in one form or another, basically our whole lives, with answers for your curious friends and family members. Sometimes, you may get more antagonistic questions about the other person’s discomfort with your new diet than interest in your health. In those cases, it might be best to answer by saying, “You may be right, I’m not sure. But the diet seems to work well for me now so I will keep it.” It’s hard to argue with an answer like that, and it usually ends the interrogation. But if you want to arm yourself with facts, here are some common questions and answers:
Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that helps keep the body’s nerve and blood cells healthy and helps make DNA, the genetic material in all cells. Vitamin B12 also helps prevent a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia, which makes people tired and weak. People going on a 100 percent plant-based diet over the long term will want to supplement vitamin B12 at some point. Vitamin B12 is found in plentiful natural supplies, such as in dirt. When animals eat plants, they eat a small amount of dirt on the plant and absorb some B12. It is enough for their small requirements. If you eat that animal, you can absorb some of that B12 stored in the animal’s tissue. This is why you get the small amount of the B12 your body requires.
Modern food farming and preparation emphasizes thoroughly cleaning and washing the fruit and vegetables we eat. There is very little dirt on the plant foods you buy at the supermarket. There will be very little, if any, B12 on them. This is why people who eat a plant-based diet need to take B12.
B12 is Stored in your liver, and most people will have an adequate supply for two to five years from when they stop eating animal products to when they may require supplementation. We encourage people to follow Dr. McDougall’s guidelines and take a vitamin B12 supplement. We recommend you wait to start that B12 until after your acne has cleared or up to two years. Research suggests a small percentage of people may be susceptible to acne outbreaks triggered by high doses of B12, like the dose levels found in commercial B12 supplements. This is why you should not begin B12 supplementation right away.
We guarantee you’ll get this question at least once a day. The good news is you will get plenty of protein on the Clear Skin Diet. Most Americans are getting way too much protein. Most people associate the benefits of lots of protein with words like muscle, vitality, strength, power, energy, aggressiveness, and liveliness. More accurate words would be bone loss, osteoporosis, kidney damage, kidney stones, arthritis, cancer promotion, low energy, and overall poor health. These are all consequences of overloading protein in your diet. Some protein is good, but more is not better. Excess protein is a hazard to your health, just like excess cholesterol or fat. Excess protein is a known problem reported by scientists for more than a century.
People have little awareness of protein overload, however. Any more than 10 percent of calories from protein is likely excessive and can promote the chronic diseases mentioned above, especially when the protein is from an animal source. Excess protein cannot be stored, unlike fat or carbohydrates, which your body can store if you overconsume. Due to its acidic nature, protein has to be buffered to prevent your body’s pH level from becoming too acidic. To do that, the body leeches calcium from your bones and neutralizes the acid load. Over time, leeching calcium to neutralize excess acidic protein load can promote several problems, such as osteoporosis (thinning of the bones).
How often have you heard of someone being hospitalized for protein deficiency? Never. If you’re eating enough calories, you will get an adequate amount of protein. Protein deficiency is only recorded in the scientific literature when someone is starving to death. In that case, the problem is not protein deficiency but overall calorie deficiency.
Top medical doctors agree that the naturally occurring amount of protein in a healthy plant-based diet is more than adequate. You will get the optimal amount of protein by following the Clear Skin Diet. Avoid the health challenges brought on by excess animal protein intake.
The other half of that question typically includes, “Don’t you need milk (from a cow) for calcium?” Here’s your answer. A varied plant-only diet offers some of the best calcium sources available. Best yet, you can escape the damaging health effects of dairy products on your skin.
Good plant sources of calcium include green leafy vegetables, oranges, kidney beans, lima beans, whole grains, lentils, raisins, broccoli, kale, celery, and romaine lettuce, all acne-fighting foods. Many people mistakenly believe they must ingest high calcium levels to stave off osteoporosis. We’ve been brainwashed from a young age to believe this, thanks to propaganda from the dairy industry. No calcium deficiency causes or contributes to osteoporosis. Studies show that countries with the highest rate of dairy intake, like the United States, New Zealand, Britain, and Sweden, also have the highest incidence of osteoporosis. People in these countries have high levels of the disease because of their excessive consumption of animal protein. This type of protein leaches calcium from their bones. It’s not a lack of calcium consumption causing problems. It is excessive protein, coupled with a lack of exercise, that’s causing osteoporosis. In other words, milk is harmful, not beneficial.
The research is quite conclusive surrounding calcium and dairy intake. Countries with very low dairy consumption, like China, have almost no cases of osteoporosis. Even the dairy industry-funded research shows that dairy doesn’t fight osteoporosis. One study funded by the National Dairy Council looked at the effects of fluid milk on postmenopausal women. The study showed participants who received extra milk (three eight-ounce glasses of skimmed milk daily) for a year lost more bone than those who didn’t drink the extra milk. The protein content of the milk supplement may hurt calcium balance, possibly through an increase in kidney loss of calcium.
The dairy industry knows milk does not build strong bones but harms bones. Avoiding animal protein is the best thing you can do for your bones. Strong bones mean strong skin.
This one kind of cracks us up. The simple answer is no. We are lifelong athletes who fuel our activities with carbs. We’ve never had weight issues. When someone says something like this to you, remember they are caring, curious, or both.
The fact is not all carbs are equal. Sugar is a carb, and so are carrots and apples. Sugar mixed with fat can promote weight gain because sugar raises insulin to help drive the fat into your fat cells. But carbs have gotten an undeserved negative rap in the press. Whole food carbs like starches are not fattening foods because the body has to work hard to convert complex carbohydrates into fat. Sugar alone doesn’t necessarily contribute much fat, either. Scientists agree that starch and sugar are not easily converted into fat, and their conclusions are solidly backed up in the scientific literature.
Carbohydrates consumed more than needed are usually burned off as heat or used in physical movements beyond exercise (called fidgeting movements). Humans are inefficient at turning carbohydrates into fat, a process known as de novo lipogenesis. Humans expend 30 percent of the excess carbohydrate calories just in converting them to fat, which is a wasteful process.’
There is a body of research testing de novo lipogenesis in humans. In these studies, researchers gave large amounts of excess sugars to subjects. Then, they document that the subjects only gained a small amount of fat, rather than what might be the expectation from the excess sugar calories.
In one study, for example, women receive 50 percent more calories than they usually eat daily. This includes another 3.5 ounces (or almost 400 calories) of refined sugar. After thirty days of eating all these extra calories plus nearly 12,000 extra calories of sugar every day, the women had only gained one extra pound of body fat (which represents 3,500 calories). This can help explain why people who eat diets high in carbohydrates like rice—in Asia, for example—tend to be thinner than Americans and Europeans, who consume diets high in animal products and tend to be overweight or obese.
The Clear Skin Diet will not make you gain weight. The Clear Skin Diet will help you maintain or achieve your optimal weight.
Here’s the deal. A whole food starch-based diet provides all your nutrient and fat requirements in the ideal amounts and in the ideal packaging. Fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods have everything you need.
Your body can synthesize nearly all organic compounds required to build and maintain itself. There are a handful of elements it can’t synthesize and that need to come from food. Eleven vitamins, eight amino acids, and two kinds of fat must come from food. All of these essential nutrients from plants are abundant in the Clear Skin Diet (the only exceptions are vitamin D, which comes from sun exposure, and B12, which comes from bacteria). Plants make omega-3 and omega-6 fats, which you can easily get by eating animals. This is because animals eat plants.
Essential fats play an important role in our bodies to make cells and hormones. Our requirement for essential fats is tiny, and even the most basic natural diets supply sufficient linoleic acid to meet our requirements. This is why, in practical terms, essential fatty acid deficiency does not happen in populations eating fruits and vegetables and is of zero concern when eating a healthy, low-fat, plant-based diet. Other than B12, no supplements are necessary for the Clear Skin Diet. Some physicians recommend zinc for acne sufferers, but that’s optional.
If you usually eat pastries, cookies, burgers, and cheesy pizzas, then eating a healthy diet instead may, at first, seem slightly less thrilling. Drive-through food—oily, salty, sugary, high calorie—is a much bigger dopamine brain charge than healthy food. Suppose your eating style before the Clear Skin Diet has been high-calorie, super-stimulating, unhealthy foods. In that case, you may find that it takes a slightly longer period of time before your palate changes and healthy food starts tasting as delicious as it is.
Eating a simple, healthy, starch-based diet can be a joyful experience. Over the first weeks, your taste buds will begin to adjust, and you will discover how food tastes when there is not a covering in questionable oil. Oily, goopy sauces hide the true flavor of many dishes. When you remove butter, margarine, or sour cream, foods taste better and more real. Each plant has a unique taste; your palate will appreciate and want those special flavors.
More and more athletes—professional and amateur—are adopting plant-only diets, and in the process, they not only get healthier but deliver some of their best athletic performances. Ultramarathon runner Scott Jurek, MMA champion Mac Danzig, Olympic athlete Meryeta O’Dine (snowboarder), NFL Linebacker David Carter (aka ‘”The 300 Pound Vegan”), power-lifter Alison Crowdus, Portland Trail Blazers Damian Lillard, Denver Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler, Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton, tennis champion Venus Williams, bodybuilder Jehina Malik, professional surfer Tia Blanco—these are just a few of the scores of plant-powered professional athletes who dominate their sports, and the list is growing daily.
If you’re an athlete, adopting the Clear Skin Diet could make your own athletic performance improve markedly.
The Clear Skin Diet is based on actual, solid, peer-reviewed, and published research and is used by many top physicians and dietitians in clinical settings. It’s the same consumption on the diet pattern for many generations by the longest-lived, healthiest cultures. If you want to heal your acne, then the starches and veggies are what you need. You do not need a super fruit-heavy diet, which can be inconvenient, hard to maintain, less satiating, and problematic long-term for your health. If your genetics will not let you, you may not resolve acne in a few weeks. This diet should work for most people.
