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GROOVIN’ WITH A GARDEN BURGER

It’s getting to be more and more the cool thing to do. You go to Marie Callendar’s for lunch, and order the Garden Burger. Same thing at Appleby’s, which is now right across the street from our office. Also just a block away, a lot of our employees hike over to Costco, where you can buy meatless Corn Dogs, meatless chicken, meatless hot dogs, meatless turkey, meatless just about everything.

We’re right in the middle of an exciting series entitled A FREE EXTRA DECADE OF LIFE. A new book by Word Publishing gives us this promise in its title — Live 10 Healthy Years Longer — and we’re finding that these twenty chapters really deliver on that promise. Authors Jan Kuzma and Cecil Murphey, working with the data resulting from decades of scientific research, are telling us about the L.L.L. — the “Live-Longer Lifestyle.” Depending on how healthy a lifestyle you adopt as your own, you can actually add, according to the actuarial tables, a whopping 13 years to your life expectancy.

Well, that’s an incredible thing, and in our Wednesday segment, we shared with you what Jan and Cecil have found out about eating habits from the 27,000-plus people in the control group. But now here in chapter four, they unveil for us 11 secrets regarding the actual kinds of food: the diet. And the very first secret out of the eleven maybe brings back a mental image of hippies driving a beat-up VW bus with a flower power peace sign painted on the side and a “No Nukes!” Ralph Nader bumper sticker on the back. Because here’s the first secret: THEY — the men and women in the study — EAT A PLANT-BASED DIET. In other words, they’re essentially vegetarian.

And right away, a good many people looking in through the knothole in the fence say, “Well, that’s it. A vegetarian? No way am I going to be a vegetarian. I’m not a leftover hippie, going around on a sun-powered moped with my love beads saying ‘Far out’ and ‘Groovy’ and making steak sandwiches out of lentils and tofu. Forget it. I’m with that guy in the TV commercial who has a big juicy hamburger, a fries, and Coke, and says to the world: ‘Don’t bother me; I’m eating.’”

Well, friend, I understand exactly where you’re coming from. To a person who isn’t a vegetarian, becoming one sounds like the most impossible — and maybe stupid — thing in the world. It conjures up all the wrong images . . . plus it sounds like such a radical, inhuman departure: almost to another planet.

But let me say a few things about all that. And really, Jan Kuzma and Cecil Murphey make the point better than I could. First thing is this: You don’t have to segue immediately into total, 100% beatnik vegetarianism, with the peace signs and the hippie commune. You don’t have to move to Haight-Ashbury. But is it possible that you could consider just edging in the right direction? Remember, the Live-Longer Lifestyle can give you up to 13 additional years of life; every step you take which even heads over there is a step in a good direction.

The authors of this new book put it this way:

“This is the single, major dietary secret of those who follow the Live-Longer Lifestyle: They are vegetarians. That fact, above everything else, accounts for their better health.”

But then they also point out that the choice is up to you regarding how fully you want to embrace this objective, how completely you want to experience the benefits of the Live-Longer Lifestyle. Again, let’s emphasize that a vegetarian eating pattern is the #1 factor out of the eleven.

Speaking of broken-down psychedelic vans and love-in communes, Cecil and Jan go on to share some fascinating statistics about today’s vegetarians. Would you have guessed that they are: better educated than the average American citizen? (Keep in mind that upscale lunch crowd at Marie Callendar’s, all ordering garden burgers and imported bottled water.) They exercise more. Fewer of them are overweight. Fewer of them have colds or get the flu. And this is very important: “They pay attention to the way they eat.” People in the Live-Longer Lifestyle don’t feel deprived; they don’t go around sighing about how they’ve had to “give up” meat. They eat well. They savor their food. Many of them are gourmet cooks. It’s a lifestyle they generally embrace with zest . . . and remember, they get to embrace it for up to 13 extra years.

There’s so much in this Chapter Four, entitled “Eating Secrets,” which we don’t have time to share today — all the more reason to call or write so that we can mail you a copy of this amazing book, Live 10 Healthy Years Longer. But Jan and Cecil do go down the line and answer virtually every objection you might think of regarding a vegetarian diet. Do you actually need meat to get your necessary vitamins? No . . . and they tell you why. How about getting enough protein without meat? Millions of Americans achieve that goal easily each year on a completely vegetarian diet. And in terms of pure health, we’re told that “the highest occurrences of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes occur in the nations that consume the most meat.”

Well, there’s so much eye-opening material just on the vegetarian diet, but I would like to share with you a few more of these eleven secrets. Here’s #2: THEY — people in this Live-Longer Lifestyle — HAVE REDUCED OR ELIMINATED THEIR CONSUMPTION OF DAIRY PRODUCTS. Let me say again: you don’t have to go whole-hog here (no pun intended.) But in America, where we consume 75 billion pounds of dairy products every year, there’s plenty of room to cut back. That helps you to reduce your cholesterol levels. It potentially releases you from a number of allergies. You can improve your chances of avoiding osteoporosis.

Here’s Secret #3: THEY REGULARLY EAT BREAKFAST. A substantial meal in the morning is one of the major success strategies for people who live these extra years.

#4: THEY EAT MORE FRESH VEGETABLES. And if you need good reasons to trade in your filet mignon for a plate of vegetables, here are six: Veggies are high in vitamins and minerals. They’re excellent sources of dietary fiber. They contain anticancer nutrients. They’re low in fat and have no cholesterol. They’re safer to eat than meat – largely because they’re lower on the so-called “food chain,” so that they contain fewer contaminants. And one more: especially raw vegetables are full of health-producing enzymes. You lose these with cooked vegetables, anytime you cook above 122◦ F. (By the way, you also lose them when you microwave your veggies.) But right there are six reasons to make sure your diet is high in vegetables, and low on the cheeseburger end.

Secret #5: THEY EAT MORE FRESH FRUIT THAN AVERAGE AMERICANS. I’ve been to some hotel breakfast buffets with vegetarians right out of the Live-Longer Lifestyle control group, and it’s almost comical to watch the poor Marriott people trying to keep up with how these folks grab the bananas and sliced pineapple off the fruit platter. And many of you know that fruit is naturally sweet, it’s a cleansing agent for your body, and it’s a good source of energy. By the way, Cecil and Jan tell us that if you happen to like figs, they qualify to be just about the perfect fruit. High dietary fiber, highest overall mineral content of any fruit, plus good percentages of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. So if you give a fig about good health . . . don’t give that fig, eat it!

We’re racing the clock here, but Secret #7 is that HEALTHY PEOPLE EAT MORE LEGUMES than the average. Lots of advantages — one being that beans and lentils are so cheap! But not only do legumes have fewer calories than meat — a cup of beans scoring 250 calories compared to 550 in a five-ounce slab of steak — but you can really lower your LDL or “bad” cholesterol to the extent that you switch over.

Let’s put Secrets #8, #9, and #10 together: HEALTHY EATERS REDUCE THEIR FAT INTAKE AND THEIR USE OF REFINED FOODS. ALSO SPICE AND SALT. Going with that: less sugar, more unrefined oils. And finally, #11, THEY MAYBE TAKE VITAMIN AND MINERAL SUPPLEMENTS, depending on how fully they’re following the other ten points we’ve whistled through today.

Well, friend, maybe you’re feeling lightheaded as you listen to all this, and you’re already thinking that this “Live-Longer Lifestyle” is itself full of legumes. Meaning beans. I understand that. I would urge you, though, to get a copy of this book, Live 10 Healthy Years Longer, read all of the supplementary details we had to gloss over today, and then decide if you just might be able to at least scoot your cafeteria chair over toward the salad bar.

Final thought for the day. Wouldn’t you imagine that whatever diet God suggested in the Garden of Eden — before sin and thorns and weeds showed up — would be the perfect diet? That makes sense, doesn’t it? And you know, you can find God’s menu described in Genesis chapter one, verse 29:

“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. They will be yours for food.’”

There you have it: fruits, nuts, veggies. Adam and Eve both ordered the Garden Burger and went right out and lived 930 years. Far out.