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Every month in the Alaska Vegetarian Society Newsletter, Delisa Renideo provides an insightful look into some aspect of eating a plant-based diet. She strives to provide an in-depth perspective, helping us to gain more clarity and hopefully to support positive changes in our lives.

               (click on the title _text to read the article)
Take Charge of Your Health

    Are you feeling vulnerable these days? The global economy seems to be col- lapsing, many are losing their jobs, health care costs continue to rise while good medical insurance coverage is harder to get, and good health seems to be increasingly elusive. More and more people are becoming obese, the incidence of diabetes is rising, and heart disease and cancer continue to take a devastating toll on individuals and families. If we lose our jobs, we’ll also lose our insurance, and then we’ll be living in fear that our health problems may also cause our financial ruin. Feeling helpless to do any- thing about the situation may be the worst part of it all.
Are "Kid-Friendly" Foods Really Friendly?

    How friendly is it to teach our kids to eat highly processed foods that are high in fat, high in calories, and high in refined sugar and refined flour?    These “kid-friendly foods” are creating kids that are increasingly overweight and obese, causing health problems that were previously not seen until adulthood, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Wouldnʼt it be friendlier to prepare healthy, tasty, colorful, nutrient-dense, life-supporting foods that would lay the foundation for healthy habits to last a lifetime?
Healthy Bones

    I grew up believing that drinking lots of milk guaranteed that I would have healthy bones. That was easy for me to do as I loved milk. Some of my school friends hated milk, so they would pass their milk over to me when the teacher wasn’t looking. Since they succeeded in avoiding milk much of the time, does that mean their bones suffered? Are these hapless milk haters now suffering from osteoporosis? And are my bones twice as strong because I drank their milk in addi- tion to my own?
What Are Humans Designed to Eat?

    It’s a surprise to many of us to discover that a plant-based diet is actually more health promoting for humans than a meat-based diet. We have grown up with images of early human “savages” eating animals and assume that is our natural diet. But if we were designed to eat meat, why would a plant-based diet support optimal health while reducing the incidence of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes?
What Does Diet Have to Do With the Earth?

    Most of us now know that our diet has a great deal to do with our health. From obesity to diabetes to heart dis- ease to cancer, our food choices are the primary determinant of whether we will suffer from these conditions or not. Many of us are not as aware that our diet also has a tremendous impact on the health of the planet we call home.
The Diet of the Future

    Our great grandparents’ diet was much different from ours. Can you imagine their reaction if they walked into one of our supermarkets and saw aisle after aisle of colorful boxes, cans and bottles? What in the world is all this stuff? After walking up and down endless aisles, they would eventually come across the produce section and the bulk bins of beans, grains, and nuts. Finally -- food!

The Elephant in the Room

    While the battle over health insurance options rages, we have carefully kept our collective eyes averted from the elephant in the room. And what is this elephant? It is the fact that the American health crisis is of our own making and we could turn this crisis around by changing our diets and lifestyles. Instead of acknowledging this elephant, we have tacitly agreed instead to discuss and argue over the most fair way to pay for medical treatments for what are largely preventable diseases.
Green Up Your Life

This time of year is so exciting to me! My eyes eagerly scan the hillsides for that first hint of green prior to the explosion of green soon to follow. I also begin gazing at my garden plots, still covered with last fall’s leaves and winter debris, visualizing the profusion of green growth that will eventually find its way to our dinner table.  A few blades of green grass are poking through our still brownish lawn, promising to expand to a carpet of green where we’ll play ball with the dogs and eat at our picnic table whenever the weather is nice.
The Latest and Greatest

    When we hear about some new tech- nology such as the latest iPhones, hybrid or electric cars, GPS instruments, or the latest computer, we expect that the latest is also the greatest. And this is probably true most of the time. New technologies are changing ever more rapidly, and earlier versions just don’t do as much.
    But does this hold true for research? Probably not.