Children of the Cult

Cults are those weird groups with those brainwashed people living by bizarre and often damaging rules. 

The saddest thing is, of course, the children. They're raised within the cult and often never know that any other way is possible.

A cult:

• is a group whose beliefs or practices are abnormal or bizarre    
• is a group that tends to manipulate, exploit, and control its members
• recruits people who suffer from a some variety of deprivation.
• promotes a belief system which is utopian/idealistic, and also dualistic and bi-polar in nature. Dualistic in that they see the world in terms of two opposite poles, such as good versus evil, the saved and the fallen, the enlightened and the ignorant, etc.
• is at high risk of becoming abusive to members - in part due to members' adulation of charismatic leaders contributing to the leaders becoming corrupted by power.
• is a group or movement exhibiting a devotion to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual detriment of members, their families, or the community.

Meet the most successful cult ever

This cult's idea is the pursuit of more money - the cult of capitalism. And you're probably a child of the cult.
"Unlike other cults that are considered outside the norm, it has claimed center stage, and its propaganda appears to be unquestioned reality."

Living in the cult

Mostly, people

• hope to live in spaces with more than one room for each person. Social skills degenerate from isolation.
• cannot afford these large spaces - they spend their entire lives working off debt to live there.
• spend their days at tasks unrelated to anything or anyone they love
• do not know the people living around them
• live near so many other people they can't make meaningful connections
• buy objects (increasing debt) trying to replace connections with people

Power in the cult

Positions of power:

• are held by very few people
• cost enormous amounts of money to achieve - creating bias and corruption
• provide the illusion of democracy while real control is held by the companies providing money

Information in the cult

Most information:

• is controlled by a few large worldwide companies
• is propaganda to perpetuate the beliefs of the cult
• is presented as quickly and simply as possible, even when important meaning is lost
• avoids any positive reference to lifestyles contradicting the cult

Communication in the cult

Mostly, people communicate

• without even seeing each other
• using machines for very quick and short messages with little content
• badly, generating much confusion and ill feeling

Leisure time in the cult

Most entertainment

•  involves buying something
•  is enjoyed alone and is physically inactive (TV, computer games...)
•  includes propaganda for the cult

Food in the cult

Mostly, people...

• cannot and don't know how to provide their own food
• never eat any truly fresh food
• do not know where their food comes from
• do not cook much
• eat lots of foods which have been processed so much that very little nutrition remains
• eat lots of foods from animals who have been horribly abused their whole lives before being killed.

The cult invests in propaganda and promotes denial about food to protect profits.

Physical health in the cult
It's risky in here...

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death
• At least half of all people are overweight
• The next generation is expected to have a shorter lifespan
• The healthcare industry is a huge financial presence. Healthcare spending is increasing faster than society can create value

Mental health in the cult

Cults foster mental disorders.

Cults promote a vision of an ideal 'new self', which members believe they can attain by following the cult teachings.

The capitalist ideal new self is a wealthy person. The reality is that few can become wealthy. Many who fail to become wealthy blame themselves or other people.

Depression, violent crime, and suicide are skyrocketing.

Families in the cult

Most mothers and fathers pay someone else to care for their young children while they spend their day earning money (and generating money for an employer).

Mothers and fathers who care for their own children instead of earning money are low status and often ridiculed.

Most mothers

• although healthy mammals, give birth in hospitals and feed their babies with inferior artificial food they have to buy.
• are told by experts that they should separate themselves from their babies for everyone's sake.
• are isolated from their family and community
• suffer guilt, confusion, and depression about caring for their babies

Most children

• are in institutional care for most of their day instead of socialising with neighbours.
• Are regularly entertained by electronic devices instead of people
• Cannot concentrate on simpler entertainment
• Are more ignorant about the world than the previous generation

(Add your own section here)

I could continue...but so can you.

Escaping a cult

I've seen movies of people rescued from cults. They look stunned and a bit scared, coming out to freedom and the bigger world around them.

They have lots to learn.

Are you ready?

More Reading

• Obama on the profit motive
• Jimmy Carter's speech on consumption
• Capitalism and alienation
• Capitalism as a purely cultic religion
  

Health education with Dr T. Colin Campbell - weighing in

I've passed my stage 2 study of Diseases of Affluence from Dr T Colin Campbell's Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition and will start stage 3 in a couple of days!

While I'm sharing some of the discussion questions with all of you, I can't even begin to scratch the surface of the multi-level discussions that develop from so many student perspectives on these crucial health issues.  We are also being trained to focus, focus, focus our message and developing other communication skills so that we may be successful even when we are not "preaching to the choir".

Remember, any of you could have a opportunity tomorrow to share a healthy eating message in any of these areas.  Just yesterday I responded to the reporter of this article about a cancer sufferer who was rejected from Jenny Craig.  I hope she will pass on the information to the woman involved.  In any case, being on this nutrition course has us all fired up to spread the word where we can.

Question

Much of America's population has strayed from the optimal range on the BMI (Body Mass Index) scale.   The statistics are ominous. Two out of three adult Americans are overweight and one-third of the adult population is obese. Diabetes often accompanies obesity, and it too is rising.

A lot of effort has gone into educating the public about the dangers of being overweight, and people have responded by trying to slim down. Many now believe that "thin is healthy" and use a wide variety of techniques--including bariatric surgery--to help take off the weight. Others try to drop pounds and fail many times, some stop trying, and some decide not to try at all, embracing excess weight: "fat is beautiful."

1. Identify a weight loss strategy that you do not think is health supporting.
2. Imagine a publication you enjoy, featuring an advertisement for the weight-loss intervention you identified in one. Write a brief (one or two paragraphs) letter to the editor to challenge the weight loss strategy and recommend a better strategy to help people struggling to lose weight--or to maintain a positive self-image at a weight heavier than ideal--begin to imagine a more health-promoting outlook on weight loss.

Answer
Dear Editor:

Upon reading your excellent publication, I noticed an advertisement for Weight Watchers. With 2/3 of our population overweight and 1/3 obese, I applaud the encouragement to your readers to regain a healthy weight. However, you may not know that the success shown in these ads is not typical of this system. Only a few percent of Weight Watchers' customers maintain their weight loss.

The Weight Watchers' system supplies very expensive special food and a complicated system of points allowed. Portions are very controlled to control calories, and no human being can control calories that way for their whole life. The focus is on calorie counting instead of how food supports your health.

There is another weight-loss method your readers might try: a highly successful one that is promoted by many doctors. Studies show that vegetarians and vegans are about 10 to 30 pounds slimmer than nonvegetarians. Plant-based foods, close to their natural state, are more satisfying, so you are genuinely able to eat all you want (with no complicated calculations). These foods are also the best choice for your health - full of fibre and antioxidants and low in fat. They also increase your metabolism. So weight loss is natural, healthy, and delicious with (for example) a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a huge whole-wheat sandwich for lunch, and a pile of tasty potatoes for dinner - with as many snacks as you need to fill you up.

You can eat this way for the rest of your life and you will only get thinner and healthier. You and your readers can learn more about this at http://www.drmcdougall.com/free.html.

Health education with Dr T. Colin Campbell - the plant-based message

 

I'm thrilled to have passed the first stage of Dr T Colin Campbell's Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition!

I've corresponded with students all over the world searching for nutrition enlightenment for a fascinating variety of reasons.  I've also viewed wonderful lectures by Dr Campbell and Dr Pam Popper.

Next, I study Diseases of Affluence.  But first, here's another installment of the thought-provoking discussion on this course.

Question

Dr. Campbell proposes that there are no nutrients in animal-based foods that are not better obtained by plant-based foods. Explain to an interested acquaintance how science supports this premise.  Consider how eating a 'plant-based diet' differs from 'being vegan'.

My Answer

When you've eaten food from animals all your life, a plant-based diet can seem very strange. But did you know that every single nutrient that comes from animals is available from plants and is better for you? I haven't had animal foods for 15 years and I'm strong and healthy - and have two children who have (almost) never eaten animal foods either.

I know you hear you need meat, milk, and eggs for good quality protein.

But almost any plant food has protein, and some beans are just as high protein as any meat - but no cholesterol or saturated fat, and lots cheaper! Plant foods easily supply a human's need for protein. Science has shown that that the protein in meat raises your cholesterol levels even more than the saturated fat and cholesterol. And animal protein helps cancers grow. Healthy people all over the world eat a diet low in animal protein, and people who eat lots of animal protein have high rates of diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Most of us worry about our fat intake and don't know how much is actually healthy or needed. It's actually pretty easy: animals have more fat, and that is the saturated fat that is linked with heart disease and stroke and plants have not only less fat but it is also the healthier unsaturated kind.

Other essential nutrients like iron, calcium, and B12 are also obtainable without the cholesterol or saturated fat from animals.

And all these plant foods also have things you need that animal foods don't have at all: complex carbohydrates metabolise perfectly for natural energy, fibre fills you up and cleans you out, and antioxidants help you stay younger and even fight cancer growth.

You can live a long and active life like so many people around the world on a plant-based diet, and have a much lower risk of diseases like cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

Plant based diet and veganism

Differences
Proponents of a plant-based diet consider its nutritional advantages to be of primary scientific importance. Dr Campbell makes some mention of the environmental benefits as well. Like Dr. McDougall, though, he intentionally avoids the labels "vegetarian" or "vegan". A plant-based diet does not imply any restriction on the use of animal products for non-food uses.

Vegans may avoid animal foods (and often all other animal products) primarily because of ethics surrounding animal rights. They may have no specific interest in nutritional health. Other vegans give equal weight to animal rights, nutritional health, and the environment.

Common Ground
Although vegans may not have health as their first priority, they have as a population achieved the improved health which is the primary aim of plant-based diet supporters. Vegans have known that improved health is a natural effect of their diet centuries before any scientists could watch cancer cells grow in a laboratory.

The willingness of vegetarians and vegans to suffer negativity and persist in their eating patterns is what has brought an animal-free diet to the foreground. What appears in a restaurant, even on a plane? Vegan and vegetarian options. Jeff and Sabrina Nelson's website is called VegSource "Your source for all things vegan and vegetarian!" and it has done more than any other I know to promote the plant-based health message. Even from doctors who dislike the vegan label!

The distaste for those people who avoid animal foods because they care about the animals reminds me of the point I made in my last discussion post: people generally are more comfortable with selfish motivations. But there are always many right paths to the right goal. Ethical vegans enjoy improved health, and plant-based diet aficionados are also helping save animals.

Strength and success
As mentioned in this VegSource video on doctors who disagree, success will come from celebrating our common ground and working together, not focusing on our differences and dividing.

Natural weaning and healthy vegan kids

My two favourite causes - breastfeeding and veganism - together at last!

Staying healthy for your family - Clinton goes veg*n!

Woo hoo!  Former President Clinton is following a low-cholesterol, plant-based diet and talking about it!  He looks so much more healthy now...

History
The main reason I follow a vegan lowfat wholefoods (mostly :-) diet, is our real Big Mac, Dr John McDougall.  He has followed Clinton's heart disease progress with concern and recommendations throughout:

1. Letter before surgery
2. Discussion of Clinton's personality changes
3. Further discussion of the behavioural issues
4. Invitation to attend Dr McDougall's proven clinic

Maybe something finally sank in?  In any case, I am thrilled that such an important and intelligent person is giving himself the best chance to be around to support his children and grandchildren (and maybe even great-grandchildren)!  Long may he continue to be an ambassador for miraculously improved health.

Minimising exercising....

Exciting news which has been getting in the way of this blog - I'm the new editor of the La Leche League New Zealand magazine!  (The only way this would be cooler is if it paid lots of money, but the cause is well worth my time.)  For those of you enjoying my blog regularly, thank you because I've felt creatively unblocked and who knows whether I'd have fronted up for scary new opportunities...

So I am minimising other things, like my Facebook checking and double-checking (to see if anything interesting has happened), and I have several blog idea posts brewing but as yet unwritten.  But one thing I'm making sure to get in these days is my exercise.

Evolution of exercise...
We'll skip the part where I used to fool my gym teacher regularly during running by faking a contact lens emergency.  She was fooled, right?  Or was she paid too little to care if I cheated myself out of improved physical health...?  I'll leave that question to the childcarers among us, of all income levels.
 
At university, I was up and down with exercise levels and fitness, but I never did anything organised.  With my first office job (and my spreading office chair bottom), I joined a gym because that's what you do when you have an income and want to get fit, right?  Plus, it gave me something to do with my evenings.  Sad to say, this was necessary.  And I worked out lots!

But the gym and the workouts were boring.  It must have done some good, but I continued to be very overweight throughout my gym period.  Changing my diet - 1, expensive gym membership, 0.  Although my exercise routine has evolved, I have always found an enjoyable cornerstone in walking.

• In this, I have obediently followed the cliche of turning into my mother, who is busy turning into my grandmother, a mighty lifelong walker indeed.  And I sincerely hope to visit the USA again before my grandmother turns into her mother, who is, of course, dead.  Hope this isn't too blunt - I need to be real about this so I remember how important it is.  We are a long-lived family (great-grandma was something like 94) but I don't want to push my luck.

Walking is reported as the most common exercise for successful longterm weight losers (for which I still qualify if imperfectly).  When I had reached quite a comfortable weight, I enjoyed rockclimbing and regular morning runs (both quite difficult to do when you're carrying too much extra). 

Post-baby: I walked lots - death marches with Alex in a pram around our local park (so he would spend at least some time asleep not physically attached to me).  This wound down, especially after Nadia was born, to not enough exercise at all due to exhaustion.  Very recently, with improved sleep, this has also improved to great long walks and even runs down to the beach, but never often enough!

I realised that the real challenge of the journey was the hill just outside our cul-de-sac.  The rest, while pleasant, was more of a meditative stroll (unless I really racewalked).  So I minimised again, and now perform the daily ritual of hauling ass up and down Hawera Hill a couple of times at my top speed (which is now running, except the steepest uphill bits.  It isn't a bad little workout before breakfast, while DH wrangles the kids through breakfast.  And I do it, rain or shine.  So far.

I love mornings
Studies often promote morning exercise as particularly effective.  And what I always loved about my morning dashes is that it's straight from my nightie into my workout clothes, then into the shower and cleaned up for the public.  What a timesaver - why clean up and dress once in the morning and then again after a later workout?

Reduced healthcare costs
Exactly when I started getting out every day, I delayed my regular fortnightly chiropractic visit for one more week - and have maintained that 50% improvement ever since.  This is a big deal, since I've been addicted to the great feeling of chiropractic care since a sudden crippling pain seized me more than a decade ago, and a series of practitioners have tried to wean me to less frequent visits in the past.  There is a combination of reasons for my problems, but there's also no way to deny it.  You can't just say "I must get some exercise",  YOU MUST GET SOME EXERCISE!

More minimalist exercise
What about a marathon?
Wow, running barefoot!
Hitting the trail...

Veganism

Eating a vegan diet can be:
- super simple
- super healthy
- great for the environment
- great for the animals
- frugal
- much easier to clean up (clean the oven? Why? :-)

Most of this is in hindsight. I went vegan (lowfat wholefoods vegan, pardon me) to lose weight. My sister found this cool doctor called Dr McDougall and I haven't looked back. Check me out here. (Feel free also to note that I'm not as svelte now after 2 kids - work definitely still in progress :-)

I'd never thought of going veg before, but the info I got was convincing that I could eat this way forever and still be healthy. And the more I eat the way he recommends, the better I feel, and vice versa, to this day.

As a point of interest, I had an operation for an ovarian cyst in my early 20s and was diagnosed informally as suffering from PCOS, and to be prepared for more cyst problems. I've had no more cyst problems. I'd been eating this way for about 10 years by the time we started trying for kids, and both times (even being REALLY OLD) I got pregnant at the drop of the zipper. PCOS then, maybe. PCOS now, I don't think so.

So I didn't start this because of my love for large bovine animals or woolly pasture jumpers. But I'm a research addict, and while I have been eating this way, I couldn't help finding out more and more. And what I found out, I couldn't not know again, and I couldn't not care.

So now I'm a vegan for three main reasons - because it's healthy, ethical, and eco-friendly. Within those three areas, it's almost impossible for me to find a solid reason for eating animal products. And it is actually sorta cool to pass by a field full of cows or sheep (quite a few of these in New Zealand) and think "You're not in there because of me."

VegSource is my favourite allround vegetarian site. Raising the kids vegan seemed like a no-brainer - if it's the healthiest for me, that's what I choose for them too. I have a great book on raising vegan children - Pregnancy, Children and the Vegan Diet. It's got all the answers to the common concerns about kids and vegan diets and some stunning pictures of the Phoenix family (the actors) who have all been raised vegan.

In fact, becoming a breastfeeding mum has made me even more aware of the problems with having cow milk in your diet. Who's really supposed to be drinking that cow's breastmilk? Why is it in your refrigerator?

And my vegan kids are turning out just fine, and then some!

Here are some great links for going vegan:

• GoVegan
• SAFE's GoVeg
• Vegan Society of Aotearoa, New Zealand
• PETA's Go Vegan