J. Morris Hicks -- Its real simple, eat the natural diet for our species and effortlessly promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

It’s not very often that I applaud an article in any newspaper — on the topic of the cost of health care in this country and what to do about it. But on April 12, Mark Bittman of the New York Times published a terrific article on the “Fiscal toll of treating lifestyle diseases.” (See link at end of this post for his complete article.)

Here are a few quotes that I liked:

• “Disease Care.” He actually said in the article that our “health care system is better-termed disease care.” You don’t see that very often in the Times.
• On lifestyle diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Treating these diseases — and futile attempts to “cure” them — costs a fortune, more than one-seventh of our GDP.
• Preventable and reversible. Type 2 diabetes is projected to cost us $500 billion a year come 2020, when half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Need I remind you that Type 2 diabetes is virtually entirely preventable?”
• The facts on heart disease. The INTERHEART study of 30,000 men and women in 52 countries showed that at least 90 percent of heart disease is lifestyle related; a European study of more than 23,000 Germans showed that people with healthier lifestyles had an 81 percent lower risk.
• Bottom line. The best way to combat diet-related diseases is to change what we eat. 

As Mark has proven in the past, he knows that our health care problems are driven by what we eat. He also knows that we can save trillions of dollars by eating a much better diet. But, sadly, even though he doesn’t say it, I think he is one of the 95% of Americans who truly believe that we actually “need” to eat some animal protein in order to be healthy. If you’ve watched his food shows or read his cookbooks, he certainly is eating nowhere near the 4-Leaf level that more closely resembles the natural diet for our species — and there’s a whole lot of dead animals in his recipes.

Like the rest of our “system” of government, medicine, insurance, and food producers, Mark comes up short when it comes to telling the American public exactly what we should be eating for optimal health. On the other hand, he’s doing a great job in planting the seeds of change — and creating a more accepting attitude toward the type of information that you’ll find on this blog every day. For that, I applaud him — I also posted the following at the end of his article. He got hundreds, if not thousands of comments on this great article; I was #245.

Hooray for Mark Bittman. As someone who blogs every day on this topic, I can’t thank you enough. You are a huge part of the solution to our health care mess. You are reaching the mainstream masses that have never been told that we really don’t “need” to eat animals to be healthy and that we can reverse chronic disease with a superior whole foods, plant-based diet. In a recent blog, I spoke about Bill Clinton…

He knows that eating whole plants is curing his heart disease and probably helping with his E.D., but he probably doesn’t yet know that those two simple words — WHOLE PLANTS — hold the key to dramatically reducing our cost of health care, easing the energy crisis, saving the environment, feeding the world and ending the needless suffering of 60 billion animals per year. Once his lightbulb goes on, he can be a tremendous influence on all of these crucial global issues.

Not only can we save an easy trillion dollars, we can also save the planet. Thank you Mark. Sincerely, J. Morris Hicks

Click on the image to visit our 4-Leaf Page

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

The Fiscal Toll of Treating ‘Lifestyle Diseases’ – NYTimes.com.