The Big C—twice in one week for Warren Buffett

Posted on 04/19/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Congress and Prostate Cancer

World's 3rd Richest Man

The first “Big C” was Congress debating and voting on the “Buffett Rule” of taxation. And the second was Mr. Buffett announcing that he has Stage 1 prostate cancer. From the New York Times (See 4-17-12 article below), as the title of article suggests, Mr. Buffett is downplaying the effects of the cancer on his life or his work:

“Revealing Prostate Cancer, Buffett Plays Down Effect”

Warren E. Buffett disclosed on Tuesday that he had prostate cancer, a development that would probably heighten the questions over his successor as the chief executive of his conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway.

Yet Mr. Buffett, who will turn 82 this summer, also made clear that he would continue to run the company, writing to shareholders that the disease was in Stage 1 and that he had been told by doctors that it was “not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way.”

One of nature's best cancer-fighters---definitely NOT one of Mr. Buffett's favorite foods.

Earlier blog. I recently blogged about the world’s third richest man (1-21-12) after reading about his dietary preferences in a Time cover story earlier this year. In that article, he was almost boasting about his unhealthy eating habits.

I found it disturbing at the time that the world’s third richest—and one of the world’s most influential people—was not helping people understand the millions of lives that could be saved—simply by changing what we eat.

Here is a brief excerpt from that blogpost, which was all about the importance of “conscience” that he learned from his father.

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My question is this. If he were to understand what our Western diet-style is doing to our health, our planet and the future of our way of life; how would his conscience permit him to not apply a portion of his mighty wealth to changing it? Maybe his conscience is not as strong as his appetite. From the Time article:

Buffett, who has a soft elderly face but moves briskly, stacks a plate high with waffles, bacon and roast beef. Despite his Eisenhower-era diet, which includes 60 oz. of Coke (preferably Cherry) a day, Buffett remains surprisingly thin. “I haven’t had a taste of broccoli or asparagus in years!” he boasts. “I formed my thoughts on eating at the age of 5, and I haven’t changed them.”

One of Mr. Buffett's favorite foods---part of the toxicity of our diet that is the single biggest cause of cancer in the western world.

Bacon and roast beef? He might feel differently when he learns what’s at stake. The definition of conscience, from my online dictionary: an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.

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But now that Mr. Buffett has been diagnosed with cancer, he may be more open to learning about prostate cancer and what, if anything, can be done to prevent it. And if he does learn more, we are confident that his conscience would insist that he do the right thing. Imagine what he could do with his wealth in terms of truly fighting cancer—the way Dr. Colin Campbell outlined in The China Study.

Cherry coke, a big favorite of Mr. Buffett, who consumes 60 ounces a day.

In our book, we cover the chronic diseases that are primarily driven by the food that we eat—and among them are virtually all cancers. Quoting Dr. T. Colin Campbell in Chapter 3 under the “Big C” section:

  • Doctors should be discussing the option of using dietary change as a potential path to cancer prevention and treatment.
  • The U.S. government should be discussing the idea that the toxicity of our diet is the single biggest cause of cancer.
  • Local cancer alliances and institutions should be discussing the possibility of providing information to Americans everywhere on how a whole-foods, plant-based diet may be an incredibly effective anticancer medicine.

Requested meeting with Mr. Buffett. As a member of the board of directors of the T. Colin Campbell Foundation, I am sure that Dr. Campbell would love the opportunity to meet with Mr. Buffett and tell him all about cancer and what we can do about it. And it’s not about providing financial support for the kinds of “magic bullet” research that’s been taking place since Nixon was president. It’s about understanding and taking action on the fact that “the toxicity of our diet is the single biggest cause of cancer.”

Added on April 20, upon receiving my copy of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” issue. As expected, Mr. Buffett is in that group and his article was written by President Obama. Here is an excerpt…

Warren Buffett is not just one of the world’s richest men but also one of the most admired and respected. He has devoted the vast majority of his wealth to those around the world who are suffering, or sick, or in need of help….Today, at 81, he reminds us that life is not just about the value you seek. It’s about the values you stand for.

I should also add that as an executive recruiter, I have been quoting Mr. Buffett for years. In describing what he seeks in CEOs of companies that he might acquire, he says, ” I look for three things: Intelligence, Energy and Integrity. And if the CEO doesn’t have Integrity, those first two will kill you.”

New York Times article, Revealing Prostate Cancer, Buffett Plays Down Effect

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Want to receive some occasional special news from us? You may wish to Join our periodic mailing list. For daily updates you can choose to “FOLLOW” at the top of the right column.

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

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

Please SHARE and rate this post below

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Cancer, Celebrities | 6 Comments

Is obesity the new normal? And whose fault is it?

Posted on 04/18/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Mainstream media’s take on obesity—the new normal?

Frank Bruni, New York Times

In Frank Bruni’s opinion column earlier this week in the New York Times (see link below), he actually suggested that it is surprising that more of us are not obese already. That’s because, as he also suggests, we’re just following our natural instincts in an unnatural world. And I agree.

But we are the brightest of all species, we have a superior cognitive niche and we should be able to figure out what we should be eating. And we should be able to share that simple information with humans everywhere. Further, the leaders of the world should take steps to make sure that a superior diet is not only available—but also attractive and affordable for everyone. From his article:

What if we have it backward? What if the 310-pound man trying to jam into the middle seat and the 225-pound woman breaking into a sweat only halfway up the stairs aren’t the undisciplined miscreants of modern American life but the very emblems of it?

What if fatness, even obesity, is less a lurking danger than a likely destiny, and the surprise isn’t how many seriously overweight people are out there but how few?

Those are among the unsettling questions raised, at least implicitly, by “The Weight of the Nation,” an ambitious multiplatform project that takes the full measure of our girth, its genesis and its toll. (That documentary will premiere on HBO on May 14, 2012; a book with the same title will be published prior to the airing by St. Martin’s Press.)

Following in the heavy footsteps of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” “The End of Overeating,” “The End of Food” and much else, “The Weight of the Nation” makes an especially persuasive case that gluttony isn’t Americans’ problem. Agriculture and abundance are.

In my opinion, her condition is simply not her fault. Our "system" has failed our society---and this poor woman is paying the price.

Whose fault is it? I agree that modern agriculture and abundance are indeed problems, but they are like crazed juveniles running wild with no adult supervision. And the supervision that is missing is our government, our schools of nutrition, mainstream medicine and the media that’s supposed to be keeping everyone honest.

The root of the problem is that our schools of nutrition have become nothing but puppets for the the vast food industry. We have thousands of nutritional scientists advising us on what we should be eating—yet only a precious few of them are telling us exactly what we need to do to promote health. That’s because it wouldn’t be very profitable for the food giants that are paying the bills.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell is one of those precious few men of integrity. While chatting with him this past Sunday at a conference in Massachusetts, I asked him, “Besides yourself, how many nutritional scientists have genuinely and fully embraced the whole foods, plant-based diet as what we all should be eating?” He couldn’t think of any others—which explains the background for his recent article in a Cornell newspaper. Academic “Unfreedom” at Cornell—T. Colin Campbell

Incomparable!

Telling the truth about nutrition. Sadly, we’re a long way from seeing the day where our scientific community “gets it right” and is willing to take a stand against the food industry—to which it currently owes its livelihood. Eventually, we must tell the truth about nutrition to everyone.

Dr. Campbell and his son did just that in The China Study (2005). Although that great book has been read by about one million people, over 99% of our population has never heard of it. And, while most of Dr. Campbell’s scientific peers have heard of it, he estimates that most of them have not read his book.

To restate the root issue, “we’re simply following our natural instincts in an unnatural world.” And Bruni describes the problem very well in the article—but comes up way short on the necessary solution:

“We’re simply not genetically programmed to refuse calories when they’re within arm’s reach,” said Thomas A. Farley, New York City’s health commissioner, when I spoke to him recently. He is one of dozens of leading physicians, academicians and public-health experts who appear in “The Weight of the Nation.”

John Hoffman, an executive producer of the documentary, told me: “Evolutionarily, there was no condition that existed when we were living with too much fat storage. We’ve only known a world of plenty for maybe 100 years. Our biological systems haven’t adapted to it.”

My proposed solution continues to be what I call our Harmony Project and it all begins with dispelling the protein myth. What will it take to execute that project before it’s too late? The late, great Dr. W. Edwards Deming would say, “Three things are essential for change: Leadership, Leadership, and Leadership!”

Bruni’s New York Times column—And Love Handles for All

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Want to receive some occasional special news from us? You may wish to Join our periodic mailing list. For daily updates you can choose to “FOLLOW” at the top of the right column.

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

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

Please SHARE and rate this post below

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Obesity, Scientific Integrity | 1 Comment

Not much “health promotion” going on at VegFest

Posted on 04/17/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Most exhibitors featured food that was just “not animals”

On a warm and sunny spring day in Worcester, Massachusetts—Dr. T. Colin Campbell was the highlight of the event as he he addressed a standing-room-only crowd at 1 p.m. He attended the show with his wife and grandson and was there primarily to promote his daughter’s Whole Plants Cookbook (by LeAnne Campbell Disla) and to continue spreading the word about plant-based nutrition.

Thank goodness for VegFest. I wish to go on record that I greatly appreciate what the VegFest organization is doing. They are promoting many things that are good for the planet and are obviously good for the welfare of animals. We were delighted to be there and do our part to help people better understand the concept of vibrant health as it relates to the food that we should be eating.

Dr. Campbell was a big hit at the VegFest. The man standing in the top right corner of the photo is the Holy Cross professor who invited me to speak at one of his classes in February. He reports that our book has made a big difference for him, his family and for many of his students.

Highlights of the show for the 4Leaf Team

  1. There was great interest in our 4Leaf Survey as we administered it to about 100 people.
  2. We sold all but two of the books that we brought with us.
  3. Many people who had read our book stopped by our table to tell us what a difference it had made in their lives.
  4. We added many new names to our database.
  5. We had a chance to work together as a team for the first time—Jason, Lisa, Andrew and me.

The authors are all set up and ready for the show. Don't miss the last photo of our youngest 4Leaf team member.

Vibrant health? Although I didn’t get a chance to walk around the show, Jason told me that there were only 2 out of nearly 100 tables that were promoting vibrant health — ours and Dr. Campbell’s. Most of the exhibitors were giving away free food and none of it was 4Leaf. Catering to new vegetarians, they had lots of fake meats, cheeses, and sweets—with nary a whole plant in sight. Not animals, but not healthy either.

Meanwhile, at our table, we administered the 4Leaf Survey to a steady stream of interested people all day. Here’s how they scored on our 12-question survey—with the number of people at each level listed first:

Our 4Leaf survey estimates the % of daily calories from whole, plant-based foods.

  • # —– level     % of daily calories from whole plants
  •  9  — 4Leaf            Over 80%
  • 13 — 3Leaf            60 to 79%
  • 15 — 2Leaf           40 to 59%
  • 26 — 1Leaf            20 to 39%
  • 23 — “BTM”         10 to 19% (Scoring “better than most”)
  • 14 — “Unhealthy”   < 10%      (The “majority of Americans are in this group)

As you can see from the above, only about 25% of the people scored at 3Leaf or better on our survey. But this is much better than the scores that we would see in the real world. For example, if we surveyed 100 people at a McDonalds on a Friday night, we’d find less than 3% at those levels, if any. And we’d likely find 65% or more in the “unhealthy” category with less than 10% of their calories from whole plants.

Vegan is not necessarily healthy. I have made this statement many times—in our book, on this blog and in my speeches. And this was proven at the VegFest by a self-described “vegan” woman who took our survey. She actually tallied the lowest score of the day—reporting that she eats zero daily servings of whole fruit, vegetables, grains and legumes.

She admitted that she’s not eating a very healthy diet; but she is not alone in the world of vegans and vegetarians—most are focusing primarily on what they’re NOT eating. Hopefully, our survey will help her make some much-needed improvements in her diet.

Obesity at VegFest? Yes, there was a fair amount but not nearly as much as you’d see at Walmart on Saturday. And many of those obese folks are fairly new to being vegetarian and others are suffering from eating disorders. That being said, if they loaded up on all the “unhealthy” free vegan food at the event, their obesity would not improve.

Our conclusion. Even uninformed vegetarians are eating a much healthier diet than the average American. But this wasn’t your average “vegetarian” crowd. Based on the throng of people trying to get into the Dr. Campbell portion of the event, my guess is that most people attended the conference primarily to see and hear Dr. Campbell. And that kind of group as a rule is going to be more knowledgeable about what constitutes a health-promoting diet.

The bottom line. For me, this was a very worth-while event. It was great to visit with people who are moving in the direction of plant-based eating—for whatever reason. So you can expect to see us at more VegFest events in the future.

Scroll down for a few more photos

Dr. Campbell reviewing our 4Leaf Survey yesterday in Worcester--- before the VegFest began.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

This photo was taken from our table---looking across at Dr. Campbell's table on the same level.

Finally—one more photo of our youngest 4Leaf team member

Middle grandson, Andrew (9), sitting with his "GranBuddy" just before the show began.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Want to receive some occasional special news from us? You may wish to Join our periodic mailing list. For daily updates you can choose to “FOLLOW” at the top of the right column.

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

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

Please SHARE and rate this post below

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in 4Leaf for Life, Book Promotion | 2 Comments