Vegan Diet, Steve Jobs and Pancreatic Cancer. Revisited

Posted on 01/23/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

“People who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

What role did his vegan diet play in his death?

Tough question to answer—not enough data. Shortly after his death, I published a blog about Steve Jobs on October 8. Since that time, that blog has received more traffic than all other pages except for my home page. Entitled Steve Jobs. Vegan? Early death from pancreatic cancer?, a lot of people are still interested in what happened to Steve.

After receiving hundreds of comments and emails on this topic, I want to revisit that blog and share more information. But first I wish to clarify the way I see things now:

  1. Based on Isaacson’s book (that I read) and input from people who knew Steve, he ate a vegan diet for various periods during his life, first beginning to do so as a young adult.
  2. We don’t know what percentage of his life included a vegan diet, nor do we know what constituted his version of that diet. We know he liked sushi but we don’t know if he ate only vegetarian sushi—I doubt it. A friend who worked with Steve for many years told me that he loved ice cream (probably not vegan ice cream).
  3. What we do know for sure is that all vegan diets are not necessarily healthy. As we said in our book, you could eat nothing but Diet Coke and potato chips and call yourself a vegan and you’d probably die at a far younger age than Steve did.
  4. The problem is that the definition of vegan doesn’t describe what you DO eat; it only means that you supposedly DON’T eat anything that has any animal ingredients. If you want to know the definition of a near-optimal diet based on what you DO eat, take a look at our 4Leaf Page.

    Leveraging the simple, yet powerful concept of maximizing the percent of your calories from whole plant foods — still in nature’s package

A little background. In my October 8  blog, I included a video by Dr. Michael Greger about the association of animal fat with pancreatic cancer. Regarding that video, I stated, “Dr. Michael Greger cites a huge NIH AARP study (500,000 people) that tightly associates the consumption of all fat AND protein of animal origin with pancreatic cancer. On the other hand, plant-based fat had no association.”

So that doesn’t prove that Steve’s diet had anything to do with his death. The evidence suggests that his chances of death from pancreatic cancer would have been less if he had consumed no animal fat for his entire life. But since we don’t know exactly what Steve ate for his entire life, we can’t be completely sure about anything regarding why he died.

But we can be sure about one thing; people will be interested in this special man’s life and legacy for decades, or maybe centuries. Without a doubt, he changed the world—and he changed mine.

Riding Amtrak, eating 4Leaf breakfast and pounding out blogs on my trusty MacBook Pro. Thanks Steve.

About one year ago, I bought my first Apple computer (MacBook Pro) after having bought my first iPhone 18 months before that. Clearly, the man had a passion for making many insanely great products, and for that I am grateful.

Having written 350 consecutive daily blogs on this MacBook, I can testify to the superiority of his products. As for the ongoing interest in his life, I got this message from a follower of my blog last week:

I am reading the Steve Jobs book now and have a question..if he ate so healthfully…why did he get cancer? As posted in your blog, diet alone can help but is not the surefire bullet/protector.

In the book, Mr. Isaacson mentions that Steve Jobs claims his health woes started up when he first returned to Apple and was also running Pixar (“running two companies was brutal”) . Back then the health woes were kidney stones. Could it have been extreme stress that was the fatal key to Steve’s subsequent woes. I did read how sushi was his weakness that he indulged in from time to time but otherwise and primarily he seemingly kept to a vegan regiment and did this for a long period of time. Regards, Susan.

Biography by Walter Isaacson

The Bottom Line. I wrote a note back to Susan with a brief summary of what I have written just now in this blog. As I explained to her, there simply is not enough solid data to conclude anything about the role of diet in Steve’s cancer and death. That’s my opinion; my friend Dr. John McDougall took it a step further and focused on every single mention of Steve’s diet in his biography. You can read his very thorough examination here. Why Did Steve Jobs Die?

Finally, today I would like to close with a quote of the day by a Kentucky philosopher. I will probably lead off with this quote in my speech at the University of Kentucky on February 13. My topic for that speech is: “The Big Picture About Food—and how it relates to the promotion of health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.”

People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry which pays no attention to food.—-Wendell Berry

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online 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.

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 | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Where is McKinsey & Company? In the 5% or the 95%

Posted on 01/22/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Arguably, the most powerful brain trust in the world

Surely most of their partners know that we don’t need to eat animal protein to be healthy. Not. You see, they are consultants to businesses, governments and institutions; and none of their clients ask them to solve the world’s most crucial problems–such as:

    1. World hunger
    2. The emerging energy crisis
    3. Skyrocketing cost of health care
    4. Global warming

No, they don’t work on those kinds of things because there is simply no money to be made. Take health care for example. The closest that McKinsey comes to working on our nation’s largest problem, the cost of health care, is helping their big pharmaceutical clients sell more drugs and make more money. They end up being part of the problem simply because there are no clients willing to pay them money to be part of the solution.

Sadly, like Warren Buffett, the mighty McKinsey organization, with few exceptions is part of the 95 percent of  Americans who believe that we need to eat animal protein to be healthy. Too bad we can’t harness the incredible brain power of this premier organization. From Wikpedia:

McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious firms in the consulting industry and has been a top employer for new MBA graduates since 1996.

McKinsey has about 9,000 consultants in 97 locations in 55 countries, working with more than 90% of the 100 leading global corporations and two-thirds of the Fortune 1000 list. Forbes estimated the firm’s 2009 revenues at $6.6 billion.

Dr. Shawn, my nephew and fellow 4Leaf health enthusiast

Let’s Back up. Why am I writing about McKinsey? While in New York this week, I had coffee with my nephew Shawn, who is a member of the McKinsey consulting team. A very bright young man, he has a PhD in electrical engineering AND, like his Uncle Jim, he is a 4Leaf plant-based eater. He started his healthy dietary regimen almost overnight 6 or 7 years ago after reading Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, Eat to Live, that I gave him for Christmas.

This week I was talking to him about our Harmony Project and asked about the possibility that some of their McKinsey Brain Trust might be inclined to help develop the message, recruit the messenger and raise the funds necessary to get that project off the ground. I asked him if he knew of any partners that might be enlightened on the power to plant-based eating to help solve those four major problems listed earlier. He knew of no one.

The emerging Lifestyle Choice of health-seeking people everywhere

Surely, out of close to 10,000 colleagues, there must be at least one partner of the firm who understands that we don’t need to eat animal protein to be healthy—and that an aggressive move in the direction of plant-based eating could not only save our lives, but could very well end up saving the planet. I was thinking that a high-powered McKinsey partner might be the ideal person to help President Clinton connect the dots regarding the “big picture” of our Western diet-style and thereby plant the seeds of interest in his becoming our lead messenger for the Harmony Project. But how do I identify that partner?

Shawn suggested that I search through the McKinsey Quarterly, an online publication  that is free to the public. By digging up articles about food, health, etc., he thought that I might find out which partners (the authors of those articles) might be the right people to contact. So, this morning I did just that and thought I was on to something when I found an article entitled Organizational health: The ultimate competitive advantage. I was thinking that it might be about healthy employees, but it wasn’t.

I did find one article entitled Three imperatives for improving US health care, a 3100-word article that didn’t mention anything about how our food choices are driving up to $2 trillion  of our $2.7 trillion cost of health care in this country. Yet the 2008 article began with…

Making health care more affordable is the key to making the US system sustainable. We can bring three of the largest sources of underlying costs and their growth under control.

So, I will keep looking and will ask Shawn to do the same. Maybe in another ten years or so, he will be that high-powered McKinsey partner that can lead a high-level project aimed at saving the planet with two words—Whole Plants. And what client would pay for that project? Maybe a consortium of ten nations who fear that the world could slip into anarchy as billions of hungry people do what they have to do to feed their families.

J. Morris Hicks, author and activist. Working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

Do you know any McKinsey people? How about sending them this blog? Maybe they’ll help me find that hot-shot partner there that’s ready to change the world.

Want to learn more about Shawn’s experience with plant-based eating? You can find him on page 44 of our book. So you don’t believe that whole plants can save the world? You might want to watch a powerful world-changing movie this afternoon.

Get yourself some popcorn, or some celery, and treat yourself to the seductive voice of Glenn Close as she narrates this exceptional film. She was on CBS Sunday Morning just now—very impressive indeed.

HOME- a great 2009 film; a powerful eye-opener It’s a 90-minute movie that is likely to leave you feeling differently about the role of the human race on our precious planet. Here’s a comment that I copied from YouTube.

This movie has really changed my view on the world. I mean, I’m sure we all knew this stuff, but the amazing high definition angles and inspiring words really help shake things up in my mind. This is one of those movies where you wake up the next morning and see everything in a completely different way. I am no longer a working gear in a consumerist machine, I am an awareness in a sea of human beings. With an equal love for life, and an equal goal of the survival of the species.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online 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.

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 | 2 Comments

Where is Warren Buffett? In the 5% or the 95%?

Posted on 01/21/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Everyone knows that Warren Buffett is in the highest levels of the 1%; in fact, he is our wealthiest American—and the third wealthiest in the world. But what about the 5% and the 95%? I am talking about the 5% of us who know that we don’t NEED to eat any animal protein to be healthy. In fact, it’s our rich Western diet that’s literally killing us, our planet and our way of life. Gracing the cover of TIME this week (1-23-12) is the “Oracle of Omaha” himself—with these words:

The Optimist. Why Warren Buffett is bullish on America

World's 3rd Richest Man

In the excellent article by Rana Foorahor, we learn a lot about Mr. Buffett. We learn about his childhood where he read every single book in the Omaha public library by age eleven. And we learn about the importance of conscience, “His father’s propensity for acting on the basis of his conscience deeply influenced his son.” In other words he cares. For our nation, for the less fortunate and for the world.

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 his mighty wealth to changing it? Maybe his conscience is not as strong as his appetite. From the 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.”

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: he had a guilty conscience about his desires.

We also learned from the article that he is data-driven. “He focuses not on media headlines about America’s inevitable decline—or cheerleading about innovation and education, but on the data.” On the subject of reforming health care, he says, “It’s a tapeworm in America, one that cuts competitiveness far more than taxes do.” So to summarize, we have the world’s third richest man, a man who is extremely well-educated, greatly concerned about the cost of health care, well-read, and is led by the data and his conscience when choosing a course of action.

I wonder what would happen if Mr. Buffett understood all of the data about the damage, waste, suffering, how it drives our health care dollars and the gross unsustainability of our rich Western diet. I have spoken often on this blog about our Harmony Project, a project aimed at dispelling the protein myth about our needing to eat animal protein. Once that myth is dispelled, the great thinkers of the world will be able to apply their exceptional knowledge and creativity to solving some of the world’s most pressing issues: global warming, water shortage, loss of species, erosion of arable land, world hunger, and so much more.

Ted Turner -- a natural leader for a world-changing cause---even if he had to give up his Montana Grill in the process.

The Harmony Project has three elements: the Message, the Messenger and the Money. We already have the message, and with Mr. Buffett, we would have the other two key elements. With enough money, we could repeat our powerful message enough times that it would soon be common knowledge that we don’t need to eat any animal protein to be healthy.

And, with a prominent leader like Mr. Buffett behind the project, there would soon be other great “messengers” who would join the Harmony Project team. I am thinking of people like Bill Clinton, Ted Turner and Bill Gates. I know that Ted Turner sells a lot of meat in his restaurants, but I also know that he cares greatly about the environment and about helping people. If he got fired up on this cause, I am confident that he could make ends meet without the earnings from Ted’s Montana Grill.

What a foursome that would be! A great combination of wealth, power, global recognition, and leadership. Ted Turner has already changed the world a few times, Bill Gates spends most of his time (and money) trying to make the world a better place and Bill Clinton has first hand knowledge of how plant-based eating can reverse heart disease.

With a PhD in mathematics from Harvard, Dr. Cohen is now a mathematical biologist and is more than likely one of the world's brightest people.

When great leaders like this foursome get behind a cause, things will happen. And great thinkers like Lester Brown and Dr. Joel Cohen will bring their formidable skills to the table.

Dr. Joel Cohen of Columbia University. In a recent blog, I reported on Mr. Cohen. “Although he fails to recognize the obvious solution to our water problem, Dr. Cohen does an excellent job of describing our dilemma. While he never even mentions the power of plant-based eating to resolve most of the issues, he stated, We must increase the probability that every child born will be wanted and well cared for and have decent prospects for a good life.”

We must conserve more, and more wisely use, the energy, water, land, materials and biological diversity with which we are blessed. Here is a man ready to help fix the mess; he just needs to learn about protein first. With a PhD in mathematics from Harvard, Dr. Cohen is now a mathematical biologist and is more than likely one of the world’s brightest people.

Lester Brown, "one of the world's most influential thinkers."

Lester Brown, founder of WorldWatch Institute. He is also the founder & President of the Earth Policy Institute, and the recipient of 26 honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship. Brown has been described by the Washington Post as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers.”

From a recent blog, he recently drew high praise for his 2011 book, World On the Edge, from such notables as Bill Clinton and Ted Turner. He has done a magnificent job of describing our seemingly hopeless dilemma, but like so many other brilliant scholars, he has completely ignored the most powerful single move that we can make to get the world back on the right track. He mentions three billion additional people “moving up the food chain” in a 2011 interview but never even hints about the possibility of a global shift to the health-promoting and Earth-saving plant-based diet.

J. Morris Hicks, author and activist. Working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

The world needs leaders like these two brilliant men. But first, those men must learn the simple truth about animal protein…and Mr. Buffett could make that happen. How about it sir? Given all that’s at stake, are you willing to change what you eat to get the Harmony Project moving?

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Want to receive some occasional special news from us? 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.

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

And if you like what 4-Leaf eating is doing for you and your family, you might enjoy visiting our new “4-Leaf Gear” store. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

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

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Posted in Activism & Leadership, Celebrities, Harmony Project | 7 Comments