As Petraeus affair fades—Twinkie news is still booming

Posted on 11/25/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Once again, it’s time for a little levity on a Sunday morning.

I didn’t keep track, but according to my own subconscious random sampling of the news for the past two weeks, Petraeus & Twinkie outscored Gaza & Fiscal Cliff  by at least two to one.

As for the Twinkie news, a friend in Houston sent me this cartoon from their local newspaper. It is a good indication of the challenge ahead as we strive to promote health for ourselves and for the planet.

Sadly, the message herein is probably accurate. The number of people who’re concerned about saving the Twinkie outnumber us healthy-eating tree-huggers by at least 100 to 1. It’s kind of like the news and their tendency to devote the most air time to the least important topics. It’s actually one of Parkinson’s Laws: In group meetings, the time devoted to any topic will be inversely proportional to its value to the organization.

A couple of lessons here—courtesy of D. Carl Garrison (my Houston buddy)

Probably the most powerful major health “special” EVER. Congrats to Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Lesson One. The news media is in the entertainment business and they get paid by the number of viewers/readers they have. Hence, give those readers what they want to hear—not necessarily what’s important. How much news do you hear about how whole plants can reverse heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers?

I can name two or three in the past few years: The Last Heart Attack on CNN (Aug 2011) and a few of the Dr. Oz segments that included Dr. Esselstyn, Campbell, Fuhrman and/or Barnard. But for every one of those “healthy” segments, Dr. Oz will have a dozen segments on the latest weight-loss gimmick.

Lesson Two. If we’re ever going to help preserve our planet’s ability to sustain life as we know it, then we’re going to need some serious leadership. Since we’re not likely to get that leadership from elected officials, the medical industry, academia or the food industry—then we must get it from the world’s most powerful CEOs. They are about the only prominent leaders (affecting millions of people) who have a huge financial incentive for those people to be healthy. See this link (Slashing the cost of health care in businesses) and go from there.

Finally, for your entertainment pleasure on the last day of your 4-day holiday weekend. A silent Saturday Night Live review (2 minutes) that begins with a Paula Broadwell book reading (11-17-12). SNL removed the video portion but I found this clip where you can read the jokes.

So, what is this garbage doing in my blog? It is just part of showing you that I have a sense of humor and that I have occasionally featured a few funnies in some of my previous 658 consecutive daily blogs. Here are a few others:

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 Humor | Tagged | 5 Comments

Special Video Recipes from Katherine Lawrence

Posted on 11/24/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Featuring T. Colin Campbell Foundation/eCornell Plant-Based Nutrition Instructor Team Leader and PCRM Instructor—Katherine Lawrence

Katherine Lawrence

This special blog contains four VegNews videos of Katherine preparing some super-delicious vegan dishes, most of which will come in very handy for holiday dessert ideas.

Some are closer to 4Leaf than others—but none contain ANY animal products, they look great and I recommend that you try them all. First of all, meet Katherine; the following excerpts were taken from her own website at plantbasedhealth.com

She grew up in Louisiana and joined the Air Force after graduating from college as an Aerospace Engineer.  After 4 years on active duty in places like Florida, Kansas, Saudi Arabia and Iraq; she joined Bell Helicopter in Texas, where she resides today.

Not a healthy eater until recently, she has always had a passion for cooking and food —and was once well-known for her strawberry cream cheese pie and chicken & sausage gumbo, two of her favorites. But that was before she learned the powerful truth about plant-based nutrition.

In 2006, Katherine began to have severe abdominal pain.  After several misdiagnoses over 5 months, her doctor determined she had severe endometriosis. He told her there was no cure for endometriosis and she must have surgery to remove it.  Furthermore, she would have to take medicine to put her into early menopause in order to keep it from coming back.  He also advised that she would eventually need a hysterectomy.

But Katherine chose another route—she learned about plant-power to prevent and/or reverse a plethora of food-driven diseases. After 5 weeks on the new diet, she went in for the laproscopy.  As expected, the doctor saw evidence of the scarring and the adhesion around her colon, BUT 95% of the endometriosis was gone.  He was amazed!

How many times have we heard similar stories about medical doctors being amazed when their patients adopt a whole foods, plant-based diet to take charge of their own health?

Katherine began studying nutrition profusely and obtained her certificate in Plant Based Nutrition from The T. Colin Campbell Foundation and eCornell.  She also studied at the world-reknown Kushi Institute in Massachussetts.  In 2008, she was accepted to become an instructor for The Cancer Project, created by PCRM, a national non-profit in Washington, DC.  She is currently an active instructor at the T. Colin Campbell Foundation AND at PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine).

Click on image to visit the book website at thegreatlifecookbook.com

Most recently, she has started doing monthly videos of vegan dishes for VegNews.com There are other dishes featured on the same website but, to my knowledge, the only one doing 100% vegan dishes is Katherine.

The first video features a recipe that she found in The Great Life Cookbook, which was co-authored by one of her T. Colin Campbell Foundation & eCornell fellow instructors, Lewis Freedman.

Now, watch Katherine as she effortlessly prepares this delicious treat:

Vegan Pumpkin Pudding

Moving on, Katherine will now prepare three more dishes, including one main-course and two more deserts. Each video runs about 2 to 5 minutes. Watch for her monthly videos at VegNews.com

Vegan Quinoa and Bean Enchiladas

Vegan Apple Phyllo Pastry

Vegan Chocolate Mousse

You’ll want to bookmark this blog and refer it to your friends and family. Just consider it a Happy Holidays gift from Katherine Lawrence, J. Morris Hicks, and the T. Colin Campbell Foundation. Take a look at the first link below; it is Katherine’s recipe page on VegNews.com. As of January 22, 2013, there were twenty recipes (all with a video link at the bottom of the recipe).  —My 658th consecutive daily blog—

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 Recipes & meals, Video Included | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Flying the “diet-friendly” skies gets easier; says USA Today

Posted on 11/23/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

That was the headline — but “easier” doesn’t necessarily mean healthier.

No, I wasn’t flying Virgin America; I was on Southwest, which wasn’t in the survey.

While flying from Providence to BWI recently, I noticed an article in USA Today that caught my attention. The author graded eleven airlines on a scale of one to five stars. Only two of them got 4 stars or more.

Virgin America at 4.25 stars and Air Canada with 4.0 stars. And since both had healthy choices that featured things like turkey, chicken and yogurt; I that knew the offerings from the other airlines would be worse.

My 4Leaf Breakfast. While reading the article, I enjoyed my own 4Leaf breakfast of sliced pear, orange, banana and strawberries. I had prepared my meal at home and was carrying it in a Ziploc bag. After reaching cruising altitude, I emptied my fresh fruit into my Starbucks cup and used my plastic fork to enjoy the healthiest and tastiest breakfast on the airplane—by far.

My empty Starbucks cup made the perfect container for my 4Leaf Fruit Cup.

Then I decided to research the founder and CEO of Virgin America, Richard Branson. I have always thought of him as an enlightened, creative executive who thinks outside the box—and has been darn successful in taking that road less traveled. A quick internet search revealed that he is a generous man who is quite willing to share his billions with worthy humanitarian and environmental causes.

All of the above convinced me that I should send him a proposal for a 4Leaf for Life health promotion consulting engagement within his vast Virgin empire. He is the kind of guy that others are used to following. When it comes to market research, he just follows his gut to tell him what his customers want. Reminds me a lot of my former boss, Ralph Lauren, in this regard.

My search for that first CEO health promotion client remains my #1 priority—and will stay there until that special executive out there accepts our proposal to totally change the way businesses think about wellness. And by so doing, he/she will plant the seeds for totally changing the way our nation—and the world—thinks about healthcare (disease care). The title of my latest five-page service document is:

Corporate Wellness—The 4Leaf Vision for a Whole New Ballgame

Mr. Richard Branson will be hearing from me soon.

Meanwhile, back to the article in USA Today. Don’t believe the title; you’re not likely to find anything remotely healthy on an airline anytime soon—despite what the CUNY professor says in the article:

The airlines are serving more meals and offering healthier and higher-quality food choices than last, says Charles Stuart Platkin, an assistant professor at CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College in New York who’s assessed airline food’s nutritional value in seven annual surveys.

“A few airlines are realizing that, if they pay attention to food, they can increase customer experience and satisfaction,” says Platkin, who edits the website DietDetective.com. “Calorie-laden, unhealthy, heavy foods have been shown in research to negatively impact mood.”

Virgin America offers the healthiest food in Platkin’s nutritional survey this year. “This airline is off the charts when it comes to focusing on food,” he says.

Needed a “657” airplane today.

If you care about what the other airlines scored, a link to the article is provided below. For more tips on really eating healthy on the road, see the second link. —My 657th consecutive daily blog—

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, Celebrities, Healthy Eating 101 | 4 Comments