A burger a day will kill you, basically, was the big health news this week. And since burgers are no friend of the environment, carnivores who cut back on red meat will be saving both themselves and the planet. Which begs the question (at least for me): If too many burgers can be so deadly, how, um, lively(?) can an anti-burger diet be?
The answer of sorts to that question comes from 6 diabetics who volunteered to drastically their eating habits, going on all vegan, all raw diet for 30 days in an effort to reverse their disease, and having their experiences turned into a newly-released documentary, Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days (trailer below).
So — Does eating raw reverse a disease that, according to the American Medical Association, “has no cure”? The answer, as I interpret the film, is yes, but….
Let’s start with the yes part. The raw food diet yields rather miraculous results for the six people — ranging from a healthy-looking 20-something grad student to a 30-something mother and receptionist to a retired chiropractor with little sensation left in his feet. We watch as all six people’s blood sugar levels and blood pressures drop rapidly to normal levels, even as they stop taking insulin and prescription drugs.
The achievement’s especially astounding considering the fact that the diabetics can eat all they want — including chocolatey desserts — so long as the food’s raw. At the end of the 30 days, the participants talk about their weight loss, their feelings of health, and their improved mood and energy levels. The chiropractor tears up, saying he’s been given a second chance at life.
But here comes the but part. To participate in this raw experiment, the 6 diabetics were flown in to The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona, where junk food doesn’t exist, where a variety of gourmet raw foods are prepared for them multiple times a day, where constant medical supervision and psychological encouragement is offered by the staff, where fellow diabetics also going raw have all the free time in the world to chat, commiserate, and push each other.
That sort of setting, as you know, is nothing like the real world.
In fact, even in the pristine, isolated setting of The Tree of Life, real life still sneaks in to disrupt the raw experiment. After all, we’re dealing with real people here — Real people with ingrained habits, problems, and addictions. One young dude’s clearly got some alcohol and depression issues. He’s unable to stay off the sauce and ends up sneaking booze into the center, messing up his stats for the experiment and ending up remorseful, repeatedly talking about how he doesn’t “deserve” to be part of the experiment. Another older man successfully brings down all his stats into the normal range — but gets so depressed that he stops getting out of bed and drops out of the program, saying his brain’s rejecting the food, health be damned.
Which is to say that the true experiment really only begins when the diabetics leave the center to return to their lives at home. Because really, even if the diabetics’ regular doctors at home may not have preached an all raw vegan diet, surely those docs must have conveyed to their patients that cutting back on sugary processed unhealthy food is necessary to control diabetes. And clearly, the diabetics must’ve found those directions difficult to follow under the pressures of real life — which is why they decided to try the center in the first place.
And as you might have suspected, when Simply Raw catches up with the six a few months after the end of the 30 days, most seem to have fallen at least partially off the raw and/or healthy eating wagon. The film’s descriptions of the diabetics’ “new” lives are positive in tone but extremely vague, in the vein of “She has kept most of the weight off.” There are few specific details about what sort of diet the participants were able to maintain, or how their blood pressure and sugar levels are holding up.
That’s not to say that the lessons in Simply Raw aren’t valuable. I’m sure that some diabetics, shown visual proof that a permanent diet change can get them off insulin and meds, will muster up both the willpower and resources to really give healthy eating a serious go. One of the six in Simply Raw got so gung ho about the raw diet that he’s now in medical school, with the goal to use his knowledge about food to help other diabetics in the future.
And certainly, a film like Simply Raw might help shift our nation’s thinking both in terms of preventing and managing diabetes, a disease that costs us millions each year. At the moment, the effort to reverse diabetes naturally is still a fringe movement — though a RDN website does make it easy for those interested to join the cause.
For those who tend to think of the raw food movement as a mere fad: While Simply Raw does focus on the raw diet, the film isn’t against cooked food. Before leaving the center, the participants are even given a cooking lesson for creating healthy cooked dishes. Simply Raw also includes interviews with Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame, Woody Harrelson, and other celebrities and experts. The DVD’s available for $26.99 on Amazon.
The connection between vegan diet and reduction in risk of getting diabetes was one of the things that caught my attention when I first started taking interest in vegetarianism. Diabetes runs in my family really bad, my father passed away from diabetes related complications. I’m glad this is getting more mainstream attention because I don’t think many people realize just how powerful a vegan diet can be for both prevention and management of this disease.
Gary Kavanagh’s last blog post..Gone Racing
Comment by Gary Kavanagh — March 28, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
I was talking about food with my mom last week. She has diabetes and my dad has had trouble with clogged arteries. They have had to make some drastic changes to their diets in recent years. Like most people who are faced with these drastic measures while cooking for themselves, they backslide a little bit.
Martin’s last blog post..Reusable Bag Roundup
Comment by Martin — March 29, 2009 @ 2:14 am
I can certainly attest to feeling better, or livelier like you say, on a less-burger diet. I’ve learned about raw and living foods after the sudden death of my aunt over 3 years ago.
Since then I’ve been eating predominantly raw vegan and helping others do the same for their health and improved vitality!
I agree with your observation: it’s hard to continue healthy eating habits in the face of our “everyday” environment. I believe we’re at a point where we need to change the environment, because it is killing us!
Nathalie Lussier’s last blog post..Go Raw or Die Trying?
Comment by Nathalie Lussier — March 29, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
There are two types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. In type 2, which is more common, the body has difficulty using the insulin it produces. Changing one’s diet can certainly help people with type 2 diabetes have better blood sugar while taking less insulin.
My son has type 1 diabetes. He was diagnosed at age 4. Please know that the causes of type 1 are genetic, and have nothing to do with one’s diet. In type 1, the body stops producing insulin completely. No matter how well one eats, one’s blood sugar cannot be controlled without taking insulin injections. There are of course many other reasons to eat healthy, which my son generally does. (It’s his younger diabetes-free brother who has the sweet tooth.)
I just wanted to help your readers understand the difference between the two types of diabetes, and to know that this documentary apparently only deals with people who have type 2.
Danny Bradfield’s last blog post..Boy Scout Nature Hike
Comment by Danny Bradfield — March 30, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Actually, one young man in the film does have type 1 diabetes – And Gabriel Cousens’ book, There Is a Cure For Diabetes, addresses the type 1 condition and provides hope. Although I agree it’s genetic, so were my two, 1-inch gallstones diagnosed at age 26, ‘inherited’ from my mother. However, today (without surgery) I’m gallstone free. Although, diabetes is a much more dangerous disease, I healed by changing my diet (first) and then changing my belief systems (second) – as doctors (and my mother!) urged me repeatedly to have my gallbladder removed. But what I learned from this experience is that we inherit dis-ease through our DNA by way of beliefs systems pasted down through generations from our ancestors that manifest in the body.
The type 1 diabetes did significantly reduce his insulin and he did get off medication, but not insulin. However, he also had an alcohol addiction and it was found that he drank throughout the experiment. If he had not, he too may have been completely drug-free. We must believe, especially in these times, that curing anything is possible. Although our allopathic doctors have provided much progress – there are other doctors and healers (Theta Healing, for example) out there that offer new hope (and whose services can support or help bring to medical treatments) and it would benefit us keep an open mind, suspend our belief systems, experiment with other healing modalities, change our diets, and open our hearts so that we can be free of our reliance on prescription drugs. It is time for us to take responsibility for own healing and to teach our children to do the same.
Comment by Jara Fairchild — March 31, 2009 @ 10:33 am
Great job green L.A. girl. Actually I have seen people be able to reverse diabetes (1 & 2) by eating just about any plant based diet. There are books like reversing diabetes and macrobiotic literature that also have dramatic results that have been documented. You are absolutely right that it is really a commitment to ones well being by changing over to healthier foods. I love seeing the absolute miraculous changes that take place for people with even minor adjustments….www.susanmarque.com
Comment by Susan Marque — March 31, 2009 @ 6:43 pm
Hey Jara, could you tell me how you got rid of gallstones without surgery? My aunt has those and she will be getting surgery soon. please tell me so that she does not have to go through this surgery. U can mail me at aaroohii@yahoo.com
Comment by aaroohii — April 1, 2009 @ 9:56 pm