One of the very best things we could do to improve our health right now is to eat more sustainably grown plants. Or in the words of Michael Pollan “Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food”Last Feb I met Sean a local GP based in Co. Louth, he had invited me to give a talk at the Plant Based Doctors all Ireland conference at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. He is one of the founders of Plant Based Doctors and these are his words:“It feels like a different lifetime now, not just a few months ago such is the COVID time warp effect. However, I vividly recall the speakers in the morning session detailing how the food we eat has such a profound positive impact on our health, particularly with respect to the chronic diseases I see daily.The speakers reported how the same intervention for our health, a plant-based diet, was also an integral part of not only slowing the destruction of our planet but regenerating it. In a world distorted by social media and fake news, this wonderful symmetry of plants for human and planetary health is powerful, compelling, and lasting.That the supermarket giants discount fresh produce in the first aisle to get me in their door seems generous, and I have to say I have always been happy to indulge their cheap and perfect offerings. However, I am now aware that this is not real life; the hidden costs for all this cheap and perfect produce are taking their toll on our health and our environment.While the obesity epidemic is complex the most interesting aspect of it for me is how the major food companies have hacked our emotions, our vulnerabilities and our pockets to convince us to eat less of what we know is good for us and more of what we know isn’t really food at all; pseudo-food.Long before social media giants were directing our lives, food companies have been the invisible hand putting that bag of crisps, chocolate bars or ready meals in our baskets.I have yet to meet a patient who has wanted to be overweight, or be diabetic or have heart disease, yet despite knowing that food is one of the major drivers of these conditions, making the right dietary food choice has never been harder.We spend very little of our time talking about preventative health, despite obesity now being second only to tobacco as the top risk factor for cancer. While diet has now outstripped tobacco as the number one driver of death and disability worldwide, it is absent from our medical curriculums, our medical meetings and crucially our consultations.The pill as a solution to all ills is the norm of modern healthcare, however just like the shiny supermarkets, it lives in a fictitious world of limitless supply and negligible waste. As our planet is now unable to meet our insatiable consumptive appetite, we face ecological bankruptcy and a global reset as to what the true price of clean water, safe and nutritious food and good health.”We need more doctors like Sean.kenneth
