Participants: Agatha Thrash, Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000177
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00:01 Hello, I'm Agatha Thrash
00:03 a staff Physician at Uchee Pines Institute. 00:07 I think one of the most entertaining and perhaps 00:12 exciting adventures that I have engaged in my life has 00:16 been that of looking into vegetarianism. 00:21 I remember when I was a little girl and though about 00:24 being a vegetarian, I thought well that's very strange 00:27 I never thought I would be one. 00:28 We're going to discuss some aspects of being vegetarian 00:32 in the next half an hour and we hope that you will join us. 00:55 Welcome to 00:57 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute, 01:01 and now here is your host, Dr. Thrash. 01:04 When we began to eat vegetarian cuisine in my home, 01:10 I remember the first thing that we did was simply to start 01:14 cutting down on the intake of meat. 01:17 Then it wasn't very long before we decided that 01:20 we could eat some meals that were completely meatless, 01:25 and so that's what we did. 01:26 We just had a meal that was just a lot of vegetables 01:31 which was very nice anyway, we had grown up that way, 01:35 my husband and I had both grown up on farms 01:37 and on the farm when the vegetable garden starts 01:41 coming in, I remember my mother would sometimes just have a 01:44 table filled with all sorts of vegetables that came from 01:48 our garden. 01:49 We didn't mind at all that there was no meat 01:52 because there was so many delightful vegetables, 01:55 but in my home once we had started cutting down on meat 02:00 then we had a few thing that we had to face. 02:02 Number one was what do we do when we eat out? 02:05 Well we always ate meat when we ate out, because generally 02:09 speaking, you expect that you are going to be served 02:12 meat when you eat out. 02:13 So then one day somebody said to us, why don't you try 02:18 the nice vegetarian cuisine that they have here in 02:21 this restaurant? 02:23 So we tried that and it was delightful, so after that 02:26 we began to look for restaurants that had vegetarian lines 02:31 along their serving area. 02:35 Then as time went by I began to recognize that 02:39 I didn't feel as good when I ate meat. 02:41 So I said to my husband one day, I just don't feel good, 02:45 we were in the Miami airport and we had just eaten a 02:47 Filet Minon, which was really quite good, but I said 02:51 I don't think I will ever eat meat again. 02:53 He said you know I've noticed that I don't feel good 02:57 when I eat meat, and I said yes I've decided 03:00 I am not going to eaten meat any more, 03:02 from that day on, I don't think I've had any meat. 03:05 It wasn't long before the entire household was using 03:10 a meat free diet. 03:11 Now I found that children were a little hard to convince 03:15 at one time or other because they'd think I would like 03:17 to have a hotdog or hamburger, so we began to look for 03:21 substitutes for these and at first we began to lean 03:24 rather heavily on the meat substitutes, but as time went by 03:28 even those we stopped using. 03:30 Now we just talk it up and we recognize a lot of the 03:36 benefits, the heart benefits, the gastrointestinal benefits, 03:41 the benefits for the blood pressure, the protection 03:44 against diabetes, and against poor vision, and 03:47 those kinds of things, so as time has gone by we have 03:51 become more and more convinced of the beauties of the 03:55 vegetarian diet. 03:56 Now one of the problems is, how do you go from preparing 04:00 a meat based diet in your kitchen to preparing a 04:03 totally vegetarian based diet in your kitchen, 04:07 so I've asked Lidia Seda who is a very excellent cook 04:11 and has prepared some very nice things... 04:13 Thank you Lidia for coming today and I'd like you to 04:17 tell us how you prepared some of these very delightful 04:21 things that you have here. 04:22 - Well what we have here is basically just to give everyone 04:26 an idea of what you can have, you can have a lot of 04:29 vegetables, some fruit, and also a mashed potato 04:33 with a gravy dish as well. - Oh, mashed potatoes. 04:35 - Yes, yes, without any butter, without any of the heavy oils 04:41 and heavy fats in them as well. 04:43 - How does one mash potatoes without dairy milk and butter? 04:48 - Well you can use soy milk instead, or you can make 04:52 a cashew milk or any other type of milk and use that instead, 04:57 and that gives a nicer thicker consistency. 04:59 - Sounds as if you can even make a nice potato soup 05:02 just using soy milk and potatoes. 05:04 - Exactly! Maybe a little bit of salt and a little basil. 05:08 - I can envision that you might even make a potato soufflé 05:11 in the same way. - Exactly! 05:12 - Potatoes that are maybe something like par-boiled 05:15 and some onions that are chopped there an maybe 05:17 braised a little bit before you put them on, pour soy milk 05:21 over it and put it in the oven and bake it. 05:23 It makes my mouth water just to think of it. 05:26 - Very simple and it doesn't take all that much time 05:30 I think many times now-a-days people don't take time to eat 05:34 well and to prepare, and fast foods are what people 05:38 have in mind, but it is not nutritious foods. 05:41 - Yes, I always wonder what people are going to do 05:43 with the time that they save in fast food places because 05:47 what is more important than taking care of the food that 05:53 we eat, because we think with the food that we eat, 05:56 we sing with the food we eat, we pray with the food we eat, 05:58 we do everything that we are going to do with the food 06:02 that we eat. - Exactly! 06:03 May times I tell people, we may spend a little more time 06:07 in preparation if you are not accustomed to preparing, 06:10 especially if you are accustomed to eating out all the time. 06:12 But you may save a lot more money on doctor bills 06:15 and the time that you spend in the doctor's office as well, 06:18 and time that you loose from work, and money that you may 06:22 lose because you may have to be out of work. 06:25 In the long run, taking care of yourself, you have 06:28 better health and you will save some time and 06:31 some money as well. 06:32 - You know Lidia, it is true that at first you will 06:36 probably spend more time in the kitchen cooking 06:38 the vegetarian things than you've been accustomed to 06:41 cooking the familiar meat dishes... - Exactly! 06:44 because you are learning. - But I can assure you 06:47 that I don't spend all day in the kitchen. 06:49 I enjoy cooking but that is not my favorite activity, 06:53 so I go to the kitchen and cook and it's done. 06:57 Or if I am going to cook I may cook enough for 3 or 4 07:00 meals, and then I freeze the rest and I have just a portion 07:06 that we are going to have for that meal. 07:07 - Just like any other cook that is used to cooking 07:09 would prepare and then store some and freeze some 07:13 and have some for later on. 07:15 Those are the same principals. - Same principals. - Exactly! 07:17 - And the same principals for preparing a menu. 07:20 I remember when I was using meat as the meat based diet, 07:24 it was the meat, something green, something yellow, 07:27 a bread, a spread, a beverage, and that was the meal. 07:31 - Exactly! Exactly! - It is exactly the same way 07:34 a main dish, a cooked dish, a raw dish, a bread and spread 07:37 and if anybody needs it you've got water 07:41 as a beverage and you have the meal. 07:44 - Exactly! The nice thing about this is that it is low 07:47 protein, and... 07:50 - Low in protein now that's... - Yes it is. 07:51 - I didn't expect... - Ohhh, that is a curve ball 07:55 that I just threw in there. - Because most nutritionists 07:58 don't say low protein, they say high, now 08:01 why do you say low in protein? 08:05 - We have to recognize that humans don't necessarily need 08:10 the same amount of proteins that other species do 08:12 and we can see that especial with the younger species, 08:17 babies, when they are growing and a human baby let's 08:21 say needs about 1.2 mg per liter of calcium to be able 08:29 to double it's birth weight in about 120 days, 08:31 and a calf would need about 3.3 mg of calcium, excuse me, 08:37 of protein per liter to be able to double it's birth weight 08:41 in about 47 days, and a cat may need about 7.5- 9.5 mg 08:51 of protein to be able to double it's birth weight 08:53 in about 7 days. 08:55 So depending on the species is the need for protein. 09:00 - As specific as the finger print, is the quantity of the 09:05 protein in the mother's milk. 09:07 - Exactly! 09:08 - To make the little animal do exactly what the creator 09:12 wanted it to do. - To be able for it to grow. 09:15 - So you mean once we get grown then we are not 09:17 going to need so much protein any more? 09:19 - Exactly! - So we don't need milk 09:20 any more? - Exactly! 09:21 Well what happens is, once the child is weaned the 09:26 the best thing that they wean from is the mother's milk 09:29 if possible, and after that they can have soy milk 09:33 or nut milks if you want to continue giving them 09:36 certain types of milk that would be fine. 09:38 What happens is many times after they are weaned 09:41 if the mother is breast feeding they receive cows milk 09:46 so the nutrition that the calf might need goes to the infant 09:52 who doesn't have the same needs and so the child grows 09:56 much quicker than maybe need be, and accelerated 10:00 growth also contributes to accelerated time when 10:04 they come to puberty at a much earlier age as well. 10:07 - And that is undesirable. - Undesirable, exactly. 10:09 What they have found also that accelerated aging 10:13 will cause accelerated death and certain diseases 10:17 that are degenerative, like diabetes, arthritis, 10:20 even cancers. 10:22 The idea is like putting a log into a fire place 10:27 in comparison to putting wood shavings, 10:30 which ones would burn up faster? 10:32 The wood shavings of course. 10:34 So the idea is putting something into the body that the body 10:37 needs, and we have to know the needs of the body as well. 10:40 Another experiment that they did with men, they gave them 10:45 about 1,400 mg calcium and then they gave them protein, 10:52 they had 2 different groups, one group had about 48 10:57 grams of protein, the other group had about 142 grams 11:03 of protein, and what they found in these two groups 11:06 even though they had the same amount of calcium 11:08 that the group that had the lower amount of protein 11:11 was able to retain more calcium, about 10 mg of calcium. 11:16 But the group that had the high amount of protein 11:21 they actually were losing about 84 mg of calcium. 11:25 - I see what you are saying the higher your protein intake 11:29 the more calcium you are going to be loosing. 11:31 - Exactly! 11:33 - So if you have a high protein diet you must have 11:35 a high calcium diet to... and hope that you can hold on 11:40 to some of it. - Exactly! 11:41 So what happens over a period of time, this can cause 11:44 osteoporosis, it's a thinning of the bones. 11:48 So having a high protein diet is not necessary and 11:52 a vegetarian will get a good 75 grams of protein 11:56 per day and what the RDA recommends for men is about 12:01 54 grams, and for women is about 45 grams of protein 12:05 and that's well over the required amount. 12:08 Cause I understand Dr. Agatha that you've even recommended 12:12 at times that if we are eating a good balanced diet 12:15 that maybe even 20- 25 grams of protein would be suffice 12:20 and many other doctors feel the same way. 12:21 - It suffices but probably nobody ever achieves 12:26 that low a level. - Yes, it's really hard to do. 12:28 - Really hard to do because when we were trying to get 12:32 our kidney patients on a low protein diet, 12:35 maybe around 20 grams of protein per day 12:38 we had to go to such extreme measures as giving them 12:42 starch crackers and forget any kind of unrefined food 12:50 we were trying to refine out all the protein that we can 12:54 and give them just very refined things, lots of oil, 12:57 and things of that nature, just to keep their calories up. 13:00 - Even on a vegetarian diet to have a protein level 13:03 that is that low anyway. - But if you have well 13:06 selected protein 20- 25 grams is usually enough for a person 13:11 in a day, but none of us is able to achieve such a low level 13:16 unless we take special measures. 13:18 - Exactly! And another wonderful thing about a good vegetarian 13:21 diet is that it is high in fiber, and many of you have 13:25 heard fiber being totaled, and it should be totaled, 13:29 it should be totaled up well and high because they have found 13:32 that individuals that consume anywhere from 25- 35 grams 13:36 of fiber per day can reduce their risk of cancers. 13:43 Also now they are finding is that anyone who eats about 13:46 50 grams to 100 grams of fiber per day will actually reduce 13:53 their chances of acquiring diabetes as well. 13:56 The average American consumes about 15% of their diet in fiber 14:01 which is quite low, and it's because many of the foods 14:05 that the average American eats, or individuals of an affluent 14:09 societies is high in fat, high in cholesterol, but very low 14:14 in fiber, empty calories. 14:16 - That's to bad. Now I see here that you have 14:20 this as if you were intending this to be a main dish. 14:25 - Yes I am. - This potato, and you have 14:28 what kind of gravy is this on it? 14:30 - A cashew gravy. - A cashew gravy. 14:31 Well that would be in protein, of course that is not a lot, 14:36 that you don't have a lot of gravy. 14:37 - No I don't. - So it's not a huge amount 14:41 of cashews and we want to keep cashews down because 14:44 they are a rather concentrated food. 14:46 So you've got potatoes and cashew gravy and that's 14:49 a main dish. - It is a main dish. 14:51 - That's good, I'm glad to know that because you know 14:54 potatoes are so freely available everywhere 14:57 and if I could have this as a main dish then I have a yellow 15:00 vegetable or a green vegetable, and what you have here 15:05 a vegetable platter. - A vegetable platter. 15:06 What is in the middle of the vegetable platter? 15:09 - The vegetable platter has a soy mayonnaise 15:14 that we have made. 15:16 - Uhuh, soy mayonnaise, ahh, that smells good. 15:23 Does it have maybe a little bit of garlic in it? 15:25 - A little garlic, it has onion as well and it is 15:30 quite simple and if any of you would like to know how 15:33 to prepare this recipe, then let me share with you how you 15:36 can get a hold of it, it is: 15:42 then you press links, then you go to Uchee Pines and that's 15:47 UCHEE the word PINES, and if you are interested 15:53 in some of the other recipes that we have here 15:55 I would like to share them with you and the ingredients are 15:58 as follows: 16:22 And another recipe that we have here that I would like 16:24 to share with you is a broccoli salad. 16:27 - Oh that looks very simple but very nice. 16:30 - It's very nice, that spring onion there, some fresh cut 16:34 garlic cloves, and they can be steamed a little bit 16:37 so it takes away a little bit of the bite, and this is some 16:41 raw broccoli and again you can steam it just a little bit 16:44 if you like, but sometimes it is a good idea to have some 16:47 raw vegetables in your meal. 16:49 - And if they are nice and tender I like them just raw. 16:52 - Exactly! 16:53 - Do you have a recipe for this? - Yes I do! 16:55 For those of you who are interested the ingredients for 16:58 the Broccoli Salad is as follows: 17:20 - So you just put all this together? 17:22 - That's it, it is very simple. 17:24 - Yes, I can see myself just sort of sprinkling this 17:26 and sprinkling this and just tossing it in just no time. 17:31 - I think when someone sits down to this type of meal 17:34 they've prepared, something that is simple, 17:37 something they know that is nutritious, and also 17:39 something they feel like they actually benefitting 17:42 their bodies by what they are eating. 17:44 I think it just gives a sense of importance when we 17:47 think in the Bible that the Lord says we are fearfully 17:50 and wonderfully made, and I think we should eat according 17:52 to that principal. 17:53 - Absolutely, we need to recognize that this equipment 17:57 that we have is not just any kind of old equipment, 18:01 this is a very special machine that we are dealing with 18:06 and of course we want to take good care of it. 18:09 There are a number of things that we can talk about 18:12 concerning the vegetarian cuisine and to understand 18:16 just what to leave out has been quite a trial, 18:19 but the next thing that I would like for us to do is 18:22 to have Don Miller join me here and to tell you some things 18:27 that I think will be very helpful to you... 18:30 are you going to talk to us about precocious puberty 18:33 Don Miller? 18:34 - A little bit. - This is Don Miller, 18:35 who is a Lifestyle Counselor at Uchee Pines. 18:38 - You know, usually when we think of the word precocious 18:41 we think of in a very positive way. 18:44 If a child is precocious, we think that they could talk to us 18:48 intelligently, they play well with other children, 18:51 they seem to have a little bit more social graces. 18:54 I find that many home schooled children seem to be a little bit 18:58 more precocious because they are allowed to expand 19:01 their minds, these I think are very good things. 19:03 It's the precocious physical development which leads to 19:08 a precocious chemical development in the body 19:11 which I feel is very dangerous in today's society. 19:15 We see precocious children growing up today, 19:18 you see them waddling into the first years of school looking 19:22 like Suma wrestlers already, and I think that is a problem 19:26 with that much development in a child. 19:28 This comes about mainly from the habit of overeating 19:33 and the overuse of animal foods. 19:35 Over eating is something that is very common in children, 19:39 it's a habit that a child gets into either forcing a child 19:43 to finish what's on the plate, what you put on the plate 19:45 for them, and you can't leave the table until you eat it. 19:48 Or putting a lot of food on their plate and saying, 19:51 if you finish everything you have you can have dessert. 19:53 Both of those things are going to make a child overeat, 19:56 and overeating will advance the child's metabolism 20:01 to the point where it will really slow it down and make 20:03 him start growing larger, and then all the animal 20:06 foods that we put into a child. 20:08 Which we can see now days they could not have even of 20:12 questioned that they had all the hormones, 20:14 growth hormones into food because we want to make the 20:17 animals grow fast, because the faster the animals grow 20:19 the sooner we get them to market. 20:21 The trouble is, the thing called bio-magnification 20:25 all these hormones in the animal the child is putting into 20:28 their body, and this child all of a sudden starts growing 20:31 as fast as that cow does, and pretty soon hormones 20:35 are shooting out through that child and the child 20:37 is not ready to handle these changes in their bodies. 20:40 I think it is a very sad thing that we see in the children. 20:44 - Yes it is, and of course we do know that the more rapidly 20:48 a child matures, the more rapidly he is going to go into 20:52 the senile decline, and of course that is something that 20:56 we don't want at all with our children. 20:58 I have here a kidney, which I would like to show you, 21:04 it's a plastic model but it shows fairly well the way 21:08 that the kidney actually looks internally. 21:11 I think that the kidney is one of the most beautiful 21:13 of our internal organs, we might think that is a little 21:16 strange, but it is so regular, everything about it is so neat. 21:22 The little lines that go here can be seen with the naked eye, 21:27 just as you can see them here, these are called medullary rays 21:31 and out here in this sort of pinkish part, that is the cortex 21:37 and this is really the business part of the kidneys. 21:41 This is where the urine is formed, 21:43 this is also where the blood is purified, this is where 21:47 our minerals are balanced. 21:49 An enormous amount of activity goes on right here, 21:53 this is why when a person has a problem with the kidneys, 21:57 they cannot live without the kidneys. 22:00 Of course we can take out a number of organs and people 22:02 can live without those, but you can't take out the kidneys 22:05 and live, you can take out one and then the other kidney 22:09 fortunately can overgrow and supply it's place. 22:13 What we want to do when we think about the kidney is to 22:18 do those things that will protect it: 22:20 Drinking lots of water is one thing, one very important thing, 22:23 not eating to much protein is another very important thing 22:27 and a vegetarian diet is usually helpful with both of those. 22:31 It provides more water, and it also provides a lower protein 22:36 meal for satisfaction of our appetites and still does not 22:42 give us to much protein. 22:43 Another thing, a lot of vegetarian foods are soy based 22:48 and soy protein has a protective effect for this part out here 22:54 that I told you was the business part of the kidneys, 22:57 the cortex, the kidney cortex, and this protein actually 23:02 has a healing and protective benefit. 23:05 If you form a stone, the stone is going to form probably 23:09 somewhere at the tip of these little pyramids and you can see 23:14 that there is then an opening which is somewhat like a funnel, 23:17 here it is, it is cut away right here and there you can see the 23:23 funnel part, and then the little stone forms there, falls down 23:29 into the pelvis of the kidney, then goes down the ureter 23:34 all the way down to the bladder. 23:37 Now kidney stones are also more likely to be formed in people 23:42 who eat a lot of animal protein and in people who drink a lot 23:45 of soft drinks, they are more likely to get kidney stones 23:50 and then have to treat your kidney stones becomes a serious 23:55 problem, and maybe an extremely expensive problem as well. 23:59 So in many ways the vegetarian cuisine is very protective, 24:06 very helpful for people who are willing to adapt it. 24:10 Now there is a downside to the meat problem, the meat industry 24:18 that we need to discuss somewhat, which may help you 24:22 if you were sort of teetering on the fence of whether to be 24:24 a vegetarian or not. If you know the downside 24:27 it may help you to be a vegetarian which as a 24:30 physician, I feel very free to promote for people so Don Miller 24:36 is going to talk with you a little bit about some toxins 24:40 in animals. 24:41 - I am going to just limit it to fish because of the amount 24:45 of time remaining, but I want to read to you a section 24:48 out of the clean water act and here is what it says. 24:52 This is always what we believed I'm afraid that we passed down, 24:57 dilution is the solution to pollution. 25:00 Chemicals dumped in mixing zones can include mercury, 25:04 BCB's, Chlordane, BCC, Dioxin, and Matrix, as well as 25:10 many other chemicals, so basically what they are saying 25:13 there are places in water which are called mixing zones, 25:16 and we are allowed to dump toxins into these mixing zones 25:19 it is allowed by the Clean Water Act. 25:21 Now what happens, we've got these chemicals in the water. 25:24 In the water we have fish, now what I want to do is 25:27 show you over here at the white board... 25:29 I want to show you a little study they did in the 25:31 Long Island Sound in 1968. 25:36 Basically you've got this water that's all the run off from the 25:41 land where you've got all kinds of chemicals and whatever else 25:44 flowing into the water. 25:46 Basically your zooplankton, plankton, the little plants 25:49 that live in the water are absorbing the little animals 25:52 that live in the water are accumulating these toxins 25:57 in their little bodies about 800 times. 26:01 This is what we call bio-accumulation at the first 26:05 level of the food chain its about that much, 26:10 now we've got some fish swimming through the water 26:13 eating the zooplankton, so they will in their little bodies 26:18 about 31 times accumulation. 26:22 So they are going to eat this and all the chemicals 26:26 that we might have in the water will be accumulated in their 26:30 fat cells, and then fish number two eats fish number one, 26:34 and that takes up about another 1.7 times from this fish, 26:38 1.7 times. So what we have to do is 26:40 multiply this times this, times this. 26:44 Now the next step we go to is the sea gull who eats this fish, 26:48 it takes up about 4.8 times, if you multiply all this 26:55 together, it comes out to about 202,368 times what is was 27:02 when it first came into the water. 27:04 This is what happens when we eat an animal, a fish, 27:08 this is what happens when we eat the fish. 27:10 All the toxins that have been going into this water from 27:14 the runoff and the sewage, from the factories and the ships 27:17 that flow through the water are accumulating slowly 27:20 but surely through the food chain, until finally we're 27:23 taking in fantastic amounts of these very deadly chemicals 27:30 in our bodies, so my thoughts are it is not time to be a 27:33 fish-o-vegetarian, its time to be a strict vegetarian leaving 27:37 off of all animal products Dr. Thrash. 27:39 - Well, I can tell you, you have convinced me and although 27:43 I used to enjoy fish, I don't think I ever will again. 27:46 Thank you so much for presenting these things to us, 27:50 and with all of this we do hope that you will consider 27:54 affirm being a vegetarian. |
Revised 2014-12-17