A Delicious Heart Healthy Lunch at the Home of Dr. Caldwell B. & Ann Esselstyn - A Nitric Oxide Booster Shot

Lovely Collard Wraps




Kale Lemon Sandwiches

Last Wednesday I lunched at the home of Dr. Caldwell B. and Ann Esselstyn, Jr.--the well known heart-disease-prevention-and-reversal-through-diet experts.

I owe my lunch date at the Esselstyn's to the Power of Talking to Strangers.  Last June I heard Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. speak for an hour on my NPR affiliate about  How to Eradicate Heart Disease  and I was so impressed I summarized his talk & posted it on my blog:  Yes, You Can Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease, But Are You Up for the Challenge?  Let Dr. Esselstyn Convince You.   If you need a refresher, it's well worth your time to read it!

I had so many visitors to my post about Dr. Esselstyn that sometime in November when I happened to see Ann Esselstyn (I knew who she was--she had no idea who I was) I went over to her, introduced myself and told her how many fans she and her husband had from all over the world.

Soon after that Ann started reading my blog and chided me every time she saw oil in any of my recipes.

"You know, that's not at all necessary,"  she'd say.  

"Yes, I know, but...,"  I'd sheepishly replied.

Now every time I post a recipe I know Ann will be scrutinizing it, because she has over 20 years of experience teaching heart disease patients how to prepare delicious food that will prevent and reverse heart disease. 

And that means:

• Vegetables-lots of green leafy ones to restore & heal the endothelial lining of your blood vessels.  Kale, Swiss Chard, Cilantro, Collards, Bok Choy, Parsley, Spinach, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower
• Whole fruit
• Whole grains
• Beans/Legumes; "light" tofu--cautious use of low-fat soy meat substitutes. Many are highly processed, high-fat junk food.

No animal protein--eggs, dairy, meat, chicken or fish
No added oils.

It seems tough, maybe impossible to some--compared to what most of us eat--but once you get used to it, and start feeling so great, there's no going back. 

Besides, if you had to choose between major heart surgery, with all its attendant risks, a lifetime of medication, and the constant fear of another cardiac event OR cleaning up your diet-act with an artery-cleaning plant-based diet, what would you choose?

And now the Esselstyn's are on a mission--to get me to ditch any fat and any animal protein still remaining in my diet.  The pressure is on!

So, How Was Lunch?

Our lunch was fantastic!  The food was delicious & exotic.  Dr. Esselstyn and Ann are warm and gracious hosts, with so much to say about the importance of eating clean & green.  They truly walk their talk and you can't help but want to switch to a plant-based diet after meeting them.

They are in their mid-seventies and if their way of eating is the reason for their vitality, I'm signing up!
They're fit, athletic, energetic, brilliant, calm (yes, I noticed that), funny, with stick-straight posture to boot!

Ann practices yoga, weight trains & runs.  Dr. E swims, weight trains & bikes.

Honestly, anyone who would want to advocate for a diet of meat, milk, cheese, fat, and processed grains wouldn't stand a chance against these two!

What Was On The Menu?

Appetizers:  We started out with the sushi-style appetizers you see above, the Lovely Collard Wraps. They are filled with tahini-free hummus, green onions, cilantro, red pepper, cucumbers, shredded carrots & lemon.  Fantastic!  For a copy of Ann's Lovely Collard Wraps click here!

Soup:  Silly me, I never even asked what was in this hearty delicious soup, or what it was called. We were too busy talking by that time!  I just ate & enjoyed.  It was thick with vegetables & perhaps quinoa or couscous.  I'll have to find out! Full of flavor, but without extra salt.

Sandwiches:  I loved the Kale/Lemon Sandwiches.  A toasted whole-grain pumpernickel slice piled high with steamed kale, tahini-free hummus, green onions, cilantro, thinly sliced lemon (a great kicky addition), tomato and sprinkled with lemon-pepper.  For a copy of Ann's Kale/Lemon Sandwiches click here!

Dessert:  A fresh fruit salad with mint and Ann's cookie experiments (she's always making up new recipes)--one with chopped dates & one with chopped ginger.  I confessed that I had sworn off sugar, but I had to have just a little taste.  Much better than I expected for a no-oil whole grain cookie.

The Leftovers:  I was sent home with 2 leftover wraps, one kale sandwich & 1 cookie.  My husband & my friend Franny carefully cut them in half and gobbled them up. Their review?  Delicious!

The Esselstyn Family

What's the acid test, here?  Are the Esselstyn's adult kids on board with the plant-based diet? 

 

Absolutely!  That includes Jane, Ted, Zeb & Rip & the grandkids.  And all of them great cooks, as well.

Jane, a former teacher who is now a super-busy mother of 3 going full-time to nursing school, joined us mid-way through our lunch.  Here's an example of her "plant-based" energy.  She has just gotten off of a 12 hour shift at the emergency room of a hospital on the other side of town. 

We just had a freak snow storm that dumped at least 10 more inches of snow that morning.  She stops at the grocery store, shovels her drive, jumps in the shower & heads over to her parents to join us for lunch.  Her 3 kids will soon be home & she's got a million things yet to do.  Not many people have that kind of stamina.  Most of us would have headed straight home to bed before the kids arrived home--and the heck with shoveling snow!  Not Jane.

And yes, I just had to ask her, "So, what do you eat?  Are you following the same diet as your parents?"

Answer:  Mostly, yes.  She's plant-based, no animal protein, but, since she's also been eating heart-healthy for over 20 years, she doesn't begrudge herself occasional chocolate or nuts.  And her kids?  They eat like their parents, but when they go to a birthday party, of course they eat cake.

And then there's Rip Esselstyn, the soon-to-be-famous author of The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds.  He's a vegan and a tri-athlete and with over 20 years of plant-based eating under his belt--his heart & arteries are healthier than most of the competitors in his age group, which puts him at a distinct athletic  advantage.

If you're in your 20's, 30's, or 40's and heart disease isn't something you spend much time thinking about, I'd advise you to take a look at Rip's book when it comes out at the end of February.  He's a little more diet-flexible than his physician-researcher father.  Rip says, "Try it for 28 days and see how you feel."  The firefighters in Engine 2 are on board.

Dr. Esselstyn's Advice on Keeping Your Heart & Blood Vessels Healthy

1. Pay attention to the conclusions of Dr. Lewis Kuller's  (University of Pittsburgh) decade long cardiovascular health study. You are not immune from heart disease:  "All males who are 65 years of age and all females who are 70 years old who have been exposed to the typical Western diet already have cardiovascular disease and should be treated as such."

2. The truth is that cardiovascular disease needn't ever exist.  It's absolutely a toothless paper tiger.  But if it does exist, it needn't ever progress, as long as you are willing to change completely to an oil-free plant-based diet.

3. The basic understanding we all need to accept is that with every meal of oil, dairy or meat we eat, within minutes there is damage & injury to the "life jackets" of our vascular health--which is the single layer of endothelial cells that line all of our blood vessels. The endothelial cells produce the "magical gas" called nitric oxide which keeps our blood vessels relaxed, prevents our white blood cells & platelets from becoming sticky and prevents the growth of plaque--the dread "hardening of the arteries".

4.  And what can you eat to insure that your endothelial cells will have the raw materials to produce this healing nitric oxide?  Beans & leafy greens.  Load up on kale, collard, chard, bok choy & beans and you will be well on your way to healing the lining of your blood vessels.

5.  On the positive side--as soon as we stop eating these damaging foods--the endothelial cells have the capacity for restoration.

6.  Switching to a plant-based diet trumps every other lifestyle modification you can make.  It trumps exercise and it trumps stress management.  Both are important--but diet is the trump card. 

7.  Switching to a plant-based diet even trumps the genetics card.  As Essesylstyn says, "Genetics only loads the gun--it's diet that pulls the trigger."

To Read More About Dr. Esselstyn, check out Mark Sutton's Esselstyn interview.
To Read Esselstyn's views on oil, click here.

Comments

[D]

Vegan diets are an interesting, albeit somewhat radical, experiment--there are few known precedents in human history of vegan diets that produced robust health.
In one study of 229 hunter-gatherer societies,* not one subsisted on an exclusively non-animal-based diet (and it has been well-documented that these peoples tend not to have diseases of civilization, so if it is meats that are causing diseases, it's not the meats themselves but something that we moderns are doing to the meats. But there's pretty good reason to believe that it's not the meats in the first place.).
On a vegan diet: Where does the vitamin K2-MK4 come from? How about the vitamin D3 (sun, if you can get it, but where else)? What about the vitamin A (some from beta carotene, but the conversion rate is low)? And the omega-3s (you can get some from the ALA in flaxseed, but the conversion rate to EPA and DHA is low)?

Also, as a diabetic, I feel compelled to note that this diet will, in most cases, cause blood glucose levels to rise. Grains and legumes will cause elevated glucose levels, as will fruits. What is there left to eat? One can only eat so many vegetables.

* http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/71/3/682?ijkey=KPJ8NPKvC6lVQ

[Beverly]

I read the book by Dr. Esselstyn. The book was persuasive, but it was the recipes that clinched the deal for me.

A year ago, I could not walk around the block - BAD knee pain. I was 5 foot 1 inch and weighed over 180 pounds. As of that time, I had a "healthy" diet: whole grain bread, brown rice, rarely ate meat, had salmon once or twice a week, used only olive oil. Switched to a more plant based diet and doing Pilates three times a week, but after 6 months started gaining again. Read Dr. E's book, and started using his diet - but sometimes eat nuts or avocado. Kept doing Pilates. Lost more weight. I have now lost over 35 pounds and last weekend walked 2 - 3 miles!

I'm a believer.

[joann]

the first comment mentioned grains and legumes caused sugar elevations in diabetics...that is simply not true...i am also a diabetic and on this diet, immediately, my sugars lowered and i am only on a third of the diabetic pills i was on originally, my dr says eventually, i wont be on any diabetic medication....my diabetic dr. is extremely impressed with this diet and the weight i have lost being on it......i love it.......unfortunately , i fall off it ever so often and i really feel the difference in how i feel and how much energy i have....but then i get right back on it..a nd feel better....

[Brenda]

Reading the post by D, I felt compelled to comment and correct the information being presented.

There is nothing experimental about vegan diets. Read the book "The China Study" or "The Blue Zones" and you will see that not only have there always been societies that ate vegan, but that they were free of our Western diseases that are do prevalanet today (diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer, etc). In the US the 7th Day Adventists have been researched for decades now because they live longer than other Americans and are much healthier and they do not eat meat.

Secondly as far as diabetes, Dr Neal Barnard wrote the book, literally on reversing diabetes with a vegan diet. Not only will it reverse diabetes, but also prevent it.

If you have rice with vegetables or lentils or even a little lemon juice, the GI is lowered quite a lot. Enough to prevent disease.

Vitmain K is in leafy greens. Vitamin D hopefully you are getting some sun or take a D2 supplement (which works just as well as D3 if you take it at a normal dose regularly). Vitamin A - there is a ton of it in sweet potatoes, carrots, I mean come on. You need to educate yourself a little better.

Omega 3's are available in nuts and seeds and even spinach and kale. And as long as you are not eating saturated fat, it converts easily to DHA.

If you get your nutritional information from front people for the meat and dairy lobby, then you get the kind of info you are presenting here.

Otherwise you can look at who is actually treating all the diseases caused by eating animals and see that not only is a vegan diet healthy, it is super healthy.

Check out the work of Dr's Dean Ornish, Neil Nedley, Joel Fuhrman, John McDougall, Neal Barnard, Caldwell Esselstyn - they have shown how effective and healthy eating a plant based diet actually it and documented their patients recoveries.

[yona sternheim]

Hi
I just signed in as a subscriber. I totally believe in this way of eating for health. The only thing that I feel these vegan diets do not address is - quantities. How much should we eat? I feel I need guidance in that, because I could easily overeat, I am somewhat of a food addict, and I need more structure in my eating habits then just which foods to eat and which to stay away from. Any reaction to my question?
Thanks,
Yona

[Thehealthyhorseman.blogspot.com]

I just wanted to say I appreciate this article/blog and to reaffirm that the first commenter appears to be in error from beginning to end of their comment. Nothing experimental about the diet, been proven for thousands of years. Also, wanted to give Yona, above, a piece of advice... typically you cannot really overeat on this diet, it will fill you long before you get too much... generally. If you have a real problem eating too much food when you eat, I would suggest stating away from the plan-based foods that are pretty easy to consume quickly... like nuts and seeds...
Thanks for the post... the more people to read about these folks and the other leaders, like Fuhrman and Barnard, the better off we all are.
Dachia