It was a little more than a year ago that I watched Forks over Knives for the first time and decided that I needed to change my diet if I wanted to improve my health. I also realized I needed to share the knowledge with my family, those I love, in order for them to be healthier and live forever! 🙂

After a little research, I came across the Green Smoothie Girl website and I knew this is where I wanted to start. I’ve never been the biggest fan of veggies, so starting to incorporate more of them into my diet using smoothies sounded like a great way to begin! Since then, I have become a Green Smoothie Girl apprentice Coach and with the support of a wonderful group of ladies, have started to not only live a more plant-based life, but also started sharing the message of plant-based eating and plant-based medicine with others.

While writing the script for a Healing with Green Smoothies Class a couple of weekends ago, I was completely re-energized and reminded of the reasons why I got on the natural health kick in the first place. Here are some highlights:

• One third of American adults are obese, one out of 13 people have diabetes, and heart disease kills one out of every 3 Americans.
• A huge study was done in the 1970s in 65 counties in China – dubbed The China Study. Six thousand five hundred people were included in the study. It looked at the relationship between diet and mortality rates. They found 8,000 statistically significant associations between lifestyle, diet, and disease. What does that mean?
• Broken down, the study found that those counties and those people who ate the most animal based foods got the most chronic disease and were more likely to die from “Western” diseases (coronary heart disease, diabetes, leukemia, and cancers of the colon, lung, breast, brain, stomach and liver). Those who had the most plant based foods were the healthiest.
• There was a study in which patients with coronary artery disease were treated with a whole foods, plant based diet, and doctors saw an opening of clogged arteries in 70% of patients!
  
• Scientific studies show a plant-based diet can reverse heart disease, lower blood pressure, and lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
• In a scientific study, people who averaged eight-plus servings of fruits and veggies a day were 30 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke, compared to those who had less than 1.5 daily servings.
• People with a higher vegetable intake have a lower risk of certain types of cancer and digestive problems, as well as show higher scores on cognitive tests!

That’s a lot of information. A lot of great information!  Does any of it motivate you to think a little more about what you are eating?