Healing the Vegan Way:
Plant-Based Eating for Optimal Health & Wellness. By Mark Reinfeld. Da
Capo. $22.99.
One of the health fads of
the moment is the 21st-century version of “you are what you eat.”
Now, though, it is something along the lines of, “you are what your microbiota
turn into, and that is determined by what you eat.” In other words, the
trillions of helpful bacteria in the human digestive system are the key to
human health, and eating should be done in such a way as to maintain the proper
balance of those bacteria and keep them hale, hearty and healthy.
Like other fads and crazes,
dietary and otherwise, this one contains enough truth to be attractive and is
simplistic enough to pull in people who refuse to see the human body as an
enormously complex, interconnected series of circumstances, systems and setups.
Unfortunately, these people are simply the reverse side of the proverbial coin,
the obverse being those who believe that if you only take the right pharmaceutical
medicine or combination of medicines, all your ills will go away.
Life is not that simple, and
neither is food. But without getting into the medical intricacies, suffice it
to say that gastrointestinal health is
a crucial element of overall body health, and maintaining and enhancing it is a way to be healthier overall. There
is, however, a long distance between a
way and the way, which is where the
many books advocating a single approach to diet inevitably fall short. It is
also where their introductions – which, unlike the books themselves, are often
written by medical personnel – overstate the case. Mark Reinfeld’s Healing the Vegan Way is introduced by
Michael Klaper, M.D., with the statement that, as regards “clogged arteries,
high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and a host of inflammatory diseases” of
the joints, skin and other organs, “The cause and cure of all these dreaded
diseases can be summed up in three words: ‘It’s the food!’” And anyone who
accepts those three words from this particular source as gospel now knows more
than all other medical personnel put together and can now single-handedly cure
everything that ails modern Western society – or at least, somewhat more
modestly, everything that ails the person himself or herself.
This sort of
over-generalization undermines the genuine value of a book such as Healing the Vegan Way. The book is not
for everybody; it will not cure all the ills of every person; it is not the
sole route to better eating or better health in general; and its recipes will
not appeal to everyone. It is simply one
approach to more-healthful eating, one to be considered by people already
committed to a vegan lifestyle or people on the road to being a vegan – perhaps
they are vegetarians already – who would like to see some recipes designed to
please the vegan palate.
The first part of the book,
where the advocacy lies, is nothing special, but provides a reasonably useful
overview and introduction. This is where Reinfeld discusses the importance of
eating a diet that is good for you, exercising moderately, having a positive
attitude toward life, getting adequate rest, fighting stress, and being engaged
in one’s community. All these are indeed elements of balanced, healthful
living. Some of what Reinfeld says here falls into the realm of viewpoint
pushing, however, or at least of preaching to the choir. For instance, he
insists on the importance of meditation or spiritual practices – but while
those are fine for some people, there are other forms of stress relief that are
more useful and effective for others; here as in so any areas, one prescription
does not fit all. More disturbingly, Reinfeld says “periodic cleansing” is a
necessity for health, and this is one fad area that is subject to considerable
dispute: Reinfeld does say to “consult a qualified health-care practitioner”
before a cleanse, but the reality is that doing so will result, in many cases,
in not doing a cleanse – this is
scarcely a generally accepted way to treat one’s body.
Beyond the introductory
material here, beyond statements such as Reinfeld’s “there is a plant-based
solution to every health challenge we face,” is a nicely put-together set of
some 200 recipes. Readers who do not want a lecture can skip the book’s first 75
or so pages and turn right to them. Reinfeld presents his material unusually
clearly – his “Grain Cooking Chart,” for example, is highly accessible and
immediately usable. And he arranges the recipes in simple, easy-to-understand
sections such as breakfast, “savory snacks and appetizers,” salads and sides,
soups and stews, main dishes, and “desserts and sweet snacks.” As with any
recipe book, there are hits and misses here – which is which will depend on
each person. Breakfast, for example, can include chia pudding, multigrain grits
or banana date breakfast muffins; among the salads and side dishes are
watercress with pistachios and currants, ginger rainbow chard, broiled
cauliflower with sun-dried tomatoes, and date glazed sweet potatoes; some of
the main dishes presented are raw collard veggie rolls, lemon tempeh with kale
and rice noodles, millet squash and broccoli, lentil walnut loaf, and broccoli
rabe penne pasta with oil-free cream sauce. Readers who want to try the recipes
should read them carefully, since some seem straightforward but have special
needs that are not immediately obvious – for example, for banana mango ice
cream, Reinfeld notes midway through the recipe that “this will only work in a
strong blender or a gear juicer, such as a Champion.” Vegans and would-be
vegans who evaluate the recipes before trying them will find a variety of
healthful and good-tasting foods here. When stripped of all the dross
associated with one-size-fits-all advocacy, Healing
the Vegan Way has much to recommend it for anyone who does not believe that
any single book holds every possible answer to every possible health situation
and every possible person’s every medical condition.
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