One of the best ways to help people transform their lives and create their own food revolution is to write my patients’ stories: this is #5 of 7.*
Tom’s case was a quandary: a Pulitzer-winning health reporter, he already exercised diligently, running about four miles most days. He had long ago given up meat and most cheese. Yet his LDL (bad) cholesterol was 169, way above the recommended 130 and an optimal 100.
A single Dad, Tom’s two teenagers had grown accustomed to a stick of butter in their weekend Slow Roasted Hen.
So I worked with Tom to add multiple terrific dishes to their eating cycle. There was a Turkish eggplant recipe, and white beans with escarole and tomato.
His internist was astonished. His LDL dropped 33% to an acceptable 114; his healthy HDL cholesterol was up to 75.
Apart from not spending his own and his employer’s money on drugs, Tom found another benefit to this program.
His daughter regularly makes steel cut oatmeal for breakfast and enjoys split pea/carrot soup with tarragon, nutmeg and barley. And his son’s special request for dinner this past Saturday was grilled salmon with honey-mustard marinade.
You can’t get that with a pill.
*adapted from ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine.
**adapted from the Wall Street Journal report on lowering cholesterol, by Tom Burton.
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