Where's the beef? Not in Bill Clinton's diet.
Quote:The former president, known for his love of burgers, barbecue and junk food, has gone from a meat lover to a vegan, the strictest form of a vegetarian diet. He says he eats fruits, vegetables and beans, but no red meat, chicken or dairy.
Clinton, 65, who had quadruple bypass surgery in 2004 and then stent surgery in 2010, is following this eating plan to improve his heart health.
He talked about his plant-based diet last year, saying he lost 24 pounds on it for his daughter Chelsea's wedding, and he chatted about it again recently on TV, drawing national attention to the potential health benefits of this type of diet...
...Clinton says he was inspired to follow a low-fat, plant-based diet by several doctors, including Dean Ornish, author of Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease. Ornish has been working with Clinton as one of his consulting physicians since 1993.
After Clinton's angioplasty and stents in 2010, Ornish says he contacted the former president "and I indicated that the moderate diet and lifestyle changes he'd made didn't go far enough to prevent his heart disease from progressing, but our research proved that more intensive changes could actually reverse it," he says.
"Heart disease is a food-borne illness," says Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. He's in a documentary about the benefits of a plant-based diet, Forks Over Knives, out next week on DVD. He advocates going "cold turkey from the typical fatty, meat-laden, dairy-rich Western diet" to this kind of plan.