Rogan Taylor: Well when we first got married, I read some studies, you know, in the medical
field.
I read some studies that linked breast cancer to red meat, and I talked to my wife and I
said, “Why would we eat red meat if there’s any chance of that?”
Lynda Taylor: When he first told me that he wanted to try to have a healthier lifestyle,
I hadn’t done any reading on my own, and I was like, “What?”
You know, recipes and everything.
I was like, “What will I cook or what will I make?” and so I wasn’t exactly super
supportive right in the beginning.
Rogan: So this was, we were married in ’79, so we kind of started doing that.
We, like a lot of people who thought fish and chicken were more healthy at the time,
and so we kind of went that way.
Lynda: We cut out beef first, and that was really easy.
A little harder to do chicken—I had a lot of chicken recipes—but the thing that was
hard for me was stuff like cheese.
I loved cheese, and interestingly now, I can’t even stand cheese.
I just cannot eat it, and it’s funny how your taste buds change over time, but it was
a slow progression.
Rogan: Some of the early books I read were Dr. McDougall’s books.
Later, Earl Updike wrote a book called The Mormon Diet and so, finally I just said, “I
can’t deny this any longer.
It’s not worth it to me to have that risk” and so we dove in.
I think in November of ’90.
Our kids were pretty small, and I think our oldest was maybe 10 or 11, and they kind of
had a little problem with it for a month or so and then pretty soon we made great food,
and they ate it.
Our oldest son, actually he never did like to eat the meat.
You know we were always like, “Eat those chicken nuggets,” you know, “We bought
them for you,” but he was happy he didn’t have to eat it.
It’s just been great for us.
We have loved every minute of it.
We’re constantly searching for great recipes.
We have a bunch, so it’s been great for us.
For me, the main big change that I saw is, I always, in my youth, had what I called seasonal
allergies, or hay fever, and so in the summer, particularly late in the summer when the weeds
got dry, if I were near them my throat would squeeze off.
I would cough and sneeze, and I’d want to tear my throat out, and I’d have to go inside.
Even the year before I changed my diet, I was up, my brother had a little cabin up Hobble
Creek Canyon, and it got so bad I just had to throw the kids in the car and leave.
So, we changed our diet, and I wasn’t even thinking of allergies.
And so we changed our diet in November, the next summer came and went, and I didn’t
have one problem.
It’s not like I’m waiting for an attack, you know, but it got to be like November,
and I got thinking, and I think I may have been reading because I’m constantly reading,
and I’m like, “I didn’t have one attack this year,” and I’ve never had one since.
And so that’s a huge blessing for me because, you know, those times are a bit of a nightmare.
So yeah, big change.
But you know, I’m healthy, I never go to the doctor.
Maybe I should, but I went to a fifty-year-old physical and the doctor says, “Rogan, I
can always find something wrong with a fifty-year-old,” but he says, “I can never find anything
wrong with you.”
I think about it all the time because I work on people in pain.
When I walk I think, “I feel so good, “ When I run, When I ride my bike, it’s like, “Wow,
this is great!”
You know?
I love every second.
I love every day.
You know, in my practice every day, because it’s health oriented, people want to be
healthy, and so every chance I can I’ll talk to them about their diet, and obviously
some are overweight or need obvious help, and for the most part they are pretty grateful
that I would even talk to them about it openly, and not all of them have changed, but I’ve
had a lot change—hundreds, and the blessing that they feel is awesome.
The types of people that I see are, some don’t want to hear it and some are like, “Oh okay,”
or I get to them to read some of the books that are out, or watch some of the videos
online now that are so great, and so it’s awesome to see when some people will just
go with it and learn it and other people will come when they’re having a crisis, and I’m
like “Why wait ‘till you have a crisis?
Go with it now.
Try it now,” you know, “Let’s not wait.”