Transcriber: Katrin R. Reviewer: Hélène VERNET
So, can anybody tell me what this is?
Somebody there said it, a Redneck smoke detector.
(Laughter)
That's a Redneck smoke detector,
and I want you to know that as a former firefighter,
I can tell your that this is not a very good smoke detector.
(Laughter)
And in all seriousness, when you go home tonight,
it'd be nice if everybody would check their smoke detectors
to make sure that you have a working smoke detector.
Working smoke detectors save lives.
(Audience) Thank you!
You're welcome!
My name is Rip Esselstyn, and I'm a former professional triathlete,
and a former firefighter for the Austin Fire Department.
And for the last 23 years, I have eaten a plant-based diet
to fuel me as an athlete, as a firefighter, and as a man.
And I can not tell you over the years how many people have told me,
"That is just way too insane.
That's way too radical, I could never do that."
What I want to talk to you today,
is about why it's really the standard American diet that is so radical,
and why eating a plant-based diet
has a potential to be absolutely revolutionary,
and why it can revolutionize your health, and this whole country's health.
If you are eating the Standard American Diet,
you'll more than likely die the standard American death,
and acquire the standard American diseases, okay?
Let's talk for a second
about why the standard American diet is such an abomination.
Sixty-three percent of America's calories
are coming from refined and processed foods
that are nothing but empty calories
that do nothing to enhance your health and only hurt it, 63%!
Twenty-five percent are coming from animal-based products,
like meat, dairy, eggs,
that have all the building blocks that create disease.
We have animal fat, animal cholesterol, and animal protein.
And we have 12% that are coming from plant-based foods,
wonderful plant-based foods, and believe it or not,
half of that 12% is coming from french fries.
(Laughter)
So really ...
Really, only 6% of America's calories
are coming from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds.
So we really are a country that is incredibly plant-weak,
and it is my mission, it is my goal,
it is my crusade to get America to become more plant-strong.
Okay?
Last year, there were five diseases
that were responsible for 75%
of America's 2.3 trillion dollar health care cost.
And every one of these diseases
is either preventable, or reversible by eating a plant-based diet.
And the research is irrefutable.
Heart disease, number one killer of Americans, this is radical.
What is radical is that one out of two of you
will die of heart disease.
Those are the facts.
What is radical is that 50% of the time,
the first sign of a heart disease is what?
Instant death!
It's true.
What is radical is that 50 million Americans
are taking a statin cholesterol lowering drug,
and the only subgroup that benefits marginally
are those people who've had a prior heart attack.
For everybody else taking a statin, the benefits are about 1%.
Big pharma has messed with the numbers so much
that everybody thinks they are being helped 30, 40, 50%.
The reality is 1%.
You're just as well off eating a placebo sugar pill.
What is radical is that bypass surgery, open heart surgery,
where we basically cut our sternum,
take a vein from our leg and graft it around the blockage,
or when we put a balloon up in there, it's called a angioplasty,
and spread it open,
or when we put a metal cage in there called a stent -
which President Clinton just had another one - and open that up,
the thing about these procedures, believe it or not,
is they do little to nothing to extend life
or protect you from another heart attack.
That is because these types of blockages here are stable.
Believe it or not, 90% of the hearth attacks
occur when a little juvenile plaque,
almost like a little pimple on the inside of the artery,
ruptures, a blood clot ensues,
and now there is no blood getting to the heart.
So all these procedures, and all these pills that Americans are taking
are really doing almost nothing
to protect us from the number one killer of Americans.
However, the research is absolutely clear,
that if we decide to play big,
if we decide to go plant-strong, we can absolutely eradicate this disease.
The number one killer of Americans, we can eradicate it.
And I'm intimately acquainted with the 25 years of research
at the Cleveland Clinic,
were they have shown that you can prevent, halt and reverse heart disease,
because that researcher has been my father.
So really, you can die with arteries that look as clean as this one.
They don't have to get all blocked up.
What is radical is that cancer
is projected to surpass heart disease as the number one killer of Americans.
What is radical to me, is that cancer ...
... is that cancer is a war that we've been fighting since 1972,
when Richard Nixon declared war on cancer.
And to me, it's almost like we've been pile driving
all this money, all this research into trying to find an answer to cancer.
We've been walking for the cure, running and shopping for the cure,
we've been flying for the cure,
and the thing is we know what the cure is.
It's about eating for the cure.
If you eat for prevention, you're not going to get
the two major cancers that are bringing America down:
breast cancer and prostate cancer.
And the research is absolutely clear on this.
Dr Dean Ornish at the University of California at San Francisco
has shown that you can slow down,
stop and even reverse prostate cancer and breast cancer.
And he has also shown that you can actually change your gene expression,
that you can turn off cancer promoting genes,
and you can turn on cancer preventing ones.
What is radical is that type 2 diabetes,
which used to be called adult-onset diabetes, has become a pandemic.
One in three children born after the year 2000
will come down with type 2 diabetes,
and this is a springboard to heart disease, to amputation,
to kidney failure, and a host of other ailments.
And once again, this is a disease that never has to occur.
Dr Neal Barnard
at George Washington University
has shown that type 2 diabetes can be reversed by a plant-strong diet.
Eat big, go plant-strong.
And of course, everybody knows about the obesity epidemic in America right now.
Almost 70% of America is overweight, almost 34% of America is obese,
and this is a tragedy because once again,
this is the springboard to heart disease, to Alzheimer's, major cancers.
I joined the Austin Fire Department in 1997, and I was convinced
that every shift, I'd be making a big old burner like this one here.
The reality is, over 80% of our calls, and this isn't just in Austin,
this is in San Francisco, in Chicago, New York,
over 80% of our calls,
we are responding to and fighting Western disease.
So we get to see up-close and front
the destruction that is being caused by the fork and the knife,
and it is absolutely disheartening.
Here is a quick video to show
what the average firehouse eats for breakfast.
(Video) RE: Ah, ah, ah! And eggs.
"And eggs, moon eggs!"
RE: So, how are we having the eggs today? Sunny-side up?
VV: No, I'm going to flip them, I don't know, I guess I just fry them.
RE: And is this just like sausage?
VV: Yes, pork sausage.
RE: And then what do we got here?
VV: Croissant rolls, baby!
RE: Croissant rolls. And this?
VV: Somebody made that while we were gone.
RE: I got you. Alright.
And here's a little fun.
We got chips, oatmeal creme pies.
We got granola bars, Nutty bars.
We got Big Texas, Skittles, Starburst, M&M's.
We got Oreos,
and this is Butter Lovers popcorn.
We got Monster Drinks down here,
and then, what do we got? Oh yeah!
(On stage): You get the picture!
And it gets worse for lunch and even worse for dinner.
And it's probably very similar in every house in America.
This is Station 2, it's a hop skip and a jump from here.
This is were I spent the last eight years of my career as a firefighter,
and we are an island of health in a sea of fast food restaurants.
We've got McDonald's, Wendy's, Papa John's, Domino's and Pizza Hut.
Right next door, we used to have a Burt's Barbecue,
It burned down about three years ago, and they are blaming
the vegetarian firehouse for not putting it out.
(Laughter)
But we were not always an island of health.
What happened is - those numbers are a little funny -
in 2003, we had a bet to see who had the lowest cholesterol.
The results came back, and J.R.'s cholesterol was 344 at the age of 33.
and so, in an act of solidarity to save J.R.'s life,
we as a group, started eating plant-strong the very next shift.
Within a month, he had his cholesterol rechecked,
and it had gone from 344 to 196.
We got a flood of media attention.
The word got out about what we were doing at Station 2,
the charming dissonance of a bunch of Texas male firefighters
eating this plant-based vegetarian diet.
... New York Times, NPR, Austin American Statesman ...
So, I got solicited by literary agents to write a book,
and all of the sudden I realized that as a firefighter,
not a doctor, not a nutritionist, but as a firefighter,
I could reach a segment of America
that would never otherwise hear this message about eating more plants.
So I almost felt an obligation to go ahead and write this book,
and teach people the absolute, undeniable connection
between what we put in our mouths,
and your ability to have a perfect weight, ideal health,
and be bullet proof to chronic Western disease.
And really, it's all...
Really, it's all about the food.
It's all about the food, it's all about the food.
Here for example
is red meat.
Just about everybody knows red meat probably isn't the best thing for them.
But how many people know that chicken has just as much cholesterol as red meat,
and it also has acidic producing animal protein,
which leaches calcium from the bones,
is an incredible tumor and cancer promoter and inflames the arteries.
And what about fish?
Everybody thinks that fish is healthy these days, right?
Omega-3 fatty acids!
In reality, if you get a piece of fish,
that is not tainted with mercury and PCPs and dioxins,
you still get a piece of flesh which has the animal protein,
the animal cholesterol, and the animal fat.
And then eggs, what about eggs?
There're only two things wrong with eggs, the yolk and the white.
(Laughter)
The yolk has over 200 mg of dietary cholesterol,
and the white is a concentrated form of what? Animal protein.
And dairy is just milk, flesh in a liquid, cream or solid form.
It has the same amounts of animal protein, animal cholesterol, and animal fat.
Now these foods here, these are the ones that are going to give us back our lives.
The fruits, the vegetables, the whole grains,
the beans, they have all the phytochemicals,
all the antioxidants, over 100,000 micro-nutrients
that are just jonesing to go to work for you
and protect you from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's,
all these diseases.
And before I forget, what about olive oil?
It's heart healthy, right?
No, it's not.
Extracted oils are the most concentrated source of calories on the planet,
at 120 calories per tablespoon,
and they have more empty calories than either white sugar, or white flour.
And as you'll see here, it's 15% artery clogging saturated fat,
and there's absolutely zero nutrients to speak of.
And that's olive oil, okay?
Now, the results can be revolutionary when you eat plant-strong.
And these are just some of the results that can revolutionize your health.
This individual here as you can see, 16 pounds in 28 days,
cholesterol dropped 45%,
and his LDL which is the lethal, dropped 55%.
This gentlemen here looks like he's lost 15 years of his life,
he looks 15 years younger.
The slide is a little cut off at the top, but it's pretty amazing what he did.
He also dropped his triglycerides,
which is the amount of fat in your blood, by threefold.
And then Tim here lost 33 pounds in 28 days.
His cholesterol got down to 93,
basically the equivalent of a rural Chinese person.
(Laughter)
And Tim wrote in one of his food logs,
"For dessert, watermelon," and then in parenthesis "the whole thing."
(Laughter)
And the beautiful thing is that by eating foods
that are low in calories and high in nutrients,
you get to eat all you want, as opposed to foods
that are high in calories and low in nutrients.
This is one of my heroes, Sir Winston Churchill,
and he has a quote that I love, and it goes,
"America always gets it right,
but only after they have tried everything else."
(Laughter)
I think it's fare to say that we as a country
have tried everything else, and now it's time to get it right, alright?
It's time to play big.
We all have a skin in this game.
And the answer to this healthcare crisis that we have
is not about a pill, not about a procedure,
not about more legislation, not about rejiggering the numbers.
It's about everybody stepping up and looking in the mirror,
and deepening their personal commitment to their health.
And we can turn this ship around, we absolutely can.
And that right there is my TED wish!
(Applause)