Be Finnish: Love Your Heart

Feb 2019 — Valentine’s Day has passed, but our hearts haven’t. They pump our blood day in and day out. If they didn’t, we would either die or rely on costly artificial substitutes. So we have to take better care of them.

In the 1960s Finland had more men die of heart disease than any other country, so it started a nationwide valentine program for their hearts in the 1970s. To decrease saturated fat intake, competitions to lower cholesterol were held between villages, and growing berries was encouraged. Also instituted were the training of public healthcare staff, home economic teachers, counselors and social workers; nationwide TV series and anti-smoking legislation; programs at workplaces and with food manufacturers and supermarkets. As a result, throughout the country there was an 75 percent decrease in heart attacks, according to Finnish nutritionist Sirpa Seppanen.

Over 20 years ago, Dr Dean Ornish showed that heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, could be not only prevented but reversed by following a plant-based diet. The 35-year-old Harvard Nurses Health Study, the recently published, most in-depth study on women’s health, indicates that eating fiber – only provided by plants – increases women’s lives while eating foods with dietary cholesterol – found only in animal products – decreases their lives. Cholesterol wise, daily eating an egg equals the damage of daily smoking five cigarettes for 15 years.

Even when our cholesterol levels are normal – 200 mg/dL or less –, our arteries are not clean enough: according to the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology, plaque won’t stop building up in our arteries until our cholesterol levels are 150 mg or less – the level reached by people on a plant-based diet. The alternative is to take medication, which can be expensive or have side effects.

– Soul Vegan and Food for Living Channel