"The Plant Programme"
By Professor Jane Plant with Gill Tidey
Published by Virgin Publishing & distributed by Reed Books
Reviewed by Darien Kerkin- Upfront 39
Professor Jane Plants visit to New Zealand last year placed another piece in a jigsaw puzzle that Id been teasing at for a long time. Growing up after the war I was told about the value of milk as the "perfect food" for children and my mother was proud of being able to give us butter, cheese, and a weekly treat of cream. Sometime later I, as a young mother, weaned my children from breast milk to diluted cows milk according to Plunket advice. It is difficult, in New Zealand, to question the value of milk, and to ignore the might of the dairy industry.
However, like many others, in the last few years, I have become increasingly aware of messages of concern about milk concerns about allergens, lactose intolerance, mucus build-up, and so on. What is the truth? Is milk the wonder food of my childhood, or is it an unnecessary evil?
At a public lecture, I listened to Professor Plants views, and found that she offered some pretty hard evidence to support my own, non-scientific, views. I am a breast cancer survivor and the message really struck a chord with me.
Inevitably, I purchased Your Life in Your Hands and was convinced enough to make further changes to my eating patterns. I rarely eat beef so that was not too hard and since reading the first book Ive reduced my intake of dairy foods significantly. As well, I eat more organic food and am delighted that I can purchase organic meat locally. But I havent made all the changes basically because it seemed rather too hard!
However, help is at hand! After reading The Plant Programme I have recommitted. Im not saying it will be easy I work, and eat out quite a bit but this book will make it more manageable.
Why am I so convinced? Firstly, the book is very well organised. The first three chapters set you up to make the change. Chapter 1 is an introduction and brief guide to using the book. Chapter 2 looks at the principles of the diet and the cookbook. This programme is based on an Asian diet, which naturally supports the principles. These are:
- To reduce the intake of natural hormones and growth factors from food.
- To reduce the intake of man-made chemicals for which there is evidence for or a suspicion of, carcinogenicity, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
- Increase the proportion of food that is protective against cancer.
- Ensure that you consume adequate quantities of the key nutrients in a bio-available form, so that a significant proportion can be absorbed by the body.
- Reduce the amount of free radicals in the body, which are capable of damaging DNA.
- Eliminate or reduce to a minimum food that has been refined, preserved or over-cooked.
- Provide the nutrients to help your body withstand and recover from surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
- Provide maximum choice and variety so that healthy eating can be maintained without too much reliance on any one food substance.
Principles of the cookbook are straightforward though you may not appreciate being told to never use your microwave or pressure cooker! There is also a scoring system for meal planning (the recipes are all allocated a score). The lower the score the better and, for example, fresh fruit and vegetable juices and salads score 0, and a dish with dominantly lamb, pork, rabbit or venison scores 10. If you have active cancer you should have no meals scoring more than 4 and a total daily score of about 15 to 20. If you are on the prevention programme your daily score should be about 30 to 35, with only one meal a day scoring over 5.
Chapter 3 helps you to get set up for a new way of life. It lists essential equipment, (a juicer is in this category), tells you what to remove from your kitchen, what new food to buy for the store cupboard, how to store food, and how to prepare it. The support it gives is practical and simple. You will need some re-educating, but it does make the shift relatively straightforward.
Chapter 4 suggests menu plans for those with active cancer and those on a prevention or maintenance diet. As well there are five dinner party menus all of which look very tasty. Menu 1 starts with mulligatawny soup, is followed by barbecued spiced leg of lamb with spicy cumin potatoes, green beans with garlic, red onion and tomato salsa, and desert is mandarin sorbet with pecan biscuits.
Chapters 5 to 8 provide a host of tasty recipes. My diet which has become somewhat bland and no longer so tempting will be much richer in future. And the nice thing about the recipes is that they can be modified, e.g. vegetables can be replaced with other vegetables. If you dont have the right ingredient you can easily adapt with something you do have.
The recipes are organised under main headings of Good beginnings, Meals on the run, Meals to live for, and Feeding the family. Each chapter has several sections there are many recipes including juices, eggs, breads and spreads, soups, salads, grains, beans, seafood, and kids stuff.
I tried two recipes simply because I already had the ingredients to hand, and really enjoyed rice porridge with coconut milk (a score of 4, p43), and couscous with fruit and vegetables (a score of 3, p149). Each dish is very tasty because of the number of ingredients they have. This is a feature of the diet. The aim is to have many different ingredients each day, a sharp contrast to the normal "western" diet.
The final chapters cover Away Days and Food as Medicine. Chapter 9 has tips about eating away from the home whether you are in hospital, eating out with family and friends, or in restaurants, and dealing with fast food and snacks, and traveling. Chapter 10 is short, but takes some common symptoms with recommendations for food to include in the diet and tips on managing the condition. My sore throat seems to have been helped by an increased intake of garlic and onions and a warm, salty water gargle.
I am obviously a convert to the programme. But I acknowledge, too, that the downside of the programme is that it probably is so different from what Im used to that it wont be easy to adapt. But I really want to try, so Im going to work at establishing my new habits when Im on holiday next month.
If you read Your Life in Your Hands and were convinced by Professor Plants arguments, then this book is well worth getting. It is readily available in book stores. However, our copy was provided by Reed Books and you can visit their website
