Archive for Word of Wisdom

“I consider myself so fortunate to discover this way of living so young”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, March 4th, 2023

By: Dustin Martinsen

While preparing for the nursing program at BYU-Idaho, I took my favorite class which was the Essentials of Human Nutrition. Probably because of my love for food, I became enthralled with the topic of nutrition. I was confused though because of the ongoing debate about fats and carbs being bad for us, which essentially only left lean meat, low-fat dairy and vegetables being safe and healthy to eat.  But the question remained, “What about the Word of Wisdom? What about grains being the ‘staff of life’ and eating meat sparingly?”

At the age of 26, I discovered that studies had been conducted on what are called the blue zones, which are where clusters of many of the oldest people on earth live. Something they had in common was a mostly unprocessed, plant-based diet. There was my proof that the diet proposed by God in the Word of Wisdom was fueling the healthiest, longest living populations in the world. But I thought, “How can that be? I thought you can’t be healthy without meat.”

I soon found there was a whole slew of old and new research on the topic, and that this way of eating was not only unlikely to cause nutrient deficiencies, but that it is the most nutrient-dense diet possible per calorie and contains completely adequate amounts of protein. Furthermore, it has been proven time after time to heal people to varying degrees from most chronic illnesses.

Very few seem to question the benefits of avoiding the “don’ts” of the Word of Wisdom, including tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, illegal drugs, and other harmful substances. I am personally grateful to have avoided the life of addiction and personal cost that these substances can cause. However, in my research of the whole food, plant-based diet, I realized the importance of focusing on the “do’s” of the Word of Wisdom as well, including an emphasis on “wholesome” herbs, fruits, and grains, and eating meat only in times of advanced need. It became apparent to me that the level at which we enjoy the blessings promised by God in the Word of Wisdom (e.g. health in the navel, running without wearying, etc.) depends on our level of conformance to this revelation.

I began slowly, adding in meals here and there without meat or processed ingredients, surprised to find that there were many available recipes online for satisfying versions of all my favorite foods, just made with healthier ingredients. I didn’t feel tired or weak as I had expected. Contrariwise, I had more energy at the gym and was beginning to get better sleep and an improved mood and sense of wellbeing. After 3 months, I had effortlessly lost 17 lbs which I was excited about.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“My depression and anxiety slowly cleared up”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, July 10th, 2021

By: Elise Dunlap

I grew up in a household divided by food. One parent was more focused on healthy eating than the other, and it was always a subject of contention in our household. Like most Americans, I have a family history of cancer, autoimmune diseases, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Growing up, everyone I knew considered our family to be healthy. Fruit and egg burritos for breakfast, salad with our “real” dinner every night, but donuts and pizza on the weekend. You know, “balanced.”

The first time my health took a dive was when I was in high school (around 2013). I started dealing with lots of tension, especially in my shoulders and neck, sometimes to the point of tears if they were even lightly touched, so I started seeing a chiropractor, which seemed to help quite a bit. I also started experiencing fatigue and intense depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. After an intense episode of depression where I laid in bed all day and skipped school without telling anyone, I went to see a therapist and got put on some typical antidepressants (Wellbutrin and Prozac). I didn’t feel like myself at all. The medications seemed to suppress my emotions and make things feel really one-note, but it was enough of an improvement that I wasn’t feeling as suicidal as I had been.

Feeling overwhelmed by school, I dropped out of two of my three Advanced Placement (AP) courses. At this time, I was exercising pretty intensely. I would wake up and do P90x with my parents in the morning, and I had swim practice after school. I was very fit. Despite the brightness of my future everyone was always telling me about, I always dreamed of something better than how I was experiencing my day-to-day reality.

After graduating, I left for college at Southern Virginia University. Living in a dorm, I was required to have a meal plan. I’ve always been a big eater and a binge eater if there’s desserts within a ten-mile radius, and the college buffet was now all mine for the taking. I ate plenty of fruits and vegetables, but I also indulged in all kinds of sweet treats and fried foods, including the ice cream bar after every lunch and dinner. I would gorge on three breakfast scones and smuggle three more of them out of the cafeteria for later.

At college, I was taking a karate class and still managed to stay “fit” with that two-hour class each week. However, my coursework was suffering, and my mental health was plunging again. I was “that roommate who was always asleep.” I would sleep ten hours at night and take a five-hour nap during the day. My depression and anxiety continued to worsen.

Realizing that I had no money, I started to rent out my bishop’s basement the next spring and got a job at a Wendy’s just out of town. I sat in on some courses, but I wasn’t getting credit anymore because I had debts with the school that I had to pay off first. I ate lots of Frosties, chicken sandwiches and burgers because of where I was working, and unknown to me, I started to gain weight. I also started having terrible seasonal allergies which were worse than I thought could exist. My depression and anxiety became crippling. I had a panic attack at work one morning after dealing with a rude customer. I soon realized that I needed to go back home. I was sick, depressed, and out of money.

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“I was so baffled I finally decided to take it to God”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)
Saturday, June 12th, 2021

By: Cindy Balling

I was a junior in high school, job shadowing at the local hospital in the outpatient clinic. The nurse asked if I wanted my blood pressure taken. I sat down in the chair, and I will never forget her concerned face. I didn’t know the numbers, but she told me my blood pressure did not look good.

I felt helpless. I was so young. I thought I was healthy! I felt fear and embarrassment, and I was too afraid to tell anyone. I tried to stay active, but I lived a pretty sedentary lifestyle. When I went to college, I decided to major in Exercise Science and minor in Nutrition. I remember sitting in my classes and learning about how exercise can improve chronic diseases, like the one I had secretly dealt with in high school. I really wanted to help people overcome these issues. While I didn’t learn as much about nutrition’s role in weight loss, my classes made me firmly believe that exercise had far more to do with our health and weight than diet ever could. I didn’t believe nutrition was important. A calorie is a calorie, and as long as you exercise, everything will balance out. Unfortunately, I taught this very wrong principle to a lot of people as a personal trainer and exercise specialist.

After spending eight months on bed-rest while pregnant with twins, I struggled to lose the baby weight. I had been lying in bed for so long and was so weak that I couldn’t even stand on one leg. My twins had serious health problems, and exercise just seemed impossible to ever have time for between all of their doctor appointments and therapies. It forced me to focus more on diet, and I did my best to follow the principles of “clean eating,” meaning as little processed food as possible.

A few years later, I became a mother to a baby girl. She was so precious to me. So healthy! It was something I hadn’t experienced yet as a mother. I remember holding her in my arms, and instead of feeling content, I would feel fear. Fear that she would develop cancer or some other horrible disease and I would have no control over it. I would lose her and there would be nothing I could do about it. I felt it every time I held my baby, and it haunted me.

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“I asked myself, ‘Why am I unwilling to go all in?’”

By Jane Birch · Comments (12)
Saturday, August 8th, 2020

By: Mallory Barrick

I have wanted to share my whole food, plant-based diet journey for quite a while now, but I didn’t know if I could do it. My journey has been so different than what I hoped it would be when I began eating this way. I have finally decided to share my story and my insights, in hopes that this different type of journey might help someone else.

For a couple of years, I struggled with pretty intense abdominal and pelvic pain. I visited several doctors and specialists trying to get an idea of what was going on, but they told me that everything seemed fine. Still, I tried various prescription medications, probiotics, and even had a procedure to remove a small amount of endometriosis. I was glad to know there was nothing seriously wrong, but what was I supposed to do about this persistent mystery pain?

In the summer of 2017 we drove across the country for a family reunion and I ended up getting the books The China Study, Forks Over Knives, and How Not to Die from the library to take with me. Over the course of the trip, I couldn’t stop thinking about a plant-based diet and all the benefits, even miraculous healings, that seemed to come as a direct result. On the way home I searched the internet for “Mormon vegans” because I wanted to know if this lined up with my beliefs. I found many of Jane Birch’s articles online. After learning about the diet from a scientific perspective and adding in how it worked so well with the Word of Wisdom, I felt a strong prompting: “This is the way you need to eat.” I told my husband, who I had been sharing all of this information with along the way, and we stopped eating all animal products overnight.

I hoped and even expected that my pain would disappear quickly after making the change, but it lingered on. To this day I am not completely pain free, and that has been disappointing for me. I had read all the amazing stories, and I wondered why God didn’t love me as much as he seemed to love everyone else that was healing. On top of that, my husband and I continued to struggle with infertility. Where were the promised blessings?

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“I asked Heavenly Father to help me find a cookbook that fit the Word of Wisdom”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, February 29th, 2020

By: Tamara Curtis

I have always wanted to be the parent that was able to run and play with their kids. I wanted to have the energy to get out and play tag or kick a ball around. Problem was, even in my youth, running just didn’t happen. I felt miserable anytime I made an attempt to exercise. It wasn’t just that I didn’t enjoy it, every time I tried, I couldn’t breathe, I felt pressure in my chest and neck, and I felt as though my heart would either explode out of my chest or the vein in my neck would burst and I would die right there on the spot. Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little, but not as much as you might think.

My mom was always good about making us home-cooked meals. It was rare that we ever went out to eat growing up. I think the most fast food we got was the occasional day when mom needed a break during the winter, and she would buy a large French fry for all 5 of us kids to share so that she could let us play on the play place while she visited with a friend. It was rare that we got to have a soda, and we obviously weren’t eating a lot of French fries.

When I got out on my own, I most definitely started eating out a lot more. My mom always cooked for a large family so that’s how I cooked, and I could make something for just me, but I often ended up with large amounts of leftovers that would go to waste. It was so much easier for me to just pick something up on my way home. My eating habits obviously declined at this point in my life, and between poor eating habits and not knowing how to plan ahead, I had created a recipe for disaster.

The Word of Wisdom has always been something that stood out to me as a recipe for health. I have always trusted in the teachings of the scriptures, so it only seemed logical that the Word of Wisdom as written in Doctrine and Covenants 89 would have blessings for me. I always obeyed the don’ts: I never smoked, drank or did drugs, I didn’t drink coffee, and only drank herbal teas when I was sick. I thought I was doing pretty well, but when I came to the verses about what was “ordained for man” I became lost and hung up on various verses about meat and grains. I just stopped trying when I got to those because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I mean really, if it said not to do something, I listened, so I just kept on my merry way.

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Join us for the Discovering the Word of Wisdom Cruise August 2019!

By Jane Birch · Comments (2)
Saturday, June 1st, 2019

Announcing the maiden voyage of the Discovering the Word of Wisdom Cruise, August 5-9, 2019.

This is your opportunity to spend a few beautiful days on the ocean and in exotic places with others who are interested in a whole food, plant-based approach to the Word of Wisdom.

We will embark at Long Beach, California and set sail for Catalina Island and then Ensenada, Mexico. All along the way, I (Jane Birch) will have a chance to share insights on the Word of Wisdom and the whole food, plant-based lifestyle, and we will all learn from each other. I’m quite excited to set sail with everyone wanting to join this adventure.

Click here for the link with pricing and all the details!

See also the Facebook event page.

Note: I do not profit financially from this excursion. I’m doing this to serve the Word of Wisdom community, and I do plan to have a fabulous time with all of you!

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“I knew I wanted to live and that He wanted me to live, and from that moment, everything changed”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, August 11th, 2018

By: Carrie Hopkins

I still remember the eyes of the surgeon who told me, “If you want to live, you must change what you eat. You’re going to die soon, Carrie. You will not live to finish raising your children or to see your grandchildren grow up.” My medical woes were firm evidence that for too long I had failed to heed the wise counsel, warnings of a loving God, found in Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

You would think that a discussion of this magnitude would propel a person to quickly make the recommended changes, and yet I kept this to myself for a time, pondering on whether I wanted to live or die. I was so very tired of being sick, of fighting to live. It had been a while since I’d prayed, but one afternoon I felt prompted to get on my knees. As I talked to my Heavenly Father, I knew I wanted to live and that He wanted me to live, and from that moment, everything changed. When I told Him that I’d do what He wanted me to do, I was not bargaining for my life. All I asked and hoped for that day was to be comforted, whether I was to live or to die, and I did mean what I said. That comfort came immediately, although answers with regard to my health came only after much study and patience.

I decided that afternoon that I would give equal time to my spiritual health as I worked to improve my physical health. If I was going to live, I did not intend to do it halfway. I knew what was ahead would be difficult, to say the least, and I felt strongly that my only hope for success was to strengthen both body and spirit. I haven’t been perfect, but I can say with honesty that from that day to this, I have clung to the promises I’ve made to God, as if my life depends on it. I knew I could not do this alone, nor would I want to try. In ways that have strengthened my testimony in a loving God who sends personal revelation, I have been lifted many times by Him to do what I am certain I could never do on my own. Now, many years later, the joy I feel is beyond my ability to express.

When I decided I wanted to live, I sat down with the surgeon’s notes, the Word of Wisdom, Isaiah Chapter 58, Discovering the Word of Wisdom and several other books, and I made a plan. I basically went cold turkey. One minute I was one of a large crowd who ate the standard American diet and the next minute, that was the end of that. I knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t do this with a foot in both worlds. I had to allow myself time for my tastes to change, and they did. The first month or month and a half was pretty hilarious actually, but I persisted.

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“I didn’t want to give people expensive and side-effect-prone pills”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, July 28th, 2018

By: Brian Duke

In 2013, during a break from studying for the PCAT (entrance exam for Pharmacy school) I watched the Forks Over Knives documentary which I found randomly while searching on the internet. Forks Over Knives dramatically changed my opinion about what we should eat and my career choice. The idea that you could avoid heart disease completely was thrilling and motivating. I had been eating mostly home cooked meals containing meat and dairy with occasional microwavable dinners when I needed to save time. I changed my diet immediately.

I struggled a bit at first to find things to cook and eat and to eat enough calories. I have always been at a healthy weight due in part to running long distances for exercise. When I started the Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diet, I lost 8 pounds in a few months that I did not need to lose. When I saw the weight loss, I realized that I just needed to eat more volume of food than I was used to, which quickly solved the problem.

I abandoned my pharmacist career path for becoming a dietitian. I didn’t want to give people expensive and side-effect-prone pills for the rest of their lives for conditions that could be prevented and treated with diet. I took some extra classes to qualify for a Masters program in Dietetics, applied, and was accepted.

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“I felt prompted to really read the Word of Wisdom”

By Jane Birch · Comments (16)
Saturday, September 30th, 2017

By: Julie Haws

About four years ago I started experiencing some chest pain. Being a dietitian, I search for nutrition-related answers to health problems. I read The China Study and also Dr. Esselstyn’s book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and followed this diet very strictly for about a year. Following this diet was an adjustment at first, but I was motivated because my symptoms went away, and I felt wonderful. People told me I glowed. Then I got pregnant with my third child. I experienced nausea and also extreme fatigue for much of my pregnancy. I normally rarely eat fast food or eat at restaurants, but I did during this pregnancy because of my symptoms.

A few months after having my daughter Amy I found I could not stand for more than a few minutes at a time without experiencing dizziness, sweating, and chest pain. After a year we discovered I had a condition called POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), which is basically a fainting disorder. I never fainted, but I would get close to it. I had days and weeks where I had to spend most of my days sitting or lying down. Anyone who has had 3 children under 5 years old knows what a challenge it was. It was truly debilitating. I couldn’t cook, clean, or shop much for about a year. My husband and family helped out a lot. When I started having these symptoms I did start to follow Dr. Esselstyn’s diet again, but I was not quite as strict with my diet, and I ate meat still a few times a week. My symptoms were about 60% better.

During this time I read my scriptures a lot and prayed and fasted that my body could heal completely. I had to fast with water or my symptoms would get very severe. I still was not able to stand for long periods of time and still had unpredictable spells. Around the time of my 40th birthday, I felt prompted to really read the Word of Wisdom. While reading it the following phrase stuck out to me.

Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine. (D&C 89:12–13)

This surprised me, and I wondered why before I had only read up to the word “sparingly” and stopped there? What is the definition of sparingly? The Word of Wisdom specifies what sparingly means, “only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.” And then it repeats this counsel again in verse 15, “And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.”

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“Wisdom comes in the righteous use of our agency”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, September 9th, 2017

By: Bruce Roberts

Beginning in October of 2015 I had one of those trying years that make you sit back and ask, “Why me?” After the challenge has passed and you have time to analyze what has happened to you, you start to realize that there is a learning process in this life that causes us to be humble enough to receive light and knowledge from Heavenly Father and Jesus. It is kind of, as the old saying goes, “When the student is ready the teacher appears.” In this case, I am the student, and the Holy Ghost is the teacher.

My family and I were out camping at East Canyon Resort. My brother Jeff and I decided to go fishing down at the Lake. The fish were jumping like crazy and in my excitement, I forgot to be extra careful. The way down to the lake from the road was quite treacherous, especially for a guy 73 years old. I slipped and fell, shattering my ankle. It took nine men to carry me out strapped to a board. Then the ambulance hauled me to Ogden Regional Hospital, and they performed surgery. The funny part of all this was that while lying on the banks of the reservoir, the thing that I was afraid of most was that the TV Channel 2 helicopter might be coming, and I might end up on the nightly news. While in the ER, my son Monte told me that didn’t matter because I was already all over Facebook. The family in Denmark had even seen me lying on the banks of the Lake and had responded with sympathy. Well so much for privacy.

The next few months were stressful. I wasn’t allowed to drive for three months so I did a lot of reading and not a lot of moving around except for the physical therapy sessions. Whenever we are inactive in anything we seem to go backwards. In a lot of situations in life we become careless. The inactivity and my lack of paying attention to what I was eating, and the amounts I was eating, apparently took its toll. I really bulked up. I look at it now as an experience that set me up for something to come that was life changing in a big way. After coming back from the Pac 12 basketball tournament in Las Vegas in March 2016, I wasn’t feeling well. Yes, I pigged-out at the buffets (to get my $ worth). It does not take long to send caution to the wind, and your life changes.

I had been considering writing a book on the Word of Wisdom for several years and had done a lot of studying and gathering of information, when in April, I came across a book on the internet I hadn’t seen before. It was called, Discovering the Word of Wisdom: Surprising Insights from a Whole Food, Plant-based Perspective by Jane Birch. My interest was immediately peeked! I ordered two copies, one for each of us, because my wife Helen fills hers with sticky notes. We read the book and were astonished. We both had a spiritual witness. It was many of my very thoughts, and I am sure, written and put together better than I would ever have done. I also believe Heavenly Father got tired of waiting for me to get it done, and the message is critical for our happiness and for our time here in the Last Days.

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