In last week’s METI Column, I gave a personal testimony about how strictly following the whole foods plant based (WFPB) diet reversed both the heart disease and the cancer I was suffering from. This was (and is) not a small achievement. 

It will make the reader understand how passionate I feel about our work at METI of trying to convince the sufferers of non-communicable diseases (NCD) to take note of our ‘message of hope’, follow the WFPB diet and so recover their health. 

It has been our experience that publicising the (at times vibrant) testimonies of NCD sufferers, who have reversed their medical conditions by strictly following the WFPB diet, has moved others to follow their example. 

And so, today, we will present another testimony, perhaps the most convincing of all… The testimony we now present and which most of us should be familiar with can be found in the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel, recounting Daniel’s experience while being sent in exile to Babylon, more than 2700 years ago.

As we are told, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar ordered his chief official to select young men from among the captured Israelite royal family members. They were to be trained to serve in his royal court. They were to be given the same food and wine as was consumed at the Babylonian royal court. 

But Daniel, in order not to become ritually unclean, asked the chief official for permission not to eat the royal food or drink the wine. The chief official refused but later turned a blind eye when Daniel made a ‘deal’ with his guard to allow him and his three friends to be tested, after they were to be given plant food and water for ten days and then would be compared to the others, who would be eating the food of the royal court. The rest is history: ‘When the time was up, they looked healthier and stronger than all those who had been eating the royal food. So from then on the guard let them continue to eat vegetables instead of what the king provided.’ (1.15-16)

Just over 10 years ago, American researchers replicated Daniel’s ‘fast’ and for 21 days gave 43 relatively healthy participants a strict WFPB diet, excluding all animal products, processed food or alcohol. In just three weeks on this diet, the participants had reductions in blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose and C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation in the body. Just like Daniel and his mates, they got healthier. The king’s diet in Daniel’s days sounds a lot like the ‘Western Animal-based diet’ that is now consumed by so many people, not just in Samoa, but all over the world: a diet rich in animal products, processed and junk food and alcohol: a diet of excess that should be avoided. 

If you or any of your loved ones suffer from one of these chronic diseases, we invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Moto'otua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant). Or call us at 30550. Learning how to follow the WFPB nutrition might be your ‘game changer’!

May the reader, on this day, reflect on this… If you or any of your loved ones suffer from one of the chronic non-communicable diseases, we invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Moto'otua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant). Or call us at 30550.