We are happy that with the blessings of the Editorial Board, METI is once again been privileged to write a weekly column in this newspaper.

This we do, realising that the ‘epidemic’ of obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCD) like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer continues unabated, affecting thousands of our fellow citizens. 

This column will be devoted to raise further awareness of a nutritional approach, the whole food plant based (WFPB) diet that our charitable trust, METI, has been promoting for the past several years for the prevention, control and even reversal of obesity and the various NCD.  

This diet is a radical departure from the so-called ‘Western diet’ that is mostly based on animal products and processed foods that has gradually replaced, since the 1960s, traditional food habits, not just in Samoa but also in the rest of the Pacific and other parts of the world.

With its high fat and animal protein contents this diet is the main cause of this ‘epidemic’ of obesity and NCD. As the attached famous photograph of the Mau movement, taken nearly 100 years ago, shows, obesity was practically absent in the then Samoan population.

Samoa’s traditional diet was mostly vegetarian with occasional helpings of fish and local meat mostly taken at ‘toona’i’, the Sunday brunch.

The WFPB diet encourages a return to Samoa’s traditional diet but adds on variety by including an abundant range of foods exclusively of plant origin, meaning vegetables, fruits, legumes (which are beans, peas and lentils), starchy root crops, mushrooms, spices, nuts, seeds and whole grains. 

The WFPB diet being primarily aimed at reversing obesity and NCD does not allow any animal products, which means meat, fish, animal milk and dairy products, as well as processed oils are not to be consumed. However, once reversal is achieved, one is allowed to consume small amounts of animal products once in a while or at toona’i. 

We appreciate that it is a challenging task for anyone to switch from an animal-based to a plant-based diet –practically overnight. Fortunately, with the education and support that the METI team provides, those patients, who have persisted in their efforts, look back and find that regaining their lost health by changing their diet was not as big an obstacle as they feared, and was well worth it. 

It is indeed quite an achievement for someone, who has been taking pharmaceutical drugs for several decades for their ‘chronic’ and ‘progressive’ medical condition, to be able to reverse such condition in a matter of weeks, by faithfully sticking to the WFPB diet. We will in future columns extensively deal with the strategies to overcome this hurdle and making it easier to stick to the diet. 

Looking back on the nearly ten years that METI has run its Healthy Living Clinic, we are satisfied that we have made the public conscious of the WFPB diet and have promoted it as a ‘message of hope’ for the many that suffer from NCD. 

Over the years we have presented in our previous columns the testimonies of some well-known and respected members of our society, who were willing to break their silence and tell their story of how they reversed their diabetes or heart failure or even early cancer.   

Over the last 25 years, extensive scientific evidence has accumulated in prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals that the WFPB nutrition holds the key to the prevention and even reversal of the various chronic degenerative diseases –referred to as NCD. 

The value of the WFPB diet is now becoming accepted in wider medical circles internationally and expert consensus statements are being published that report on the efficacy of plant-based diets to prevent and control NCD. 

Just last month, one such expert consensus statement was published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, reporting that plant-based diets indeed ‘aid type 2 diabetes (T2D) remission’ (or reversal). The statement is being endorsed by various medical and nutritional organisations such as the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology and supported by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and co-sponsored by the Endocrine Society. 

If you or one of your family or friends suffers from NCD, we encourage you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Moto'otua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) for more information. Or call us on the number 30550.