the dementia diet

My dad’s dementia could have been prevented.

This thought made me very angry when I became a nutritionist in plant-based eating.

The Cause

His dementia was caused by the same mechanism that caused his type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

It was caused by the Standard American Diet. The way of eating that clogged the blood vessels in his heart and in his brain.

What is wrong with our medical system?

What is wrong with the doctors?

Why aren’t we focused on prevention?

The answer I concluded was that our medical system is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is a trillion dollar per year unstoppable money making machine.

My Influence

As I read books like The China Study or The Alzheimer’s Solution, I decided that my influence was the only way my dad would clean up his diet.

After all, I had my own miraculous recovery from rheumatoid arthritis since going plant-based, so the value in switching diets was very close to my heart.

At the time, my dad was still driving, still living at home.

Every morning he and my mom would eat breakfast at McDonald’s. It was their tradition.

Every day he would order a sausage burrito meal with hash browns and coffee.

They usually ate fast food for lunch too. 

My mom was willing to listen to me, and to watch Forks Over Knives, but ultimately they couldn’t break the habit of the fast food dopamine hit. 

It makes him happy, she would tell me about eating out. 

Ugh. That’s no reason to be killing yourself, I thought.

Apparently, it was reason enough.

The Quality & the Quantity

When they moved to an assisted living facility my dad’s dementia was getting worse.

I thought, good thing he doesn’t have a car. Now, he just has to eat the food they serve him. 

But, the food was barely better than any fast food drive through. 

Now, besides the quality, he was having trouble with the quantity.

It was at this time his short term memory started going and he would forget that he just ate. 

A few times when my mom was in the bathroom she came out and my dad would be missing.

She went downstairs and, if he was lucky enough to get a new waitress, my mom would find him eating the same meal he had just eaten an hour before.

If he was unlucky the waitress would just state out loud so everyone could hear, You have to leave, You already ate.

This made my mom cringe.

Sometimes, my dad would wake up at midnight, get dressed and say it’s time to go eat.

My mom couldn’t even leave snacks around their tiny apartment or he would eat them all.

He gained a lot of weight that year watching Friends and eating peanuts.

He loved his peanuts.

Over the last two years, my dad’s been going the other way.

He’s losing his ability to swallow and with that his desire to eat.

As I mentioned in episode 13: Should dad go to hospice?, he’s gone from 140lbs to 105 lbs over that time.

Why It's So Hard 

I got used to the fact long ago that you can’t change anyone else’s diet.

It’s even hard for the person who truly wants to change.

Because our society is set up for instant gratification.

We get used to getting what we want when we want it. We expect that.

And, our taste buds expect the over-stimulation of rich foods.

To change it takes self-awareness.

It takes tools learning how to manage emotions.

It takes time for your taste buds to change.

And, most importantly, it takes the belief that the change will make a difference.

I’m not planning on getting dementia.

Because I’m doing everything in my power to make that difference.

I have the tools if you want to join me.

Take care, bye.

xoxo Lani