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| Dr. Ron Weiss is seen in his hoop house with onions that are curing on the historic 348 acre Ethos Health community supported agriculture farm that Dr. Ronald Weiss purchased in Long Valley, where he will be integrating the food grown on the farm into his medical practice. |
LONG VALLEY
— After taking care of some of Hudson County’s sickest residents for 25 years,
internist Ronald Weiss says he’s figured out how to make people healthy — and
it’s not by writing prescriptions or ordering surgery.
Weiss would
rather recommend a daily dose of what’s growing on his 348-acre, 18th-century
farm in Long Valley. And next week, this city doctor will get that opportunity
when he launches New Jersey’s first farm-based practice, rooted in the
philosophy that the right food — fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, beans and
seeds — is medicine.
About 55
miles from his West New York office last week, Weiss sat outside the farmhouse
at which his assistant, Asha Gala of Califon, had prepared a lunch that
vibrated with color: a salad of baby kale, radicchio, purple carrots,
cucumbers, onions and cherry husk tomatoes tossed with a walnut vinaigrette,
followed by eggplant rollatini with tofu instead of cheese, and dairy-free
chocolate pudding garnished with raspberries.
Fruits and
vegetables contain nutrients that prevent inflammation, which is believed to because of many chronic diseases, said Weiss, a 52-year-old married father of two
and an assistant professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark.
"There
are so many naturally occurring drugs on this plate," he said.
"Plant-based whole foods are the most powerful disease-modifying tools
available to practitioners — more powerful than any drugs or surgeries."
"I am
not saying if you fall down and break your ankle, I can fix it by putting a
salve of mugwort on it. You need someone to fix your fracture," Weiss
said. "I am talking about treating and preventing chronic disease — the
heart attacks, the strokes, the cardiovascular disease, the cancers … the
illnesses that are taking our economy and our nation down."
Weiss said
he so believes in this reinvention of his medical career, he cashed in all of
his assets — even selling his practice, at which he still sees patients three
days a week — to buy the farm. In June, he launched Ethos Health, a
community-supported agriculture project.
His two
farmers have produced fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs for 90 families, who
pay a membership fee and volunteer their time picking potatoes and weeding.
It’s a collaboration that encourages people to take a keener interest in their
diets, which is where health care should start, he said.
"Human
health is directly related to the health of the environment, the production of
food and how it is grown," said Weiss, who earned an undergraduate degree
in botany at Rutgers College of Arts in Science in Newark. "I see this
farm as an opportunity for me to take everything I’ve done all my life, all the
biology and chemistry of plants I have studied, and link them to the human
biological system."
Weiss
acknowledged that his philosophy is not shared by many of his peers.
He was
thrilled when Kim A. Williams, president-elect of the American College of
Cardiology, published an essay last month advocating his patients eat a
plant-based diet. Williams described how becoming a vegan reduced his
cholesterol levels after a low-fat diet had failed.
Some
doctors, however, criticized Williams’ essay, saying a diet eschewing all meat,
fish, eggs or dairy products is still experimental, according to published
reports.
Nutrition
science has long been a moving target for a confused public, hungry for answers
on how to eat healthier. In March, the British journal Annals of Internal
Medicine added to the mystery after reviewing 72 studies and concluding there
was "no significant evidence that saturated fats increase the risk of heart
disease."
The
American Heart Association recommends a diet of fruits, vegetables, whole
grains, low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry and nuts.
 |
Asha Gala
of Califon cooks farm produce into an Eggplant Rollatini meal on the
historic
348 acre Ethos Health community supported agriculture farm that Dr. Ronald
\ Weiss purchased in Long Valley, where he will be integrating the food grown on
the farm into his medical practice.
|
The
plant-based diet is also a hard sell for some patients. For the doubters, Weiss
tells them about 90-year-old Angelina Rotella of West New York, who came to his
office on the night before Christmas Eve, in a wheelchair with congestive heart
failure.
"I
asked her, ‘Do you want me to call 911 and admit you to Palisades General? Or
will you let me feed you sweet potatoes and kale?’ Amazingly enough, with the
help of her daughter, she chose this," Weiss said. "She doesn’t have
diabetes anymore and chronic heart failure. She is cooking, sewing and walking
around town. I’m not saying it’s easy, but she seized the opportunity and she
is transformed."
Angie
Rotella-Suarez, who lives upstairs from her mother, said she faithfully
prepared her meals, strictly adhering to Weiss’ diet of grains (such as
whole-grain brown rice and sweet potatoes), steamed greens (including kale and
spinach), fruit (a big serving of wild organic blueberries is a must) and
water.
The results
have been "more than a miracle," Rotella-Suarez said in a telephone
interview. Within two weeks, her mother stopped taking her blood pressure
medication.
"Eight
months later, she is down 40 pounds. My mother is out of the wheelchair. My
mother does the dishes again," Rotella-Suarez said, starting to cry.
"She hasn’t done the dishes in seven years, easy."
The
recovery was so swift, Rotella-Suarez and her sister both adopted the vegan
diet and each lost 40 pounds; they are no longer pre-diabetic.
"It
sounds like a hoax, but Dr. Weiss is absolutely thorough. He is the best of
what the medical profession has to offer," she said. "He is not
living in a make-believe world."
There is
something dreamlike about Weiss’ farm in Long Valley — a pastoral section of
Washington Township, where 39 percent of its acreage is preserved for
agriculture. Facing a canopy of mature trees on Schooley's Mountain, the farm’s
winding driveway circles a farmhouse listed on the national register of
historic places. Visitors are greeted in the unpaved parking lot by Maya, farm
manager Nora Pugliese’s dog, who barks and promptly rolls over for a belly rub.
A crumbling German stone barn will be restored to serve as an exercise and
wellness center where Gala, a nutritional education trainer, will offer cooking
demonstrations and other programs.
Education
is critical because people are being asked to abandon the only diet they’ve
ever known. "If the patients wants to come with us, great," Gala
said. "We meet the patients wherever they are."
"Food
is Medicine," a lecture by Weiss last Tuesday night, drew about 60 people
to the Brookside Community Center in Mendham. Questions ranged from "How
do you feel about vaccines?" ("I have two little children, and we
have given them every single vaccine around") to "Which are better
for you? Raw or cooked vegetables?" (Both are good, but studies say celery
and carrots are better cooked.)
Beth
Niehoff of Mendham, a married mother of four, admitted the idea of changing
everyone’s diet daunted her.
"What
if you someone does this 80 percent?" she asked.
"Well,
then you will have 20 percent of issues, which is fine. I work with people who
say, ‘I don’t want to go that far,’ " Gala said.
Weiss
conceded it’s not easy convincing people to graze for their health in a
fast-food world. Once a year, he confessed, he looks forward to eating a hot
pastrami sandwich.
Kryon Q&A
(13) Question: Dear Kryon, I’m very concerned about the obesity epidemic, particularly in the U.S. Around me I see people getting bigger and more unhealthy, all for the sake of convenience and saving time. You mentioned at one point a famine, and I suspect the famine won’t be from a lack of food, but from an abundance of food that has no nutritional value.
I wonder how we can honor the Earth by eating nothing that comes straight from it? Of course this involves caring for the lands and oceans as part of a bigger issue and making that connection, too. Is this what it will finally take for people to switch to a healthier way of living?
Its amazing how detached people are from the food they eat. We don’t even honor our digestive processes, the way we combine foods. Whatever happened to nutrition? Atkins is no solution; there is no balance in it. Gastric bypass is all about quantity reduction, not quality increase. When will people make the direct connection between what/how they eat and their health? Is a change in diet and lifestyle part of the upcoming shift?
Answer: The shift has little to do with it. It’s a culture-specific problem and has to do with consciousness of health. Go study the cultures on your planet that have very few overweight Humans. Start with the Japanese. They have some of the same western work ethics and live in very sophisticated industrial-based environments. Yet they aren’t overweight. It’s about the core food groups and the combination of them.
(39) Question: Dear Kryon: I've noticed how many children are developing severe allergies to foods (my daughter included). When I've researched this, it seems that most of the allergies are essentially to seeds, grains, legumes, eggs, and dairy. I've noticed that these foods all hold the potential for life, or in the case of dairy, are essentially used to sustain the first stages of life in an animal's baby. My feeling is that because we're not releasing the life force within these foods (that is, sprouting, etc.), they're becoming harmful to us. I would like your impressions of this.
Answer: For thousands of years, these foods have worked for humanity. In these cases you speak about, the main culprit continues to be the way in which these foods are collected and processed. You won't find these allergies in third-world countries, and you won't find them within the children who work on farms, where they eat the foods directly. There will eventually have to come a day when you relax some of your efficiency attributes and go back to the way food was meant to be collected and eaten. And yes... there are effects from how the dairy animals are treated, too. Going back to some basics will help, and so will eliminating some of the procedures that supposedly create a "safer food." These procedures have instead made them begin to look like foreign food to the Human body.
15) Question: Dear Kryon, please help us understand the increase of allergies. What can we do to heal this phenomenon?
Answer: Reduce the steps in your food chain, which are adding chemistry to fresh food.
Answer: For thousands of years, these foods have worked for humanity. In these cases you speak about, the main culprit continues to be the way in which these foods are collected and processed. You won't find these allergies in third-world countries, and you won't find them within the children who work on farms, where they eat the foods directly. There will eventually have to come a day when you relax some of your efficiency attributes and go back to the way food was meant to be collected and eaten. And yes... there are effects from how the dairy animals are treated, too. Going back to some basics will help, and so will eliminating some of the procedures that supposedly create a "safer food." These procedures have instead made them begin to look like foreign food to the Human body.
15) Question: Dear Kryon, please help us understand the increase of allergies. What can we do to heal this phenomenon?
Answer: Reduce the steps in your food chain, which are adding chemistry to fresh food.
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