How To Heal Your Body Through Food + Baked Tofu Caesar Sandwich

A guy goes to see his doctor because he’s having trouble breathing. He also has a cough that won’t go away and he gets winded easily.

The doctor asks him if he smokes. Dude says yes, for the past 32 years.

The doctor writes a prescription for a heavy duty cough syrup, doesn’t mention the smoking and sends dude on his way.

Dude goes home, takes some cough syrup and lights up.

Dude’s wife has even more problems than a pack a day. She’s a sadomasochist that likes to stand in her bathroom and bang the shit out of her knee with a hammer.

After a couple of weeks her knee is in bad shape. Bruised, swollen, bleeding. It’s painful and it looks like hell.

She goes to her doctor and presents her knee. Doctor looks at it and asks how her knee got so bad. Lady tells him that she likes to hit herself in the knee with a hammer.

Doctor busts out his pen and paper, writes a prescription for a painkiller and tells her that if she takes the pain killer a few times a day, the pain from the hammer won’t be as extreme.

Hold the boat. Both of these scenarios would be mad, right?

Clearly the most practical solution for the dude would be to quit smoking, and the lady could avoid 100% of her pain by simply putting the hammer down and stop banging her knee.

The guy’s body would go into repair mode after his last cigarette and in 15 years it would be like he never smoked at all.

If the lady stopped hitting her knee with a hammer and left it alone to heal she could confidently wear shorts in a couple of weeks.

Let’s look at one last scenario.

Another lady goes to the doctor because she feels super tired all the time. She has trouble walking, her lower back constantly aches and she hasn’t pooped in a week. The doctor asks her what she eats and she explains that her diet is pretty standard. Chex Cereal with 2% milk and a Greek yogurt for breakfast, chicken for lunch and usually a Healthy Choice frozen meal for dinner and a bowl of ice cream for dessert.

The doctor runs some tests and finds that her cholesterol is high, her blood pressure is high, she’s pre-diabetic and she has 50 pounds to drop.

Her doctor prescribes Lipitor for her cholesterol, Lisinopril for her blood pressure, Glumetza for the pre-diabetes, Vicodin for the back pain, and throws in some Xenical to help her lose weight. He also suggests taking fiber pills for the constipation.

The doctor goes over some of the possible side effects of the drugs and sends her on her way.

What she eats on the daily is never brought up again.

Just a few of the possible side effects of her new treatment plan include: muscle weakness, fever, hives, dizziness, swelling of the eyelids, trouble sleeping, blurred vision, paranoia, depression, confusion, uneven heart rate, choking, bluish lips, stopping of heart, itchy skin, coma, hair loss, seizures, rectal pain and difficulty moving, just to name a few.

My question to you is this. Why are the first two scenarios bat shit crazy and the third scenario called medicine?

Our body is designed to heal itself, so generally, as long as we don’t get in its way by inhaling chemicals on a regular basis, hitting it with a hammer over and over or eating foods that cause inflammation in the body, it’ll do a fine job of making necessary repairs.

Now, this doesn’t mean that people who eat healthy don’t get sick. Nor do I believe that eating a whole-food plant-based diet will make us immortal superhumans who fly around on chia seeds, poop out glitter and save the world with green smoothies and black beans.

Sometimes people who eat like goddamn poster children for Whole Foods get sick, and sometimes the heaviest smokers live the longest.

That’s life, and there are far more factors at play than we will ever know. I want you to understand that I’m not disillusioned about this fact.

What I’m saying is that the body is capable of self repair, given it has everything it needs, none of what it doesn’t, and is in proper working order.

I’m reminding you about Homeostasis.

Let’s take a cue from the bumps, bruises and cuts that we’ve all seen heal on the outside of our body and apply the same rule to the inside of our body.

When we avoid meat, dairy and processed foods and make whole plant foods the central part of our diet, our body can and will lower cholesterol and blood pressure on its own, stop type 2 diabetes in its tracks, drop weight, curb aches and pains and poop like a champ.

And the possible side effects of a plant-based diet?

More energy, better sleep, clearer skin, higher sex drive, thicker hair and stronger nails, better breath, stronger immune system, and of course protection from degenerative diseases.

Fuck dizziness, hives, paranoia and depression. I want more sex and less blackheads!

Today I want you to get your doctor’s voice out of your head for long enough to make the connection between what you eat and how you feel.

If you bang yourself with a hammer it will hurt. If you stop, it will eventually heal.

If you fill your body with saturated fats, animal protein, dairy, excess sugar and processed foods which are inflammatory to the system, it will eventually hurt. If you stop, it will eventually heal.

It’s the same thing.

The only difference is that we can witness the healing process on the outside of our body, but not so much the inside (and that just gave me a flashback of the time I was in the bathtub and freaked out because I realized that our skin is waterproof. I wasn’t high – I just think about shit way too much).

This is also why it’s so easy to put off eating healthy until “next week”. If we can’t see the damage being done, it’s easy to ignore (especially when Cheetos are so fucking good).

And this is exactly why people generally look into changing their diet after they’ve been told they have high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

But I’m sayin’, why wait? Especially when there are so many awesome “side effects” waiting for you and so much yummy food to be eaten.

Today, give your body what it needs to work with you and not against you.

You can start by swapping out your next meat sandwich on white bread for this bad whole-food plant-based baked tofu caesar sandwich and let the healing of your body begin.

Whole-Food Plant-Based Baked Tofu Caesar Sandwich

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Author: Molly Patrick of Clean Food Dirty Girl

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Ingredients

• ▢ 2 pieces toasted sprouted bread
• ▢ Vegan Caesar Dressing recipe below
• ▢ Avocado slices
• ▢ Baked Tofu warmed (link to recipe below)
• ▢ Walnut Parm recipe below
• ▢ Romaine Hearts chopped

For the Vegan Caesar Dressing

• ▢ ¼ cup tahini 60g
• ▢ 1 large garlic clove chopped
• ▢ 2 teaspoons dijon mustard 10g
• ▢ ½ teaspoon dulse powder
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon sea salt 2g
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon soy sauce
• ▢ ¼ cup water

For the Walnut Parm

• ▢ 1 cup walnuts 110g
• ▢ ¼ cup nutritional yeast 20g
• ▢ 1 teaspoon garlic powder 4g
• ▢ ½ teaspoon sea salt 4g

Instructions

• Toast the bread, spread on the dressing, layer with avo, baked tofu, walnut parm and romaine and devour.
• If you don’t want the bread, place everything in a bowl and cut the baked tofu into cubes and enjoy an awesome salad.

To Make the Vegan Caesar Dressing

• Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until creamy and smooth.

To Make the Walnut Parm

• Place everything in your food processor and process until there are no more big pieces of walnuts.
• Make sure there is no moisture in your food processor when you add the walnuts, otherwise they tend to clump.

Notes

Here's my recipe for Baked Tofu.

I hope that you have a wonderful week. May it be filled with patience and healing.

This week’s blog post was inspired by a talk from Dr. Michael Greger that I saw a couple of weeks ago. If you aren’t familiar with Dr. Greger, I highly recommend checking out his work.