Larry Libbee Drastically Reduced Medications by Eating Plants (video) + Plant Based Tzatziki Sauce
By Molly Patrick
Mar 23, 2019,
In a word, Larry is a badass.
Imagine being able to drastically reduce the amount of medications you’ve been on for years by just making the switch to eating plants. Imagine getting down to the weight you were in high school, without dieting. Imagine looking forward to going to the doctor instead of dreading it.
Larry did all of these things. So, when he emailed us to share his gratitude for our meal plans, I knew I wanted chat with him about his process. I was so stoked he said yes. If you have any men in your life that are type 2 diabetic, this would be a fantastic talk to share with them, if they are up for it.
Here’s a note from Larry before we dive in to our talk:
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2005. Year after year, I gained weight and saw my A1C climb and new medications would be added to my growing list. In January 2018, my wife saw her primary care physician who is plant based. She urged her to watch Forks Over Knives and What the Health.
There also happened to be a Men’s Health talk on plant based nutrition in my town and my wife signed me up for it. My first impression was that I could only eat salads for the rest of my life. After that talk and watching FOK, I learned that there were other options and this just might work for me.
We had been planning our menus for the week and it got to be quite daunting trying to find recipes not knowing if we would like them or not. We ate a lot of veggie spaghetti and stir fry. The next month my wife came across Clean Food Dirty Girl.
She saw that a new meal plan came out each week and each week people were raving about how good the food was. We decided to take the plunge and subscribe to the meal plans. We had finally found the one thing that made this lifestyle easier to adopt, super tasty food and a weekly blueprint for exactly how to do it.
I had my first doctor’s appointment after beginning this new lifestyle and my A1C had dropped from 8.7 to 6.4. I was so happy and encouraged with these results. Over the next 9 months, I was able to stop 6 of the 8 medications I had been taking.
My doctor is hopeful that with continuing my plant based lifestyle, I will eventually be medication free. I am now under 200 pounds for the first time since high school. What a great feeling to get good news from your physician after years of not good news.
I’m so thankful for what this lifestyle and the Clean Food Dirty Girl meal plans have done for me and my family. Thank you!
Enjoy our chat!
Larry, thank you for talking with me and showing others that it is possible to drastically reduce medications by eating a plant-based diet. I wish you continued health and happiness.
Xo
Molly
Now I want to hear from you! Have you or anyone you know gotten off from medications by switching to a plant-based diet? Talk to me in the comments below!
Ingredients
- 1 cup cashews, soaked in water for at least 10 minutes (130 g)
- ¾ cup water (180 ml)
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and left whole
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice (zest lemon before juicing)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup diced cucumber (seeds removed / 120 g)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
- 1 teaspoon finely-chopped green onion (white portion only / discard root end)
- ¼ teaspoon lemon zest
- Black pepper and salt to taste
Instructions
- After the cashews have soaked, pour the cashews and the soaking water into a fine mesh strainer and tap the strainer against the sink to extract as much excess water as possible.
- Transfer the cashews to your blender, along with the (new) water, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Blend until super creamy and smooth. Seriously. Blend the crap out of it until it’s super creamy, otherwise it will be grainy. Set aside for now.
- To a medium-sized mixing bowl, add the cucumber, dill, parsley, mint, green onion and lemon zest. Transfer the cashew mixture from your blender to the mixing bowl and stir.
- Add black pepper and salt to taste and stir again until all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Store in a container in your fridge.
Notes
Wishing you a happy week. May it be filled with filling up on more plants and less medication.
Xo
Molly
7 Comments
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Although I have not gotten off medications from being plant based, I have stayed off medications. I am slim, exercise alot, but have a genetically elevated cholesterol. I also have PTSD from childhood trauma but lifestyle and food choices make all the difference. Cooking plant based gives me so many options and I love all the pretty colors when I create dishes that make me smile! I truly believe I am able to be medication free by following a whole foods plant based diet. Thank you, Molly, for your great website and all you do for us.
I was able to greatly reduce my BP and cholesterol meds to the point I could go off of them. I am a three time cancer survivor and can relate to Larry when he said he actually looks forward to going to the doc to get his new numbers. My oncologist gets excited when he reads my results and tells me I am his best patient of the day. He is of Indian descent and mostly plant based, so he ‘gets’ it. He told me to keep on doing what I am doing and I will live to be 100! Not sure that is what I would like to do, but not worrying every time my blood is drawn is a freeing experience. Peace of mind…worth everything. Thank you Molly and Larry for an inspiring interview.
I love this interview. Thank you for the inspiration!
Thank you for interviewing folks who are willing to share their journeys while not (yet) fully healed. I’ve read so many sensational stories of complete disease reversal (sometimes in days), it left me feeling a bit of a wfpb failure at 19 months in. Your interviews are a reminder that it’s a journey, and there is so much good stuff to celebrate along the way.
Very inspiring interview! Thank you for the information. I am a Type 2 diabetic who just started the Whole Food Plant Based meals. My desire is to get off the medications I presently take for this disease. Thank you for the encouragement.
Hi Janice, Welcome! Thanks for checking us out. If you want to see what our meal plans look like we have a free sample meal plan you can download over here (scroll 1/2-way down the page and look for the blue button that says “Hook me up with a free meal plan”). While our meal plans aren’t designed to treat type 2 diabetes, or any medical condition at all, we do have many subscribers with type 2 diabetes that have found our plans to be super helpful in their journey to eat more plants overall. There are resources out there for eating plant based and type 2 diabetes if you Google search. The organization Mastering Diabetes comes to mind as it has been mentioned in our private Facebook group (join us!) by people who have found their resources helpful. ~Karen
One small suggestion (OK, two, lol) for the recipe: If you have something other than a Vitamix blender, soak the cashews for at LEAST 8 hours to get the creaminess this recipe requires. The other suggestion is for the cuke: when I was stationed in Crete, the little eatery down the hill from the base served their tzatziki with shredded cukes. It doesn’t really affect the taste, but it does make it a less “chunky” sauce; particularly helpful if you’re spreading it on bread (which is how you eat in on Crete!)