One of the best known health benefits of eating a plant based diet is the reversal of heart disease. Specifically, the lessening of arterial plaque.

This is discussed a lot in the film Forks Over Knives. You can watch that documentary for free on their website. The diet that they use at the Cleveland Clinic to reverse severe heart disease is super strict. They are working with people who are too sick to have bypass surgery. The key to the diet is not using any oil. Oil is considered to be detrimental to the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels. The cells should be secreting nitric oxide (that I wrote about yesterday) and if they are damaged, they don’t.

Plaque can build up if there is a lot of cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol comes from two sources – some you make in your body and the rest comes from animal products.

I’ve always had fairly high cholesterol. As a long time vegetarian that’s made me really mad. I can’t wait to get bloodwork again now that I’ve removed cheese and most coconut from my diet to see if it has gone down.