In Search of Simplicity

Dr. Michael Klaper has been a physician for 37 years and a vegan since he was 34 years of age. He was my recent guest on Voices from the North in another interview I recorded at Shangri La, an amazing place here in New Zealand’s Far North. Here’s the show:

Dr. Klaper has had great success treating various maladies using a nutritional approach. In our talk he speaks of the amazingly quick response certain ailments have when patients switch to a plant-based diet. Lasting relief of symptoms for rheumatoid arthritis and asthma begins, in some cases, after only a few days on a new diet. Back in the 1980s, Dr. Klaper recorded a series of instructional tapes outlining how a vegan diet could help those suffering from obesity, cancer, diabetes and more.

Michael sees the expression ‘arrogant physician’ as an oxymoron. He says the moment a physician stops listening and becomes arrogant is the moment he/she stops being a physician. From his perspective it is a great privilege to be a doctor and it is important to listen deeply to patients and to admit that the doctor doesn’t always get it right.

Part of Dr. Klaper’s training included tutelage under esteemed Chicago paediatrician, Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn, author of How to Raise a Healthy Child…In Spite of Your Doctor and more inspiring books. Robert Mendelsohn was a courageous modern pioneer who advocated home births and discouraged the overuse of vaccinations and medicines.

Dr. Klaper is unable to separate his being a vegan from being a doctor. As he says, “Being vegan is doing actions where no one gets hurt.” That seems to tie in nicely with Hippocrates’ edict: Physician Do No Harm. Dr. Klaper goes so far as to say that all physicians should be vegans.

In our hour long interview we cover a broad spectrum of issues including Dr. Klaper’s take on some possible benefits that can arise out of the ashes of our current global financial woes. This eloquent man has worked tirelessly for decades in support of the creation of a gentler, more compassionate world. He compares the resistance people have to adopting a plant-based diet today to the resistance our forefathers had to slavery one-and-half centuries ago. He paraphrases the words of a friend of his Keith Akers (author of A Vegetarian Sourcebook: The Nutrition, Ecology and Ethics of a Natural Foods Diet and The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity), ‘The world will become vegetarian, one way or another.” 

 Here’s a link to some of Dr. Klaper’s books, The Cookbook for People Who Love Animals, Vegan Nutrition: Pure and Simple and Pregnancy, Children and the Vegan Diet:

http://www.amazon.com/Cookbook-People-Who-Love-Animals/dp/0929274180/ref=sr_1_2/180-7580018-1856412?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241038009&sr=1-2  

Radio host, inspirational speaker and health educator John Haines is the author of In Search of Simplicity: A True Story that Changes Lives and the recently released Beyond the Search, books to lift the spirit and touch the heart. See http://www.JohnHainesBooks.com

“In Search of Simplicity is a unique and awe-inspiring way to re-visit and even answer some of the gnawing questions we all intrinsically have about the meaning of life and our true, individual purpose on the planet. I love this book.”

Barbara Cronin, Circles of Light. For the complete review visit: http://www.circlesoflight.com/blog/in-search-of-simplicity/

“In Search of Simplicity is one of those rare literary jewels with the ability to completely and simultaneously ingratiate itself into the mind, heart and soul of the reader.”

Heather Slocumb, Apex Reviews

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