It’s been almost two years since I hosted a Healthy Giraffe Event in the Giraffe’s Den and the magic reappeared in so many ways. Here I share an amazing night with great friends and family.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to comeback with the events but after several inquiries and signs to keep the spirit alive with living a healthy lifestyle I was excited to UnDo the pause. The Healthy Giraffe Events typically contain three elements: Education about nutrition/health, cooking together, and playing a game centered on the topic of the night. In addition to all this, maybe the best part is being around positive energy people in pursuit of living a healthy lifestyle.
Before the pause I was going to host an event on the many years of research and book from Dr. Dean Ornish titled, UnDo It – How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases. He demonstrates how four lifestyle choices we make can have a significant impact on our overall health and quality of life as we age. The four elements include:
- Eat well
- Move more
- Stress less
- Love more
The book is amazing citing numerous studies he and/or colleagues have conducted over his 40 years of research and practice. We watched 25 minutes of Dr. Ornish being hosted on the Rich Roll Podcast where he is now 69 years of age, spoke with razor sharpness citing study after study with examples galore.
Although he states eating a whole-food plant-based diet is the only diet ever to demonstrate the reversal of heart disease and other chronic illnesses, the impacts of the other three components are quite significant on their own merit to overall health and longevity.
Before we watched Dr. Ornish and Rich, we had three teams prepare our meal which included:
- Giraffe Black Bean & Chickpea Burger (ingredients & directions below)
- Old-Fashioned Vegan Potato Salad
- Fresh Corn Salad
The organized chaos was spectacular as the den was buzzing with chatter. We enjoyed the meal, watched our video, had a great discussion about it after, and then finished with a highly contested game of Family Feud with many questions coming from the book.
One question that didn’t come from the book that I heard earlier in the week via the Exam Room Podcast (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) was – of 185 countries studied over the prior 30 years, where did the U.S. rank in terms of healthy diets. SADly (SAD = Standard American Diet) enough the U.S. ranked 181 of 185. The U.S. eats so poorly over 73% are overweight or obese and we do a great job with contracting cancers, Type-2 Diabetes, heart disease and the list goes on directly tied to poor diet.
Eating a whole food plant-based diet, exercising, stressing less, and loving more – trivia were shared during the game and details are in the book.
Thank you Lauren Nolan for helping prepare and coming up with our two side dish recipes. I had a fantastic evening being around a wonderful group of people. What more can I ask for?
– Add Health to Your Life
| Burger Ingredients | Amount |
| Black Beans | 1 can |
| Onion | 1/2 cup |
| Fajita Spice | 1 tablespoon |
| Garlic Powder | 1 teaspoon |
| Nutritional Yeast | 1 teaspoon |
| Rolled Oats | 1/3 cup |
| Chickpea Flour | 2 tablespoons |
| Avocado | 1/2 |
| Directions | |
| Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees | |
| Put all burger ingredients in mixing bowl and mix using hands | |
| Scoop out mixture and form burger patties to size of choice | |
| Place in oven for 9 minutes and then flip them over and place back in oven for another 9 minutes |
The Healthy Giraffe 
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