Brooklyn Borough president and Democratic nominee for New York City mayor Eric Adams is on a mission to tackle one of the most stubborn health problems in the country: chronic disease in the African American community. African Americans are heavier and sicker than any other group in the U.S., with nearly half of all Black adults suffering from some form of cardiovascular disease. After Adams woke up with severe vision loss one day in 2016, he learned that he was one of the nearly 5 million Black people living with diabetes-and, according to his doctor, he would have it for the rest of his life. A police officer for more than two decades, Adams was a connoisseur of the fast-food dollar menu. Like so many Americans with stressful jobs, the last thing he wanted to think about was eating healthfully. Fast food was easy, cheap, and comfortable. His diet followed him from the squad car to the state senate, and then to Brooklyn Borough Hall, where it finally caught up with him. But Adams was not ready to become a statistic. There was a better option besides medication and shots of insulin: food. Within three months of adopting a plant-based diet, he lost 35 pounds, lowered his cholesterol by 30 points, restored his vision, and reversed his diabetes. Now he is on a mission to revolutionize the health of not just the borough of Brooklyn, but of African Americans across the country. Armed with the hard science and real-life stories of those who have transformed their bodies by changing their diet, Adams shares the key steps for a healthy, active life. With this book, he shows readers how to avoid processed foods, cut down on salt, get more fiber, and substitute beef, chicken, pork, and dairy with delicious plant-based alternatives. In the process he explores the origins of soul food-a cuisine deeply important to the Black community, but also one rooted in the horrors of slavery-and how it can be reimagined with healthy alternatives. Features more than 50 recipes from celebrities and health experts, including Paul McCartney, Queen Afua, Jenné Claiborne, Bryant Jennings, Charity Morgan, Moby, and more! The journey to good health begins in the kitchen-not the hospital bed!

Recommended on 1 episode:

Eric Adams Has a Message for the Democratic Party

In July, Eric Adams narrowly won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, making him the odds-on favorite to win in November. And he won the nomination by running directly against the verities of today’s progressives: asserting that the police are the answer, not the problem; that “defund the police” misjudged what communities of color actually want; that Democrats had lost touch with the multiracial working-class voters they claim to represent. Adams won on that message. He won in deep-blue New York City. It’s made him a national figure, and he’s been emphatic on what that means. “I am the face of the new Democratic Party,” he said. And “if the Democratic Party fails to recognize what we did here in New York, they’re going to have a problem in the midterm elections and they’re going to have a problem in the presidential election.” When politicians become national stories, they often release, or rerelease, a book. Adams is no exception. But instead of a campaign manifesto or an autobiography, “Healthy at Last” is a book about the health benefits of plant-based eating. “Outspoken vegan” isn’t a political identity I tend to associate with ambitious politicians at odds with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but that’s Adams for you. He doesn’t shy away from a fight. In this conversation, Adams and I talk about the fights he is picking, or will have to pick, in the coming years: with progressives who he thinks have lost their way, with police unions he wants to reform, with wealthy communities where he wants to build more housing, with critics who think plant-based eating is a hobby for foodie elites and with voters who may not be willing to wait for Adams’s “upstream” approach to social problems to pay off.

Books recommended:

• 📕  Healthy at Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Il lnesses by Eric Adams
• 📘  Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
• 📗  You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter by Dr. Joe Dispenza
• 📙  Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath
• 📕  Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Eric Adams Oct. 1, 2021 5 books recommended

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