Chicago Health Chief Calls on Everyone to "Go Vegetarian"

City health chief's food fight targets meat ! He encourages vegetarian diet for January

By Deborah L. SheltonTribune reporter January 9, 2009
Chicago health commissioner Dr. Terry Mason has a message for Chicagoans who enjoy devouring meat in all its fat-dripping, artery-clogging glory: Don't do it.

As part of his campaign to slim down waists and lower blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol citywide, Mason is encouraging everyone to join him in going vegetarian for January.

"For the entire month, I'm not eating any meat," he has told listeners to his Sunday morning radio show, "Doctor in the House," on WVON-AM. "If it walks, runs, hops, flies, swims, crawls or slithers, I won't eat it. If it has eyes, I won't eat it. If it had a momma and a daddy, I won't eat it. . . . I'm going to focus on eating a healthy and delicious variety of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. . . . And I want you to do the same."

In a city famous for Italian beef, Polish sausage and deep dish pizza, his call for a meatless month may sound downright blasphemous. But Mason, a physician who has a medical practice in urology, appears undaunted, and for good reason.

In this food fight, Mason has been amassing troops to his side.

On a blustery, snowy night this week, his call to good health drew dozens to the Soul Vegetarian East restaurant on East 75th Street. During his talk on healthy eating, Mason asked how many planned to go meatless all month, and a packed room of hands flew up.

Score one for broccoli.

In some circles, vegetarianism wouldn't seem like such a radical idea. But a meal without meat is not something that has caught on with many urban blacks, the group Mason is making a special effort to target. African-Americans suffer disproportionately from diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and many other health problems linked to high-fat foods.

This is Mason's fourth year campaigning for a meatless January. Paul Ellison, 71, of the Far South Side enlisted in the healthy eating crusade three years ago and then decided to forgo meat for good.

"It hasn't been that hard either," said Ellison, who has lost 40 pounds on a vegetarian diet.

For Mason, animal fats are enemy No. 1. He has stared down this enemy and it looks a lot like pork chops smothered with dressing, rib tips dripping in greasy barbecue sauce and hamburgers heaped with cheese.

Mason said his vegetarianism lasted seven months last year and he plans to stay with it for good this time. Mason suffers from high cholesterol and had a coronary stent implanted in 2005. Both of his parents died young of cancer—his mother at 51 and his father at 39.

In the crowd this week at Soul Vegetarian East were Dorothy Carpenter of Roseland, an education consultant, and Carpenter's daughter Raegan Tall, a child welfare specialist who lives in West Pullman. The two hung on Mason's every word.

Carpenter said she fell into a diabetic coma for 11 days in 2007, and her doctor told her it was a miracle she survived. She admits to a lifetime of bad eating habits and figures she needs to lose at least 100 pounds.

Tall, recently married, wants to get pregnant one day but would like to lose weight first to ensure a healthy pregnancy and healthy offspring.

"We've done a lot of diets, but it really is a lifestyle change," Tall said. "We aren't scared to try."

Mason chose January to launch his campaign, which he calls Re-Start, because "we have just finished a season of gluttony," he explained. "We started in Thanksgiving and went right through Jan. 1. That's when we ate more, drank more, did all the mores that we shouldn't have."

Walking around the room Wednesday night, he asked people why they came to the meeting.

"I came to get a jump start on eating right," one woman said. "I don't do bad but I could do a whole lot better."

Another woman said simply: "I love my life and want to live longer."

Next week, the group heads to Farmers Best Market on West 47th Street, where they will learn how to select the freshest fruits and vegetables and tell the difference between slick mustard greens and curly mustard greens, among other things.

The following week, an exercise physiologist will teach safe and effective exercises for getting in shape.

Andrea Giancoli, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, praised Mason's efforts.

"Typically a vegetarian diet is a healthier diet," said Giancoli, a registered dietitian. "People who follow more plant-based diets have better health outcomes—lower rates of chronic disease and lower rates of obesity. We all need to be moving more toward a plant-based diet."

Giancoli said cutting back on animal foods doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. For example, she noted the benefits of getting omega-3 fatty acids from fish.

"I tend to err on the side of caution and include this in the diet," she said.

Mason has advised the soon-to-be-meatless to drink at least a half-gallon of water daily and eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, beans and peas. He said some people might need vitamin B-12 supplements.

"I'd love to see people stick with it and make it a lifestyle," Mason said of vegetarianism. "But the goal is to help people see the benefits of a plant-based diet."

While Mason's approach is more smiling cheerleader than stern lecturer, he had his moments, such as when he admonished men who insist on filling their car's tank with the highest grade gasoline but fill their bellies with greasy rib tips and fries.

"You put the good fuel in your car and put the bad fuel in your bodies," Mason chided. "What sense does that make?"

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