Nowadays, the 7th Day Adventist Loma Linda Diet is gaining more and more popularity among health/fitness enthusiasts or people that want to lose weight in a short period of time and begin their journey to a healthier lifestyle.
With this diet, it is said that you can lose up to 50lbs in just 7 days. Isn’t it exciting?
But what most people ignore is the social and religious concept that surrounds this diet and its origins.
What’s the 7th day Loma Linda Diet?
This diet, also primarily addressed as the cabbage soup diet consists on a selection of foods that first included cabbage soup eaten up to three times a day with or without chosen meals on the program/diet plan, for instance:
Original Loma Linda 7 Days Diet Plan:
1st Day: Fruits of your preference (No bananas)
2nd day: Solely vegetables.
3rd Day: Fruits + vegetables.
4th Day: All the previously stated foods + Brown Rice.
5th Day: Tomatoes and a source of protein (chicken without skin is allowed)
6th Day: Beef or chicken + Vegetables
7th Day: Brown rice + vegetables and a fruit.
The Purpose behind 7th day Loma Linda Diet
The recipe adding cabbage and other ingredients may vary according to the person and many versions are available to review out there. However, the main goal remains the same: reducing the amount of meat or animal proteins to the minimum and increase the number of vegetables, legumes, nuts and fruits on a regular diet.
Is it Always Useful?
This exact diet plan is only a kick starter to take new steps into a better nutrition and it’s merely sustainable in a short-term basis since it does NOT contain sufficient nutrients to remain healthy for a long time.
Is it for me?
Nutrition is a matter of balance, this could work for you if you wish to start losing weight, wish to reduce meat consumption and start getting used to vegetables and fruits. On the other hand, if you are already in the path of veganism or vegetarianism, this is not your diet of choice since it suggests eating meat some days.
Where it came from Loma Linda California
Loma Linda, Spanish for “Pretty Hill” based in the state of California, is a Seventh Day Adventist health sciences and Social Studies University dedicated to expanding knowledge, research and bring the principles and laws of God into regular teachings.
As part of the Seventh Day Adventist Education System, their main goal is to integrate science and most importantly, health with Christian faith establishing a bond and breaking the paradigm of separation between magic-religious perspective and verifiable scientific standards.
Through their many education programs, they offer job opportunities, education options and several articles for anyone who’s interested enough.
Research in Loma Linda California
Many of their verified articles are related to health/sociology subjects and public health issues such as dental deformities, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Their work provides an extensive view of these afflictions while simultaneously establishing a strong correlation between disease incidence and life expectancy to different lifestyles and personal habits.
The purpose of doing so is to create conscience, awareness and look for a change in the American Society main way of thinking and lifestyle into a healthier one.
Especially in terms of behavior, activity levels, interpersonal relationships and last but not least, diet.
Loma Linda Diet Study: The Importance of Healthy Lifestyles
The university has shown on their studies about nutrition that cultural aspects have a strong saying on health condition as well. As an Adventist institute, they have directed articles related to Adventism and its healthy habits. One of these remarked that Adventists tend to have less metabolic and cardiovascular health problems than other Californians in the area.
Even Afro-Americans Adventists who by regular standards would be more likely to suffer these affections. Therefore, it sustains that The Seventh Day Adventism Lifestyle is healthier, supporting things like staying active by constant exercising or just daily walking, better and more nurturing interpersonal relationships and better nutrition
Adventism & Nutrition
One of the positive aspects Seventh Day Adventist has is its views on the diet for a healthy life. As part of their religious beliefs, Adventists follow protocols for their daily meals, controlling the consumption of foods with high amounts of fat and sugar.
Also, while some followers do eat meat, (see the previous article about Clean and Unclean Meats) almost every single Adventist support a Vegan/Vegetarian lifestyle with nuts, vegetables, and fruits since they compare it to life in Eden, where humanity was merely vegetarian and needed no more than green food to live.
As a plus, it’s proven that vegans and vegetarians are less likely to develop chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes and types of cancer such as colorectal, one of the leading causes of death in American males.
Loma Linda California: The Blue Zone
To add more about diet and life expectancy we have an example with blue zones in the world.
A blue zone, by definition, is a region where people seem to live longer. The term was used for the first time by Dan Buettner in 2005 at a National Geographic cover story. There are five known blue zones in the world and one of them is located in Loma Linda, California. It’s stated that several 7th Day Adventists there are considered for North America’s longest live people.
When interviewed by Buettner, these people attributed their long lives to activity, sense of purpose, faith, and diet. Avoiding unhealthy habits kept them alive and healthy to enjoy a new day in peace but also, in dignity.
Diet Tips from Loma Linda
As stated before, nutrition is all about balance and people have their own path, even when it comes to diet. Consequently, options and habits change from one person to the other.
The community and University provide several pieces of advice and tips for anyone who reads their content in videos or articles via their website. However, we’ve summarized the main tips for you to check and hopefully, maybe try them out!
- No More, Just Better: Eat more whole grains and organic food. It’s even better if you grew vegetables in your own garden that way you’ll know what you are cooking and you’d participate in the process making yourself more conscious and responsible of the things you get for food and ultimately, eat. Not a green person? No problem, go to a local natural market, the goal is to get more involved in your own meals and aware of the things you are eating.
- Meat lovers:Instead of removing it completely, try to eat it from other healthier sources like fish or chicken. Instead of eating beef, try lamb and other new meats you haven’t tried before. That way not only you’ll know more about what works for you but also you’ll enjoy similar health benefits to the ones you could have as a vegetarian. You can also, reduce the quantity of meat you consume by mixing it with a vegetal source of protein like grains.
- Avoiding Salt & Sugar: Both are highly addictive as we think that without them, our meals are tasteless, still it’s important to control the amount of sugar and salt we eat daily to prevent type 2 diabetes and early hypertension.
- No alcohol and smoking: They are toxic and provide no tangible benefit to your health, as they are not nutrients but substances, you don’t need them to live so don’t use them.
- Managing Stress:This is the diet plan and healthy meal’s worst enemy. Eating in a stressful situation where you hold little to no control over what and how much you eat, leads to eating in excess and overcompensating emotional pain with snacks and junk food. Mind and body are always connected.
Loma Linda Vegan Food
What if we told you that 7th Day Adventists are in the market of vegan food as well? And that If you’d like to try out the Loma Linda Diet Plan, you can do it since there’s a brand named La Loma Foods?
In case you wonder, yes, La Loma Foods was first founded by Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, Carolina by 1905, over a hundred years ago, as a bakery named The Sanitarium Food Company and owned by The Seventh-day Adventist Church until 1990.
They first started selling cookies and bread but soon expanded as a company by adding Ruskets, a breakfast cereal, infant formula and meat analogues to their products.
By 1933, their name changed to Loma Linda Foods and their headquarters were in Riverside. They worked purveying the first soy substitutes for meat available for sale in the USA. In 1966, they were one of the nation’s most representative manufacturers of soy-based foods.
Long was the journey of this company, changing its name but not their core by keeping their product line and main market for many years. Their current name La Loma Foods was introduced in 1989 and the following year, the company was sold to Worthington Foods of Ohio, the latter being bought by Kellogg’s and then to Atlantic Natural Foods in 2015.
Its current mother company has its own line of natural and healthy products for sale with egg and meat substitutes available for vegans.
Other Brands to Start
It’s no news the food market keeps growing and vegan/vegetarian foods are causing a strong impression in modern people day by day. La Loma foods aren’t by far the only company in business with great alternatives for vegan/vegetarians or just people who’d like to try something new.
Here we’ll provide you with a small list of great brands with great products that you can try anytime. For more, check this awesome list as well!
- Sister Rivers Food
- Kite Hill
- Alpro
- Beyond Meat
- Califia farms
- Daiya foods
Final Questions & Changing Habits
Creating habits it’s not easy, especially healthy habits.
Most of the time, changing requires a big amount of effort from us with results that are mostly invisible in the short term. As adults, it’s 100% proven that creating habits it’s almost impossible without the motivation and organization as tools to persist and succeed over time.
On our daily lives, we love to eat delicious meals that are not necessarily the most convenient for our health, we enjoy staying awake all night doing different activities or sleeping excessively during many hours without practising any kind of sports because it’s easier that way. It feels good to think only about short-term pleasure instead of long-term fulfilment.
We all want to be happy, beautiful, healthy and successful but these things don’t come from momentary pleasures and short-lived satisfaction. They require sacrifice, moments of pain, organization and lots of logical thinking to establish goals, follow up to them step by step and finally, achieving them.
Diet plays a huge role in our lives. As it has been stated in this entry; it defines whether we have a better quality of life and increases our chances of living longer, as a result, there has to be awareness and conscience on the things we eat and how they affect our organism. We need to change our habits not only to live longer but to live better.
These days, more and more options are created to improve nutrition and people lifestyles’. Many products are available in the market as delicious as healthy. All we need to do is look for them.
Nonetheless, the final decision remains as yours. You are the only one who can change the way you live and the way you eat, whether you follow a religion or not. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, it’s NEVER too late to change for the better.
In order to start the process of creating habits, we invite you to ask yourself these basic questions and review your answers.
1) Would changing my food habits improve my daily life?
2) Do I want a healthier way of life that allows me to look and feel better every single day?
3) Do I want the people I love to live longer and more healthily? If yes, how can I help them to do so?
4) Do I want to live longer and with a good quality of life for as long as I live?
5) Do I suffer from a chronic disease? If yes, can I improve my current situation by eating healthier meals?
6) Can I follow small steps to achieve a better health condition through the consumption of these healthier products?
If you took the time to answer all these questions and had an affirmative answer to these basic statements then you have taken the first step: to learn and be aware. All you need to do is continue, establish your goals and keep researching the subject with entries like this.
Results like those seen in Loma Linda’s habitats are not impossible to achieve. All you have to do it believe and do. Food options are everywhere, the next thing to do is trying.