Dean Ornish

“If you're with a close friend, your anger may raise his blood pressure as well as your own, whereas loving feelings may lower blood pressure in both of you.”

“When we realize that something as primal as the food that we choose to eat each day makes such an important difference in addressing both global warming and personal health, it empowers us and imbues these choices with meaning. If it's meaningful, then it's sustainable - and a meaningful life is a longer life.”

“Eating bad food does not make you a bad person.”

“I'm a big admirer of Walter Willett's work. I think he's done some really important research. He and I agree on most things.”

“I grew up in Texas, eating meat five times a day, and I liked meat. But I began being a vegetarian when I was 19 because I found that I felt better.”

“I strongly believe that the Founding Fathers of our country got it right: power corrupts, and any time you have too much power concentrated in one place, it tends to get abused, so checks and balances are always needed.”

“Awareness is the first step in healing.”

“With everything that you can imagine at our fingertips, many of the social interactions that help tie people together in a community have faded away. Are communities traditionally built on relationships, trust and familiarity a thing of the past?”

“What's personally sustainable is globally sustainable.”

“I'm as deeply suspicious of big government as anyone. I'm strongly in favor of universal coverage but not single payer.”

“Meditation is the practice of giving something your full attention and awareness. When I eat a truffle, for example, I focus fully on it and involve as many of my senses as possible.”

“When we exercise, it feels like we're really out there doing something, whereas spending a few minutes with your eyes closed in meditation may feel a little, well, wimpy.”

“You can meditate on almost anything: a prayer, song, image or word. Close your eyes; sit in a comfortable position. Take a breath, and say the word out loud, emphasizing the humming sound at the end. When you come to the end of the breath, take another one and say the word again. And so on.”

“I've found that if I tell somebody 'Eat this and don't do that,' it's not only not helpful, it's counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there's a tendency to do just the opposite.”

“Parents and kids know they should pass up the fries for an apple and exchange the video game for a game of tag - but knowing and doing are certainly different things.”

“When most people think about my work, they think about diet. To me, diet has always been the least interesting part of it.”

“Because the biological mechanisms that affect our health and well-being are so dynamic, when people change their diet and lifestyle, they usually feel so much better, so quickly; it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living. Also, the support that patients give each other is a powerful motivator.”

“Getting through the day becomes more important than living a long life when you have no one else to live for.”

“Whether it's by helping us search for health-related information, connecting us with doctors through online portals, or enabling us to store and retrieve our medical records online, the Internet is starting to show the promise it has to transform the way people interact with and improve their own health and wellness.”

“Alas, bacon and eggs are not health foods.”