Dennis Kucinich - A compassionate voice for change

An interview with the United States’ pro-vegetarian presidential candidate
by David Klein
Living Nutrition Magazine vol. 16

"I live each day with a grateful heart and a desire to be of service to humanity.”
–Dennis Kucinich

"As the public becomes better informed of the effects and risks of genetic alteration of food, an enlightened public can pursue choices which will truly be in their best interest. Government has a moral responsibility to ensure the purity and safety of the food supply. We cannot abdicate this responsibility to global corporations whose goals may be limited to profit-orientation."
– Dennis Kucinich

After watching Dennis Kucinich's superb presentation in the televised Democratic presidential candidate forums, it was a great pleasure to speak with him. Regardless of the fact that he was running very low in the polls (yet still on the map), his presence, energy, clarity and integrity were and are making a refreshing difference. Furthermore, it was a long-overdue boon to our cause to have an unflinching vegan governmental leader in the national spotlight. My dear friend and animal rights activist cohort, Marr Nealon, helped set up the interview for June 5, 2004. As expected, Dennis was extremely busy and did not have much time -- the interview lasted only twelve minutes and, thus, we could not go very deep. But, I understood that a presidential candidate cannot afford to relax much, even on a Saturday. I did spend a good chunk of the time telling my story because I wanted Dennis to hear firsthand the example of one person’s travails and journey from a medical dead end to triumphant rejuvenation via Natural Hygiene and the vegan raw food diet.

I do intend to chat with Dennis again in more depth. Albeit, here is the interview, hurried, brief and belying Dennis’s warm nature which came through in abundance. I sense that Dennis is a good listener who genuinely cares about peoples' personal welfare and that he’d make a warm and generous friend. I also sense that his presidential campaign was only the small beginning of much more positive and highly-visible leadership to come, and I believe that we’ll be hearing about a lot more good doings from Dennis in 2005. Please check out his web site <www.kucinich.us> to learn more.

David Klein: I commend you, Dennis, and admire you for doing such a fantastically clear job during the Democratic candidate forums and in most everything you do. I saw you speak at the Health and Harmony festival here in Santa Rosa last year and I'm grateful for your impassioned efforts to lead Americans in a saner direction. Also, you are a great role model for the vegan health cause and I applaud you for getting out there and making it known.

Just briefly, I’d like you to know my story. From age 18 to 26, I had steadily debilitating ulcerative colitis. I was in engineering school and then working in environmental engineering, and the illness got worse and worse until it almost destroyed me. Each of the seven gastroenterologists all over the east coast said there was no known cause or cure. In the seventh year I started looking into nutrition and I was most fortunate to stumble upon a Doctor of Natural Hygiene, who taught me about the science and practice of healthful living, relying on the body to heal itself without drugs or medical intervention while eating our natural diet of mostly raw fruits and vegetables. Have you heard of Natural Hygiene?

Dennis Kucinich: Sure.

David Klein: Excellent. So you might have read some of Dr. Herbert Shelton’s works.

Dennis Kucinich: I have heard of him, but have not read his books yet.

David Klein: So to make a long story short, it took me a year for the natural approach to make sense to me. The light bulb went off soon after the medical doctor in Manhattan told me it was time to either cut out my colon or try a drug which would knock out my immune system. I thought that was all insanity and I wanted a better solution. So, a week later I was reading information on Natural Hygiene and it all made sense. I applied the natural vegan diet, stopped taking medications and I healed up within a few short weeks.

Dennis Kucinich: Isn’t that fantastic!

David Klein: My head was spinning on the fourth day, Dennis, I was so overwhelmed with joy. Along with that I was enraged at the medical system for not looking into self healing and educating me about health. This ignited my passion to get this self-healthcare information out to the world, eventually leading me to switch my career to health education. Twenty years later, the passion is still burning.

I know we don’t have much time, so here are a few questions. What spurred you to switch to eating a vegan diet?

Dennis Kucinich: Well, I met someone and fell in love with her and adopted the vegan diet that she was on.

David Klein: And what benefits have you received from the vegan diet?

Dennis Kucinich: More energy, more clarity, better health.

David Klein: And what have your challenges been, doing the diet?

Dennis Kucinich: You know, as you travel – I’m traveling constantly – it’s challenging to find either natural food stores or organic food stores, and in some cases restaurants, with appropriate foods for me. But, after a while, you are able to do it.

David Klein: Have you seen it at all as a social obstacle or some kind of a stigma that’s been a problem with your candidacy?

Dennis Kucinich: No

David Klein: Excellent.

I see our society as declining. I think we are getting dangerously close to becoming an ethically bankrupt society with more and more sick people – over 60% of our people are sick and running to the doctors, and the pharmaceutical cartel is out of control. I believe that one of the biggest jobs we have as a nation is to educate our people, especially in grade school and high school, about the principles of healthful living, as opposed to running to a doctor whenever one becomes sick. Modern “health care” is little more than drug treatment and surgery; neither have anything to do with health and they are typically delusional and destructive. How important to you is it have health education as a major part of your platform?

Dennis Kucinich: Preventive health and complimentary and alternative health approaches embrace nutritional health.

David Klein: Another problem I see is that the food and drug administration are one entity. What do you think of the idea of splitting them apart so there’s no conflict of interest, where we are mixing drugs and foods together?

Dennis Kucinich: Good idea.

David Klein: What do you think of people’s rights to refuse vaccinations?

Dennis Kucinich: I think they have the right to do that.

David Klein: Do you have any thoughts about the current high-fat Atkins diet craze, and the reckless mass marketing of unhealthy diet fads?

Dennis Kucinich: People have to find out whatever kind of diet they are comfortable with. I’m not one to judge what people choose.

David Klein: I believe we have an alarming dearth of good competent teachers in our schools and an attractive incentive is needed to lure talented people into the teaching profession. What do you think of the idea of making a tax exemption for public school teachers and many other kinds of teachers?

Dennis Kucinich: Well, I think the teachers ought to be paid more at every level.

David Klein: Do you believe that we need a health-education-minded surgeon general as opposed to one who’s just in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry?

Dennis Kucinich: Of course.

David Klein: How can we, the common people, affect positive change within our government with regard to health policy, so that governmental policies are not set by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and the food lobbyists? I understand there are 60 food lobbyists surrounding the White House.

Dennis Kucinich: People have to vote and they have to become aware of how their representatives are voting and demand that their concerns be addressed with respect to food safety, food quality and the whole range of issues that relate to public health and food. So, it’s important for people to participate. And if anyone needs more information about what I’m doing on some of these issues, they can go to my web site at <www.kucinich.us> for more information. I really appreciate the chance to talk to you, Dave.

David Klein: Thank you for your time, Dennis. I wish you the best.

Dennis Kucinich: Thanks again, good luck to you.

Kucinich for President 2004 on the Web <www.kucinich.us>

US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat of Ohio, is a dynamic, visionary leader of the Progressive Caucus of the congressional Democrats. combining a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of the essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic world view carries with it a passionate commitment to public service, peace, human rights, workers' rights, and the environment. His advocacy of a Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society, but to make war obsolete. His is a powerful, ethical voice for nuclear disarmament, preservation of the ABM treaty, banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to the development of a “Star Wars”-type missile defense technology. Dennis Kucinich was the 2003 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award.

Congressman Kucinich acts upon his belief that protection of the global environment is fundamental to preserving the life of all species. He has been honored by Public Citizens, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean water and an unspoiled earth. He was an early critic of nuclear power as being risky economically and environmentally, raising questions about nuclear waste byproducts. Early in his first term in Congress he thwarted an effort to repeal a provision of the Clean Air Act. As a congressional representative to the global climate treaty talks, Congressman Kucinich encouraged America to lead the way toward a sustainable, shared stewardship of the planet through carbon reduction and investment in alternative energy technologies.

He not only believes in sustainability, he practices it. Congressman Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision that has improved his health and deepened his belief in the sacredness of all species. In the 106th Congress, his call for labeling and safety testing of all genetically engineered foods provoked a $50 million advertising campaign by the biotech industry. Kucinich hosted an international parliamentary session, attended by officials of 18 countries, on the social, economic, political and health impact of genetic food technologies. He spoke at FARM's (Farm Animals Reform Movement’s) 2003 conference in August of 2003 and at WorldFest in Los Angeles in September of 2003. More recently, he was one of the principal speakers at an international conference on water rights, where he called for governments to reserve public ownership of water resources.

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