Saturday, May 19, 2007

Healthy Diet Continued

So what do I do now? I really don't want to eat animal products. As fate would have it, another book crosses my path, Eat to Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Perfect timing. Dr. Fuhrman supports his writings with over two-thousand research articles. His book is inspiring and rational. I think it is one of the most important ever written on the subject of food and eating habits. These are the most important lessons I got from the book:

1. The formula for a healthy diet: Health = Nutrients/Calories. Optimal health comes from eating large quantities of nutrient rich foods.

2. The more we feed our bodies with high-nutrient foods, the less we want food that is bad for us. Cravings for junk food arise because we don't feed ourselves healthy food. We are left hungry.

3. Healthy foods are fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Unhealthy foods are meats, poultry, fish, refined (processed) white products such as white bread and rice, dairy products.

4. The phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables protect against heart disease and cancer.

5. All the protein we need can be easily derived from plant foods.

6. Raw, leafy greens (romaine lettuce, kale, collards, spinach) are the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.

7. We have been brain washed by big business (meat and dairy industry) and corrupted government officials to believe that we need animal products to be healthy.

8. The most comprehensive study on diet and disease shows that populations eating little or no animal products were much healthier than those that did. The China Project data shows that as animal food consumption approached zero so did cancer and heart attacks. This is by far the largest study ever completed.

I highly recommend reading this book. Now I had something positive to hold on to. I was turning away from animals, but now I had something to go towards. I could eat all the fruits and vegetables I wanted. Things were looking up. I could see the light. Maybe I could become a vegetarian after all. It looked like clear sailing...until another book came to my attention. More on that tomorrow.

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