Quotes from Joel Fuhrman

optimal weight, as determined by who lives the longest, occurs at weights at least 10 percent below the average body-weight tables.

You Cannot Buy Your Health in a Bottle—You Must Earn It!

We humans, especially physicians, are notorious for interfering with nature, thinking we know better. Sometimes we do—all too often we don't.

If you want to lose weight, the most important foods to avoid are processed foods: condiments, candy, snacks, and baked goods; fat-free has nothing to do with it.

Only later, when it may be too late, do we realize that in fact we have made things worse.

Americans are nutrient-deficient because they do not eat a sufficient quantity of fresh produce.

foods found in nature are ideally suited to the biological needs of the species.

Humans are primates, and all other primates eat a diet of predominantly natural vegetation.

My experience is that most people are in denial about the true risks associated with their preferred eating style. As much as they resist altering their unhealthy diet, they often quickly change their minds once they have their first serious health incident, such as a heart attack or cancer diagnosis. At that point, they curse their former choices and wish they had made better ones. Think about that for a minute: How would the future you want you to eat?

By my calculations, it is not merely 70 percent of Americans who are overweight, it is more like 85 percent.

Modern science shows that most common ailments in today's world are the result of nutritional ignorance.

Natural plant foods, though usually carbohydrate-rich, also contain protein and fats. On average, 25 percent of the calories in vegetables are from protein. Romaine lettuce, for example, is rich in both protein and essential fatty acids, giving us those healthy fats our bodies require. For more information about essential fats and the protein content of vegetables and various other foods, see chapter five.

Diets don't work, and they're terrible for our health.

Remember, however, that your willingness to change and your success is proportional to the knowledge you obtain. This

Fat, such as olive oil, can be stored on your body within minutes, without costing the body any caloric price; it is just packed away (unchanged) on your hips and waist. If we biopsied your waist fat and looked at it under an electron microscope, we could actually see where the fat came from. It is stored there as pig fat, dairy fat, and olive oil fat—just as it was in the original food. It goes from your lips right to your hips. Actually

Americans didn't take home the message to eat loads of vegetables, beans, and fruits and do loads of exercise; they just accepted that olive oil is a health food.

legitimate nutritional researchers

Since natural foods supply us with 600–800 milligrams of sodium a day, it is wise to limit any additional sodium, over and above what is in natural food, to just a few hundred milligrams. I recommend no more than 1,000 milligrams total of sodium per day.

the more of these healthy green vegetables (both raw and cooked) you eat, the healthier you will be and the thinner you will become.

I encourage my patients to eat huge salads and at least four fresh fruits per day.

Investigators from Boston Children's Hospital in Massachusetts recently found that a meal high in refined carbohydrates produced brain effects consistent with those of drug addiction. 1 Every single subject showed intense activation in the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain related to addiction.

It is possible to prevent and recover completely from type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes. As

Cinnamon Currant Muffins

Leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and spinach are the most nutrient-dense of all foods.