Quotes About Nutrition

If you do eat tofu, choose varieties made with calcium (you'll see it in the ingredients list), which can weigh in at a whopping 550 mg of calcium per (3 oz) slice.2

Vegetarians and vegans are recommended to take supplements containing at least 50 mcg of cyanocobalamin (the most stable form2452) a day or at least 2,000 mcg once a week2453 (or brush twice daily with a B12-fortified toothpaste

Fast food averages about 1,200 calories per pound,1709 whereas traditional African diets, which more closely represent the likely diet of our ancient ancestors, average fewer than 500 calories per pound.

It's easy to avoid added phosphorus in processed foods—just don't buy anything containing ingredients with the word "phosphate" in their names, including pyrophosphate and sodium triphosphate.87 With meat, it's more difficult to determine the phosphate content, as producers aren't required to disclose injected additives.

Note that none of these recommendations to cut down on added sugars applies to fruit. As you'll read in the Rich in Fruits and Vegetables section, fruit can actually facilitate weight loss. If you randomize people to a diet low in all sugars, even the naturally occurring sugars in fruit, they do worse than those randomized to just cut down added sugars. Those who retained fruit in their diets lost nearly 50 percent more weight.

Regardless, why accept any risk at all when you can choose organic soy products, which by law exclude GMOs?

About twenty sprigs of cilantro daily for two months reduced inflammation levels in arthritis sufferers and cut uric-acid levels in half, suggesting that lots of cilantro may be useful for people suffering from gout.

As I explored in How Not to Die, these are the very same foods that in some cases may help prevent each of our top fifteen killers: (1) heart disease, (2) lung diseases, (3) iatrogenic ("death by doctor") causes, (4) brain diseases, (5) digestive cancers, (6) infections, (7) diabetes, (8) high blood pressure, (9) liver diseases, (10) blood cancers, (11) kidney disease, (12) breast cancer, (13) suicidal depression, (14) prostate cancer, and (15) Parkinson's disease.

The good news is that no matter what your mom ate or how you lived as a child, by eating and living healthfully, you may be able to slow the growth rate of any hidden cancers. In short, you can die with your tumors rather than from them. This is how dietary cancer prevention and treatment can end up being the same thing.

green, leafy vegetables. The following is a top-ten list of nitrate-rich foods, in ascending order. As you'll see, eight out of the top ten are greens. TOP-TEN FOOD SOURCES OF NITRATES 10. Beets 9. Swiss chard 8. Oak leaf lettuce 7. Beet greens 6. Basil 5. Mesclun greens 4. Butter leaf lettuce 3. Cilantro 2. Rhubarb 1. Arugula

Former Harvard nutrition chair Walter Willett has argued that the term whole grain should probably be reserved for only whole intact grain kernels.4978 So eat the wholiest of grains: intact grains, also known as groats.

How much food does it take to reach 2,000 calories at different caloric densities? As you can see in the graph below, you would need to eat eight pounds of food a day on a low-calorie-density diet of 250 calories per pound, whereas on a high-calorie-density diet, you'd have to restrict yourself to eating four times less food.

with "The Simple 7" factors that can lead to a healthier life: not smoking, not being overweight, being "very active" (defined as the equivalent of walking at least twenty-two minutes a day), eating healthier (for example, lots of fruits and vegetables), having below-average cholesterol, having normal blood pressure, and having normal blood sugar levels.27 The American Heart Association's goal is to reduce heart-disease deaths by 20 percent

Grapes, barley, and potatoes are best eaten in their nondistilled form, and Johnnie Walker is no substitute

Draining and rinsing your canned beans can remove about half the added salt, but then you'd also be rinsing away some of the nutrition. I recommend purchasing the no-salt-added varieties and cooking with the bean liquid in whatever dish you're whipping up.

The additional consumption of fourteen grams of fiber a day led to an average weight loss of 1.9 kilograms over 3.8 months.

The truth is that adhering to just four simple healthy lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases: not smoking, not being obese, getting a half hour of exercise a day, and eating healthier—defined as consuming more fruits, veggies, and whole grains and less meat. Those four factors alone were found to account for 78 percent of chronic disease risk.

rounded up a group of longtime smokers and asked them to consume twenty-five times more broccoli than the average American—in other words, a single stalk a day. Compared to broccoli-avoiding smokers, the broccoli-eating smokers suffered 41 percent fewer DNA mutations in their bloodstream over ten days. Is that just because the broccoli boosted the activity of the detoxifying enzymes in their livers, which helped clear carcinogens

The most antioxidant-packed common herb is peppermint.73

your kidney filtration rate can shoot up 36 percent. But eating the same amount of protein in the form of tofu doesn't appear to place any additional strain on the kidneys.23 Could substituting plant protein for animal protein help slow the deterioration of kidney function? Yes, half a dozen clinical trials have shown that plant protein replacement can reduce hyperfiltration and/or protein leakage

we're living longer, but we're living sicker.

teamed up with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of telomerase. In a study funded in part by the U.S. Department of Defense, they found that three months of whole-food, plant-based nutrition and other healthy changes could significantly boost telomerase activity, the only intervention ever shown to do so.69 The study was published in one of the most prestigious medical

curcumin to pancreatic cancer sufferers regardless of what other treatments they choose. Given the tragic prognosis, though, prevention is critical. Until we know more, your best bet is to avoid tobacco, excess alcohol intake, and obesity and to eat a diet low in animal products, refined grains, and added sugars97 and rich in beans, lentils, split peas, and dried fruit.98

Three words: black-bean brownies.