PBS is running an infomercial from Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I liked the nutrient charts shown below. So, I took a few excerpts about his diet from the Internet.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of The Super Immunity Diet, provides a science-based nutrition formula to bolster your immunity so you can lose weight, boost energy and never have another sick day again.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a renowned physician and nutritional researcher, has penned several bestselling books on warding off every kind of illness (from the common cold to cancer) simply by changing the way we eat. His new book, The Super Immunity Diet, is based on his firmly held belief that food is medicine. His book relies on what he calls a “nutritarian” diet, based on foods with the highest nutrient per calorie density.
According to Dr. Fuhrman, most people’s immune systems are functioning at only around 50%. Science-based research shows that nutrient-dense foods packed with antioxidants have the power to double your immune system’s function so you can keep disease and illness at bay.
What’s more, as you age, toxins (from both the environment and your diet) build up in the body. By the time you hit your 40s, daily stress, hormonal shifts and years of toxic build-up create a scenario in which you can get sick easier and more often.
Dr. Fuhrman believes that his diet can help boost your immune system so that it’s functioning at 100% of its capacity. By eating nutrient-dense foods, you’ll scrub out and destroy toxins that cause illness, and help your body activate its own clean-up system to provide super immunity. You’ll renew your energy, lose weight, put an end to sick days and increase longevity. In fact, by creating a super immune system, Dr. Fuhrman believes men could live up to age 95, and women could live up to 100 years of age.
Dr. Fuhrman has studied the dietary habits of the longest-living populations around the world and found that they all have one thing in common: Nutrient-dense diets.
Here are Dr. Fuhrman’s 4 Key Rules:
1. Base Your Meals on Phytonutrient-Rich Foods
These are the foods with the most vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals (organic plant compounds such as antioxidants, including beta carotene, vitamin C, folic acid and vitamin E), and the least amount of calories. Phytonutrient-rich foods include colorful fruits and vegetables such as dark, leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers, and berries. Dark leafy greens contain lymphocytes that aid digestion. Berries, for instance, contain anthocyanins and bioflavonoids that protect the heart and ward off cancer.
Many of the superfoods you are familiar with fall under the nutrient-dense category. See how some of your favorite foods fare on Dr. Fuhrman's index.
2. Eat Slow-Absorbing Foods
Avoid fast-absorbing foods such as saturated and trans fats, sugar and white flour. These “fast foods” create a high glucose response in the blood stream, spiking insulin, which promotes fat storage, weakens the immune system and increases your rick of cancer. By eating slow-absorbing foods, your body is able to properly absorb essential nutrients and use them to fight disease. Slow-absorbing foods include nuts, seeds and beans. The sterols and stanols in nuts and seeds actually help pull bad fats out of the body, allowing good fats to be absorbed to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol, increase brain function and more.
3. Use Meat As a Condiment
The prime building blocks of the nutritarian diet are plant-based foods. Too many animal products in the diet raises the hormone IGF-1, which acts similar to insulin by promoting more fat storage and tissue growth, tied to cancer. Cut back on your meat consumption so that it comprises only 10% of your diet. The best way to do this is to use meat as a “condiment” or flavor enhancer instead of as a main dish.
4. Add 10 More Chews to Every BiteChewing your food facilitates the release of important nutrients and releases powerful enzymes that protect our cells. The average person chews each bite of food as few as 15 times. Try adding 10 more chews to every bite. Studies show that people who chewed more often also consumed 10% less food.
Nutrient Density
Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) is a score assigned to whole foods that contain the highest nutrients per calorie as Dr. Joel Fuhrman describes in his book, Eat For Health.
Each of these whole foods is given a score based on the equation H=N/C, which is that the health of a food is equal to the nutrients it delivers per calorie. Each ANDI score is based on a possible score of 1,000-0, with 1,000 being the most nutrient dense and 0 being the least nutrient dense. Kale,Mustard greens, Collard Greens, andWatercress all receive a score of 1,000 using the H=N/C equation, while foods like meat,seafood, and dairy products receive scores below 50 and are not considered by Dr. Fuhrman to be healthy. Fuhrman argues in his book that a nutrient dense diet can prevent or even reverse diseases and also might reverse obesity.
Nutrient Density
 Nutritional science in the last twenty years has demonstrated that colorful plant foods contain a huge assortment of protective compounds, most of which still remain unnamed. Only by eating an assortment of nutrient-rich natural foods can we access these protective compounds and prevent the common diseases that afflict Americans. Our modern, low-nutrient eating style has led to an overweight population, the majority of whom develop diseases of nutritional ignorance, causing our medical costs to spiral out of control. To guide people toward the most nutrient dense foods, I developed a 0-100 scale of micronutrient scores called the Nutrient Density Line, which ranks categories of foods based on their ratio of nutrients to calories. Because phytochemicals are largely unnamed and unmeasured, these rankings underestimate the healthful properties of colorful natural plant foods compared to processed foods and animal products. One thing we do know is that the foods that contain the highest amount of known nutrients are the same foods that contain the most unknown nutrients too. So even though these rankings may not consider the phytochemical number sufficiently they are still a reasonable measurement of phytochemical content. Keep in mind that nutrient density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health. For example, if we only ate foods with a high nutrient density score our diet would be too low in fat. So we have to pick some foods with lower nutrient density scores (but preferably the healthier ones) to include in our high nutrient diet. Additionally, if a slim or highly physically active individual ate only the highest nutrient foods they would become so full from all of the fiber and nutrients that they would not be able to meet their caloric needs, and they would eventually become too thin. This of course gives you a hint at the secret to permanent weight control – eat the greatest quantity of the foods with the highest micronutrient scores, and lesser amounts of foods with lower scores. |
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