FertilehealthyAiming for success, not perfection…

I just had to share this article from Diseaseproof, Dr Joel Fuhrman’s blog.  It explains why I eat the way I eat so much better than I ever could.

Hundreds of population studies show that raw vegetable consumption offers strong protection against cancer.¹ The National Cancer Institute recently reported on over 300 different studies that all showed the same basic information: if consumed in large enough quantities, vegetables and fruits protect against all types of cancers, and raw vegetables have the most powerful anticancer properties of all foods.² However, less than one in 100 Americans consumes enough calories from raw vegetables to ensure this defense! I encourage my patients to eat two salads each day (or one salad and one green smoothie, which is discussed later in this chapter), and a glass of freshly squeezed vegetable juice whenever possible. To help you remember the importance of raw vegetables, put a big sign on your refrigerator that says, “The Salad is the Main Dish.”

The word salad here means any vegetable eaten raw or uncooked. Fresh fruit, unsulfured dried fruits, canned beans, and a delicious dressing can be added to it. Eating a huge, delicious salad is the secret to successful weight control and a long healthy life.

This health makeover program encourages you to eat raw vegetables in unlimited quantities, but think big. Since they have a negative caloric effect, the more you eat, the more weight you will lose. Raw foods also have a faster transit time through the digestive tract, resulting in more weight loss than their cooked counterparts. The objective is to eat as many raw vegetables as possible, with the goal of one-pound daily. An easy way to accomplish this is to eat a salad at the beginning of your lunch, and then have some raw vegetables with dip before dinner. This could be an entire head of lettuce with one or two tomatoes and some shredded peppers, beets, or carrots. Or, you could have cucumber and shredded cabbage with shredded apples and raisins, or raw broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and snow pea pods with a delicious humus or salsa dip. The possibilities are endless, and Book Two details many ways for you to reach this goal. Though it may seem daunting, it is far from impossible to consume one pound of raw vegetables, especially if it is split between two meals. Believe it or not, an entire pound is less than 100 calories of food.

My long-time advice to eat a large amount of raw vegetables—a.k.a. a salad—before lunch and dinner has been tested by the medical community. Researchers used a crossover design to track the calories consumed by the same people when they ate salads as an additional first course at a meal and when they didn’t. The research showed that consuming salads reduces meal-calorie intake and is an effective strategy for weight control.³ Raw vegetables are not only for weight control, they also promote superior health in general.

When you add one of my delicious fruit, nut, or avocado-based dressings to the salad, the monounsaturated fats in the dressing increase the body’s ability to absorb the anti-cancer compounds in the raw vegetables.⁴ The synergistic combination of the raw vegetables and the healthy dressing makes the salad a health food superhero.

This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.

1. Link LB, Potter JD. Raw versus cooked vegetables and cancer risk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2004;13(9):1422-1435. Franceschi S, Parpinel M, La Vecchia C, et al. Role of different types of vegetables and fruit in the prevention of cancer of the colon, rectum, and breast. Epidemiology 1998;9(3):338-341. McEligot AJ, Rock CL, Shanks TG, et al. Comparison of serum carotenoid responses between women consuming vegetable juice and women consuming raw or cooked vegetables. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 1999;8(3):227-231.

2. Key TJA, Thorogood M, Appleby PN, Burr ML. Dietary habits and mortality in 11,000 vegetarians and health conscious people: results of a 17-year follow up. BMJ 1996;313:775-779.

3. Rolls BJ, Roe LS, Meegns JS. Salad and satiety: energy density and portion size of a first-course salad affect energy intake at lunch. J Am Diet Assoc. 2004;104(10):1570-1576.

4. Unlu NZ, Bohn T, Clinton SK, Schwartz SJ. Carotenoid absorption from salad and salsa by humans is enhanced by the addition of avocado or avocado oil. J Nutr. 2005;135(3):431-436.

What are you waiting for? Eat your veggies!

PS. Kristen has some great tips on how to get your family to eat more raw food on Crazy Sexy Life today.  Dessert for breakfast?  Sign me up!

PPS.  This just in from Science Daily:  Fruit is even better for you than previously thought.