How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

by Michael Greger

The standard American diet rates eleven out of one hundred. According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 32 percent of our calories comes from animal foods, 57 percent comes from processed plant foods, and only 11 percent comes from whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

If we continue to eat as though we’re having our last meals, eventually they will be.

Weight loss through calorie restriction and an even more vigorous exercise program failed to improve telomere length, so it appears that the active ingredient is the quality, not quantity, of the food eaten.

That one unifying diet found to best prevent and treat many of these chronic diseases is a whole-food, plant-based diet, defined as an eating pattern that encourages the consumption of unrefined plant foods and discourages meats, dairy products, eggs, and processed foods.

Drug companies are more than happy to sell you a new roll of paper towels every day for the rest of your life while the water continues to gush.

The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families.

To drastically reduce LDL cholesterol levels, you need to drastically reduce your intake of three things: trans fat, which comes from processed foods and naturally from meat and dairy; saturated fat, found mainly in animal products and junk foods; and to a lesser extent dietary cholesterol, found exclusively in animal-derived foods, especially eggs.

The optimal LDL cholesterol level is probably 50 or 70 mg/dL, and apparently, the lower, the better.

To become virtually heart-attack proof, you need to get your LDL cholesterol at least under 70 mg/dL.

Medicine can offer tremendous relief, but it’s not doing anything to treat the underlying cause.

Cooking without oil is surprisingly easy. To keep foods from sticking, you can sauté in wine, sherry, broth, vinegar, or just plain water.

For example, oyster mushrooms, which you can grow yourself in only two weeks from a just-add-water kit, have more than one thousand units (μg/dag) of ergothioneine, about nine times more than their closest competitor, black beans.

Mix two cups of ground flaxseeds with a cup of water, add whatever herbs and spices you want, and then spread the dough thinly on a parchment- or silicone-lined baking sheet. Score the dough into thirty-two crackers and bake at 400°F for about twenty minutes. To flavor mine, I use a half teaspoon each of smoked paprika, garlic powder, and onion powder, but you should play around until you find a (salt-free) spice profile you prefer.

Toss a tablespoon of ground flax into a blender with some frozen berries, unsweetened soy milk, and half a ripe banana or mango or a few dates for sweetness, and you have a delicious drink containing both classes of protective phytoestrogens—lignans in flax and isoflavones in soy. (See chapter 11.) Blend in some cocoa powder for a chocolate milkshake that could help improve your chances of both preventing and surviving breast and prostate cancers.

Simply blend a can of pumpkin purée, a handful of frozen cranberries and pitted dates, pumpkin pie spice to taste, a quarter-inch turmeric slice (or quarter-teaspoon of powder), and unsweetened soy milk to reach your preferred consistency.

All you need to do is blend one can of pumpkin purée with about ten ounces of silken tofu (the Mori-Nu brand is convenient because it stays fresh without refrigeration), as much pumpkin pie spice as you like, and one to two dozen pitted dates (depending on how much of a sweet tooth you have). Pour into a dish and bake at 350°F until cracks appear on the surface.

Per serving, the package lists 30 grams of carbohydrates and 3 grams of fiber. Thirty divided by 3 is 10. Well, 10 is more than 5, so the 100 percent whole-wheat Wonder Bread goes back on the shelf even though, technically, it’s a whole-grain product.

To eight cups of water, add a handful of bulk dried hibiscus or four bags of tea in which hibiscus is the first ingredient. Then add the juice of one lemon and three tablespoons of erythritol, and leave it in your fridge to cold-brew overnight. In the morning, strain out the hibiscus or take out the tea bags, shake well, and drink throughout the day. That’s something I try to do every day I’m home. For extra credit, add green foam: Pour a cup of the tea into a blender with a bunch of fresh mint leaves, blend on high, and enjoy. You end up with dark-green leafies blended into what may be the highest antioxidant beverage in the world, and it tastes like fruit punch. Your kids will love it!

Note that these doses are specific to cyanocobalamin, the preferred supplemental form of vitamin B12, as there is insufficient evidence to support the efficacy of the other forms, like methylcobalamin.