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

by Michael Greger

but in Asian supermarkets, you can buy them as “Lycium” berries, and they’re even cheaper than raisins. So, however you used to eat raisins—as a snack, in baked goods, in your breakfast cereal or oatmeal, whatever—I recommend you make the switch to gojis.

Adding citrus zest to your meals not only adds color, flavor, aroma, and a bit of culinary flair but also nutrition.

Caesar spin-off shared by Dr. Michael Klaper from the TrueNorth Health Center: 2 tablespoons almond meal 3 cloves crushed garlic 3 tablespoons dijon mustard 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes 2 tablespoons white miso 3 tablespoons lemon juice 1/3 cup water Blend and enjoy! (If you have a high-speed blender, you could probably use whole almonds instead of meal.)

Half the fruit servings in the United States are taken up by just five fruits—apples and apple juice, bananas, grapes, orange juice, and watermelon—and most vegetable servings are from canned tomatoes, potatoes, and iceberg lettuce.

Honestly, it’s pretty easy to make your own flax crackers. 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. When cut into thirty-two pieces, each cracker meets your Daily Dozen serving requirement.

One of my favorite treats is dipping fresh strawberries into a decadent chocolate sauce. All you need is a half cup of an unsweetened milk, one tablespoon of chia seeds, one tablespoon of cocoa, one teaspoon of almond butter, and sweetener to taste. (I use one tablespoon of erythritol, discussed here.) Mix all the ingredients, and heat until the almond butter melts and the sweetener dissolves. Pour into a bowl, whisk until smooth, and put it in the fridge to cool.

You can whip up a pumpkin pie smoothie in less than three minutes. 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.

ginger can also reduce the amount of menstrual bleeding, from around a half cup per period down to a quarter cup.68 What’s more, ginger intake of one-eighth of a teaspoon twice daily started a week before your period can yield a significant drop in premenstrual mood, physical, and behavioral symptoms.

Of 115 different foods tested for anti-inflammatory properties in vitro, oregano made it into the top five, along with oyster mushrooms, onions, cinnamon, and tea leaves.

Amla is arguably the most important plant in Ayurvedic medicine, used traditionally as everything from a neutralizer of snake venom to a hair tonic.83 I eat it because it’s apparently the single most antioxidant-packed green-light food on Earth.84

Dr. Greger’s Eight Check-Mark Pesto 2 cups fresh basil leaves ¼ cup freshly toasted walnuts 2 cloves fresh garlic ¼ of a peeled lemon ¼ teaspoon lemon zest ¼ inch of fresh turmeric root (or ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder) ¼ cup pinto beans ¼ cup water or liquid from bean can 1 tablespoon white miso Pepper to taste Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Blend until smooth. Scoop onto a cup and a half of cooked whole-grain pasta.

Those who suffer from seasonal allergies may also benefit from drinking tea. Randomized trials have shown that drinking about three cups of Japanese Benifuuki green tea per day starting six70 to ten71 weeks before pollen season significantly reduces allergy symptoms. That’s nothing to sneeze at!

Moderate-Intensity Activities Bicycling, canoeing, dancing, dodgeball, downhill skiing, fencing, hiking, housework, ice-skating, in-line skating, juggling, jumping on a trampoline, paddle boating, playing Frisbee, roller-skating, shooting baskets, shoveling light snow, skateboarding, snorkeling, surfing, swimming recreationally, tennis (doubles), treading water, walking briskly (4 mph), water aerobics, waterskiing, yard work, and yoga

Vigorous Activities Backpacking, basketball, bicycling uphill, circuit weight training, cross-country skiing, football, hockey, jogging, jumping jacks, jumping rope, lacrosse, push-ups and pull-ups, racquetball, rock climbing, rugby, running, scuba diving, tennis (singles), soccer, speed skating, squash, step aerobics, swimming laps, walking briskly uphill, and water jogging Serving Sizes: 90 minutes of moderate-intensity activity 40 minutes of vigorous activity Daily Recommendation: 1 serving per day

Compared to eating habits in the 1970s, every day, children are consuming the caloric equivalent of an extra can of soda and small fries, and adults are eating an extra Big Mac’s worth of calories. Just to make up for the extra calories Americans are taking in compared to a few decades ago, as a nation, we’d need to walk an extra two hours a day, every day of the week.8

The overconsumption of sugar-sweetened foods has often been compared to drug addiction. Until very recently, this parallel was based more on anecdotal evidence than on solid scientific grounds. But now we have PET scans, imaging technology that allows doctors to measure brain activity in real time. It all started with a study that showed decreased dopamine sensitivity in obese individuals. The more the individual being studied weighed, the less responsive to dopamine he or she appeared to be.5 We see the same reduction in sensitivity in cocaine addicts and alcoholics.6 The brain gets so overstimulated that it ends up trying to turn down the volume.

Taking Responsibility My goal is to give you the information to empower and inspire you to make healthy changes in your life, but in the end, it’s all up to you. Know, however, that there is only one way of eating that’s ever been proven to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients, a diet centered around whole plant foods. Anytime anyone tries to sell you on some new diet, ask just one simple question: “Has it been proven to reverse heart disease?” (You know, the most likely cause of death for you and everyone you love?) If it hasn’t, why would you even consider it? If that’s all a whole-food, plant-based diet could do—reverse our number-one killer—then shouldn’t that be the default diet until proven otherwise? And the fact that it can also be effective in preventing, treating, and arresting other leading killers would seem to make the case for eating this way overwhelming. Please give it a try. It could save your life.

seaweeds arame or dulse onto dishes you’re preparing may also get you your iodine for the day. Dulse is sold as pretty purple flakes you can just shake onto your food. I do caution against hijiki32 (also spelled hiziki), because it has been found to be contaminated with arsenic.

allow me to refer you to the best reference book available on plant-based nutrition by the preeminent dietitians Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina.54 The authors go into great detail and even have chapters on pregnancy, breast-feeding, and raising bouncing boys and girls.

Vitamin B12-fortified plant-based diets can offer health benefits for all stages of the life cycle.55 Dr. Benjamin Spock, the most esteemed pediatrician of all time, wrote perhaps the bestselling American book of the twentieth century: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. In the seventh edition, the final one before Dr. Spock died at ninety-four, he advocated children be raised on a plant-based diet with no exposure to meat or dairy products. Dr. Spock had lived long enough to see the beginnings of the childhood obesity epidemic. “Children who grow up getting their nutrition from plant foods,” he wrote, “have a tremendous health advantage and are much less likely to develop health problems as the years go by.”