How Not to Diet

by Michael Greger

Graduating from medical school basically advertises to the world that you’ve received likely little or no formal training in nutrition.

Breakfast Like a King, Lunch Like a Prince, Dine Like a Pauper

Pistachios are not just the most melatonin-rich nut, they are off the charts as the most melatonin-rich food ever recorded.2957 To get a physiological dose of melatonin, all you have to eat is two. Two cups? Two handfuls? No, just two pistachios. Pistachio nuts were found to contain 0.2 mg of melatonin per gram.2958 It only takes 0.3 mg of melatonin to cause the normal daily spike our brains give us, so just two nuts would presumably do the trick.

If you exercise in warm water (about 90°F), it doesn’t boost your appetite more than exercising on land. After the same workout in cool water (about 70°F), however, people can end up eating more than twice as many snacks an hour later.

That’s the first way to break a habit: Block its activation. The other way is to block its execution.

The increased fat mass from drinking milk3863 may be in part from the elevation in insulin levels caused by milk protein.3864 Even dairy industry–funded studies have found that drinking less than a cup of milk with a low-glycemic-index meal can exaggerate the insulin spike as much as if you just had eaten high-glycemic white bread.3865

(It doesn’t help that ten of the fourteen members of the current U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee apparently have financial conflicts of interest with meat, dairy, or processed food companies.4990)

The healthiest commodities are the least profitable. It’s that simple. This isn’t some grand conspiracy to make us all fat. It’s just how the system works. So it’s up to us to reclaim our health destinies from companies that may not have the best interests of our families’ health at heart.