6 Steps to a Healthier Diet: Essentials

To receive the benefits of an abundance of phytonutrients and to avoid the health risks of excessive consumption of meat, dairy, and processed foods, we recommend a whole foods plant-based diet.

To enjoy a more healthy way of eating, make the following foods the core of your diet:

• Raw and Cooked Vegetables
• Beans
• Seeds and Nuts
• Fruit
• Whole Grains

 

For breakfast, have a whole grain such as oatmeal with fruit, nuts and soy milk (no sweetener added).

For lunch and dinner, eat a salad first as the core of the meal. Eat two generous salads each day. One can also try preparing a salad by mixing greens and vegetables with fruit in a blender to make a delicious drink. A blended salad provides increased availability of phyotonutrients from the vegetables by breaking down indigestible cellulose cell walls.

Breakfast Ideas


Lunch and Dinner Ideas


Prepare steamed or cooked vegetables with a whole grain (try brown rice or quinoa) or a starchy vegetable (squash or sweet potato) for lunch and dinner. Make vegetable-bean soups and stews. Have fruit for dessert.

Consume a cup of beans each day—in salads, soups, and dips etc. Try Eden brand "no-salt added" beans.

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Eat a handful (1/4 cup) of nuts and seeds such as walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pecans, pistachios, sunflower seeds, filberts (hazelnuts), peanuts, cashews and macadamia nuts daily.

Purchase whole flax seeds and grind them in a coffee grinder. Take 1 tablespoon each day for a mercury-free source of omega-3 fatty acids. ⁴

Take a multi-vitamin that contains Vitamin B12 and consider a Vitamin D and DHA supplement.

Drink water (plain, bottled, low-sodium, mineral), hot grain beverages (coffee substitutes), low-sodium vegetable juices, and non-medicinal herbal teas such as peppermint, rosehips or chamomile. Limit caffeinated beverages to one a day, making any additional choices decaffeinated, and choose tea (black or green) over coffee.

Do not consume added salt (salty snack foods, most canned products), sugar (in candy, fruit juices, sodas, sweetened desserts), added oils, deep fried food, refined grains (white bread, pastries, bagels, pasta, most cold cereals), red meat or full fat dairy products.

After learning how to shop for, prepare, and eat an ideal plant-based diet, consider the 90 percent/10 percent Plan. Consume 90 percent of calories from nutrient-dense plant foods and once or twice a week allow yourself a small portion of familiar foods not part of the plant-based diet such as a piece of free range, non-factory farmed poultry or fish. In this way, we suggest reversing the standard American diet by eating 90 percent whole plant foods and only 10 percent processed food, meat, or dairy. This approach makes a plant-based diet sustainable so that the benefits of this healthy diet can be yours for a lifetime.

Remember, the plant-based diet approach allows one to eat unlimited quantities of vegetables, fruit, and beans. It is hard to eat more than 500 calories of eggplant, spinach, brown rice and lima beans since stomach stretch receptors are distended with this high fiber food and hunger is satisfied. You might find you need to eat every 3 or 4 hours so plan for a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This is perfectly normal.

In summary, eat an abundance of vegetables (both raw and cooked), fruit, and beans as well as whole grains and a handful of nuts and seeds each day. To this base of plant foods, add fish and fat-free dairy twice a week or less, poultry and eggs once a week or less, and red meat, sweets, full fat dairy (milk and cheese), and processed foods rarely.

References

⁴ The Greatest Diet on Earth I and II (DVDs) by Joel Fuhrman, MD