The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (18 page)

Ingested phytochemicals have been shown in animal studies to absorb ultraviolet radiation and protect against sun damage. Green tea catechins and flavonols found in apples, cinnamon, berries, and beans have already demonstrated benefits. Researchers recently found that the consumption of tomato paste reduced skin damage from ultraviolet
radiation
and
curtailed concomitant DNA damage, which simultaneously limited the risk of sun-related skin aging
and
cancer.
⁶⁶

Lycopene also works wonders for the heart and blood vessels. Many observational studies have noted the connection between high levels of blood lycopene and a lower risk of heart attack. For example, a study in men found that low serum lycopene was associated with increased plaque in the carotid artery and tripled the risk of cardiovascular events compared with higher levels.
⁶⁷
In a study that examined women in four different quartiles according to blood lycopene levels, researchers observed that the women in the top three quartiles were 50 percent less likely to have cardiovascular disease than the lowest quartile.
⁶⁸

Similarly, a 2004 analysis of the Physicians’ Health Study data found a 39 percent decrease in stroke risk in men with the highest blood levels of lycopene.
⁶⁹
For twelve years, physicians in Finland followed one thousand men, regularly testing their blood carotenoid levels. Men with the highest lycopene levels were 55 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than men with the lowest lycopene levels.
⁷⁰
Previous data from this same group showed that higher lycopene levels often lowered the risk of heart attack.
⁷¹

Lycopene is also an extremely potent antioxidant. According to several studies, the increase of tomato products in the diet helped guard against LDL oxidation, an early step in the formation of atherosclerotic plaque.
⁷²
Another study found that a tomato-rich diet improved the body’s endothelial function, that is, its ability to regulate blood pressure within the inner lining of blood vessels. Oxidation impairs endothelial function.
⁷³
And this result occurred after only two weeks!

Lycopene may also protect against cardiovascular disease. Early evidence seems to indicate that lycopene inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, the enzyme responsible for producing cholesterol and the one targeted by cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Numerous trials have shown that
by adding extra tomato products to their diets, subjects reduced their blood cholesterol levels. A meta-analysis of twelve trials found that daily supplemental tomato products—approximately 1 cup of tomato juice or 3 to 4 tablespoons of tomato paste per day—reduced LDL cholesterol by 10 percent. This is comparable to the results obtained with low doses of statin drugs—minus the nasty side effects, of course.
⁷⁴

Lycopene also has anti-inflammatory effects and may prevent the excessive proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells, a contributor to atherosclerotic plaque.
⁷⁵

Of course, lycopene isn’t the only nutrient in tomatoes. They are also rich in other carotenoids; numerous vitamins, such as vitamins C and E; and flavonol antioxidants. While lycopene is likely the carotenoid with the most potent antioxidant, a combination of carotenoids is even more effective than any single one; they work synergistically to provide the greatest health benefit. Their full interaction triggers good health. A single pill or individual supplement can’t compete. In a given year, a typical American will eat about 92 pounds of tomatoes.
⁷⁶
Enjoy those 92 pounds!—and continue to add more. Add fresh tomatoes to every salad. Mix some diced or unsulfured sun-dried tomatoes into your next bowl of soup. Enjoy homemade tomato sauces and soups. But
watch out for the sodium content of ketchup and many other tomato products; low-sodium or no-salt alternatives are the best. And because carotenoids are best absorbed when accompanied by healthy fats, make sure to add them to a salad that includes seeds or has a nut-based dressing.
⁷⁷
Lycopene is also more absorbable when tomatoes are cooked, so enjoy a variety of raw and cooked tomatoes in your daily diet.
⁷⁸

CHAPTER FIVE

Nutritarian Boot Camp

A
nutritarian diet style is more than just a way to eat—it’s an attitude, a mind-set, a method that you can follow for a lifetime. As you begin your journey as a nutritarian you’ll start to take control of your own health and life. When you focus on eating the healthiest foods possible, you eat to live better, without the fear of disease and death, which makes for a more peaceful and pleasurable life.

The foundation of this program are foods that ensure that your body is supplied with everything it needs for optimal health. This nutritarian diet style enables you to lose weight and keep it off permanently, without experiencing hunger or depriving yourself of food. It is the healthiest and most effective eating style in the world. You’ll never want or need to diet ever again.

My dietary advice is based on eating large quantities of nutrient-rich foods and fewer foods with minimal nutritional value.

A low-calorie, high-nutrient diet slows down the aging process, helps repair cells, reduces inflammation, and helps rid the body of toxins. High-nutrient, low-calorie foods contain a great deal of fiber and take up a lot of room in the stomach. As you consume a smaller number of calories, you simultaneously eat a larger quantity of food, which satiates your hunger and blunts your appetite. Meeting the body’s micronutrient needs also helps suppress food cravings—finally putting an end to that vicious cycle of addiction, toxic hunger, and overeating. The more nutrient-dense food you consume, the more you will be satisfied with fewer calories, and the less you will crave fat and high-calorie foods. Once you begin to learn which foods make the grade by having a high proportion of nutrients to calories, you’re on your way to lifelong weight control and improved health. Though it is easy to understand that colorful plants are nutrient-rich, and processed foods and animal products lack a significant load of antioxidants and phytochemicals, it is helpful for many people to see actual scores of the nutrients contained in various foods. Every food or diet can be evaluated using this formula, and this visual tool can help motivate you to eat more high-nutrient vegetation and less processed foods and animal products.

The ANDI Scoring System

To help visualize the H = N / C equation and make it practical, I created the
aggregate nutrient density index
, or ANDI. It is presently used at Whole Foods Market grocery stores to illustrate which natural foods have the highest nutrient-per-calorie density. The ANDI ranks the nutrient density of many common foods on the basis of how many nutrients they deliver to your body for each calorie consumed. It also helps you visualize how nutrient dense green vegetables are and how foods compare with one another in nutrient density. I set the highest ANDI score at 1,000.

Food labels list only a few nutrients, but ANDIs are based on twenty-eight important nutritional parameters. The ANDI is a simple way to help you identify and eat larger amounts of nutrient-rich foods. The higher the ANDI and the greater percentage of those foods in your diet, the better your health will be. Table 9 shows some ANDI scores. How do the foods you eat rate?

Note: The USDA Standard Reference Database was utilized for the following nutrients that were used to calculate the final scores: calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium, zinc, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, vitamin B6, vitamin B
₁₂
, vitamin C, alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, fiber, ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) values, glucosinolate levels, plant sterols, and resistant starch
.

Getting generous amounts of micronutrients per calorie with unprocessed, natural food is the goal of the nutritarian diet style. This way, your body is nourished with a comprehensive array of both discovered and undiscovered nutrients in their natural states—just as nature intended. The ANDI is a tool to help you visualize the value of eating more greens and other colorful plant foods and less processed foods and animal products. It’s not the only thing to consider for superior health, however. Remember that weight loss and longevity are both the products of a wide array of nutrients, not just a select few healthful foods. You have to eat a broad variety of nutrient-rich, natural foods: green vegetables, various fruits, beans, seeds, and nuts, for instance, as well as cooked mushrooms and raw onions—the G-BOMBS explored in the last chapter.

The ANDI also helps you understand that the standard American diet is dramatically and dangerously nutrient deficient and fails to provide hundreds of important plant-derived, immunity-building compounds. As the diagram below shows, almost 55 percent of the calories Americans consume come from processed foods, which contain hardly any micronutrients.
¹
The ANDI makes it easy to compare the micronutrient load of carrots, tomatoes, and broccoli, the foods Americans eat very little of, with that of white pasta, French fries, and apple juice, foods Americans eat lots of.