Dr. Joel Fuhrman Transcript

The standard American diet, often called the SAD, I don’t call it that, I call it the DAD, the deadly American diet. It’s more than 50% of calories from processed foods, junk franken-foods that have no nutrients in them. They are just taking in empty calories. Every bite of that bagel, that pizza, that croissant, that cheese doodle, bread, pasta, salad oil, mayonnaise, donuts, cookies, crackers, rice cakes, chips, candy, soft drinks – whatever you are eating. These are calories with no nutrients. Even if you take just a bite of that, its shortening your lifespan. Every bite, junk.

 Americans eat about 32% of calories from animal products. Right now I’m telling you that a piece of chicken is just like a bagel. And the reason I’m telling you a piece of chicken is like a bagel is because neither one has a significant micronutrient load.

In other words, there are no phytochemicals and antioxidants in the bagel and there are none in the piece of chicken either. The animal products do not contain the anti-cancer phytochemicals and antioxidants that extend human lifespan and neither do the processed foods, and that’s what Americans consume.

Then we eat ‘so called’ about 10% calories from produce, but that’s not 10% because they count ketchup and french fries and chips, and all the junk vegetables they put in there. They are not talking about raw, moderately cooked vegetable bean soups and salads. They’re counting every kind of junk vegetable. It’s closer to 5% of natural foods that we’re eating properly. Cooked natural foods that Americans are eating – that is way too low. We are living in a fast food nation. This fast food nation is destructive to the survival of our species.

Let me go over this for a minute. See, fast food is not just what you buy at a fast food restaurant. It is things that can be accessed quickly  and opened and eaten right away. The calories are absorbed very rapidly into your bloodstream. It contains synthetic ingredients, not a significant micronutrient load, high in sugar and salt, and it usually drives over-eating behavior. It drives you to want to eat more. The health outcomes that comes from fast foods are astounding – what it does to the body, how much it shortens life and increases death.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman has been on PBS as well as written authoritative texts on diet, nutrition, and specifically founded the ‘nutritarian diet’ that focuses on high micro-nutrient rich foods for optimal health.