Now that we’ve established the incredible health benefits of being Fiber Fueled, it’s time to count our daily grams of fiber and load up on Wheaties, Fiber One bars, and Metamucil, right? Not so fast, my friends!
In 2017 I sat in the front row of a jam-packed, standing-room-only lecture in Chicago. It was Digestive Disease Week, the biggest meeting of gastroenterologists, surgeons, nutritionists, and researchers in the world, with close to twenty thousand nerds (like me) from 150 countries. I was there to hear Dr. Rob Knight speak. Dr. Knight is a god of gut health, in my opinion. He created the American Gut Project in 2012, the largest and most diverse study of microbes and microbiomes of the industrialized world. Dr. Knight was at the podium to announce the greatest predictor of a healthy microbiome using the full, unprecedented strength of his American Gut database. An announcement coming from the highest-quality source we have that would redefine how we think of gut health. His finding?
The single greatest predictor of a healthy gut microbiome is the diversity of plants in one’s diet.
That’s right. Not Metamucil, not simply counting grams of fiber, but the diversity of plants in your diet. More specifically, he found that the consumption of thirty different plants in a given week was the greatest predictor of gut microbial diversity. Believe it or not, this was far more powerful than whether you self-identify as “vegan,” “vegetarian,” or “omnivore.” Why? Well, you can be a junk food vegan and eat very few plants and you can eat a Paleo diet that emphasizes plant-based diversity, and this can actually be a healthy diet with the proper modifications. It all comes back to diversity of plants.
Since you’ve been following along closely, I bet you’re not too surprised by this. In Chapter 2 we saw the effects of just five days on a plant-based diet for gut health, which were dramatic when compared to five days on an animal-based diet. We also know from Chapter 3 how important fiber, which is found in plants, is to gut health—specifically how important prebiotic fiber is, because it can be transformed into postbiotic SCFAs by our probiotic gut microbes. And we know that there are innumerable types of fiber in nature, and every plant provides a distinct mix that requires a unique blend of microbes to process it. A diet that maximizes a variety of dietary fibers and resistant starches supports the diverse microbial community that’s necessary to process it. As proven by the Hazda population, the more fiber and plant diversity, the more diversity in the microbiota. Why is diversity important? Because the adaptability of our gut microbiota allows us to unlock the healing power of SCFAs. We need a team of microbes to get all the benefits.
Dr. Knight’s American Gut Project study also found that people who consumed an increased diversity of plants had a greater representation of SCFA-producing bacteria. Remember in the last chapter when we discussed training your gut with fiber? Regular exercise forces your muscles to adapt and get stronger. Similarly, giving your gut regular practice with fiber increases the representation of fiber-metabolizing, SCFA-producing bugs that are hyperefficient at extracting the SCFAs for you—an adapted, stronger gut, if you will. You get better at things the more you practice, right? Well, so does your gut.
As we know from Chapter 2, the composition of our microbiome is determined in large part by the foods we eat. Dietary choices lead to the rise and fall of microbes within our gut minute by minute. Every single plant type has a community of gut microbes that thrive when that food is present and languish if that food is removed. Therefore, it makes sense that the diversity within our microbiome would be proportional to the diversity of plants in our diet. More plant-based diversity = stronger, healthier microbiota = stronger, healthier you.
Although our food technology continues to rapidly progress and we have increased availability of food, the diversity in our diet is plummeting. There are approximately four hundred thousand varieties of plants on Earth, of which about three hundred thousand are edible. But combined globally we consume only around two hundred species in total. Folks, this means we’re eating only one out of every fifteen hundred edible plants on this planet.
Not to mention that just three crops—rice, maize, and wheat—contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins humans obtain from plants. Consolidation in high-yield crops is a lot easier for the food production system than supporting diversity. In the last century alone we’ve abandoned 75 percent of the plant diversity in our agricultural practices as farmers worldwide have been pressured to use genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties. In other words, our modern food systems are efficiently producing calories at the expense of nutrients and biodiversity.
What this means is that plant-based diversity in your diet will not happen by accident. It happens by making this your core dietary philosophy, shunning the path that our food system wants you to take. The good news is that in the pages that follow I’m going to help you maximize your plant-based diversity as a celebration of nature’s bounty.
Plant-based diversity is in fact so powerful, so life- and health-changing, that it should be our Golden Rule of eating. By following the one Golden Rule of healthy eating you can have it all—the flavors, smells, and textures from food that you love, food that also just so happens to bring you more vitality and health rather than taking it away. Food that makes you live longer, look better, and feel better. Food that heals and improves your gut microbiome. Food that makes you feel sexy, look sexy, and want more sexy time. I’ve lived it firsthand, and I’ve witnessed it in my patients.
When you maximize plant-based diversity, you make a choice that grants you better health—you choose food that nourishes and sustains your optimal health rather than the foods that zap your energy and beat up your gut microbiota until dysbiosis, the root cause of disease, sets in. By focusing on diversity of plants, you maximize the different nutrients that your food contains to reverse your medical problems and even heal the ones that you don’t yet realize exist. And by choosing plant diversity, you are fueling your microbiome with the scientifically proven number one determinant of a healthy gut and unleashing the healing power of SCFAs throughout the entire body.
We’ve made health too complicated with our extensive lists of foods to avoid, complex percentages of fats-to-protein-to-carb ratios, elimination diets, calorie counting, even weighing our food—and despite all these rules, we’re not getting any better. It just doesn’t need to be this complicated. Diversity of plants. That’s it. That’s all you have to remember. Done. No more annoying food lists. If you follow this one rule, it will lead you to better health. And it will always be the truth no matter what happens: No matter what changes on this planet or in our lifestyles, this core tenet of better health will stay the same.
You might be hearing “plant-based diversity” and wondering, “But aren’t vegans—who subsist on plant-based protein including lots of beans—suffering from nutrient deficiencies?” One of the big fears with the vegan—or plant-based—diet is that we’ll be missing out on critical micronutrients. Rest assured: A 2014 study compared the overall nutritional value of multiple different diets (vegan, vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, and omnivorous) and found the vegan diet to be the most nutritionally complete while the omnivorous diet received the lowest score.
This approach to eating always delivers beyond expectation—you may do it to fix your diabetes, for example, but along the way you’re fixing everything else, too, including the stuff that’s not even become a problem yet. The Golden Rule of plant-based diversity is both healing and preventative. It’s incredibly powerful.
If you make it your core philosophy for how you choose to eat on a daily basis, this one simple rule will open up a world of possibility for you. No more calorie counting, eating tasteless diet foods, or restricting portion sizes. You can eat as much as you want and still be your ideal body weight and have better health. Let me repeat that: You can eat as much as you want and be your ideal body weight. Yes, I said that. I know this seems like a crazy concept in the context of what’s been dominating our health and diet culture for decades, but it’s real and it works. If you think about all the herbs, flavors, textures, and varieties of health-promoting plant food that you can eat without restriction—that’s wild. And so exciting!
Each plant offers you a unique mix of nutrients: fiber, plant protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and so on. We have talked a lot about fiber, but the benefits of phytochemicals shouldn’t be overlooked. “Phyto-” is a prefix meaning “plant.” Phytochemicals are exclusive nutrients that you’ll only find in plant foods, and there are at least 8,000 of them, most of which we know very little about. Only about 150 of them have actually been studied. But what we keep finding, study after study, is that phytochemicals are good for us.
Let me give you an example. People say, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Could this old adage possibly be true? Recent studies emphatically say, “Yes!” No surprise, apples are a great source of fiber. A medium-size apple has 4.4 grams of fiber, about two-thirds insoluble and one-third soluble fiber. That’s just the beginning. Apples also contain numerous phytochemicals. Quercetin-3-galactoside, quercetin-3-glucoside, quercetin-3-rhamnoside, catechin, epicatechin, procyanidin, cyanidin-3-galactoside, coumaric acid, chlorogenic acid, gallic acid, and phloridzin—to name just a few. Each part of the apple has a different mix of phytochemicals, depending on whether you’re looking at the peel, the pulp, or even the core.
Each of these phytochemicals has unique healing properties. For example, quercetin protects against lung and colon cancer, coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and liver damage. Catechins protect against lung cancer, coronary artery disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
And did you know apples have probiotics? Put down the capsule and pick up an apple because a single apple may contain as many as one hundred million bacteria. Plants have a microbiome, too! Just like in humans, the microbes contribute greatly to the health and development of the apple from flower to fruit. The apple has tremendous diversity, with literally thousands of species. In fact, organically produced apples have not only more microbial diversity, but they also have a shift toward higher levels of microbes known to have a benefit on human health, such as the probiotic Lactobacilli. Scientists now believe that this exchange between the plant microbiome and the human gut microbiome may be of special importance for human health and a crucial source of microbes for our gut. It is yet another example of how we’re all a part of the circle of life, and everything in our universe is interconnected.
Not every apple is the same. We now see that each varietal has its own unique mix of health-promoting stuff. But in all cases the fiber, phytochemicals, and microbes contribute in some way to human health. This explains why apples have been found to reduce the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, asthma, and type 2 diabetes.
So should we all gorge ourselves on a bushel of apples daily? Absolutely not. This is just a window into the magic of fruits and vegetables. Apples are one fruit, and I share this case study with you to show you some of the amazing qualities you’ll find in apples. But every single fruit, vegetable, whole grain, legume, seed, and nut has its own unique blend of fiber, phytochemicals, and microbes worthy of a celebration.
Many of the colors that you see in plants are the result of their phytochemicals. So when you hear people saying, “Eat the rainbow,” this is the reason why. It’s top secret code for “Diversity of Plants.”
|
BENEFITS OF EATING THE RAINBOW |
|||
|
COLOR |
PLANT |
PHYTOCHEMICALS |
BENEFITS |
|
Red |
Tomatoes, watermelon |
Lycopene |
Provides antioxidants; protects against prostate cancer |
|
Orange |
Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins |
Beta-carotene |
Supports healthy skin, immune system, and eyes |
|
Yellow-orange |
Oranges, lemons, peaches |
Limonoids, flavonoids |
Protects against cancer and heart disease |
|
Green |
Spinach, kale, collards |
Chlorophyll, lutein |
Protects against cancer; protects healthy eyes |
|
Green-white |
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower |
Indoles, isothiocyanates |
Very strong cancer protection |
|
White-green |
Garlic, onions, chives, asparagus |
Allyl sulfides |
Lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, reduces risk of stomach cancer and heart disease |
|
Blue |
Blueberries, blackberries |
Anthocyanins |
Provides antioxidants, improves memory, protects against cancer |
|
Purple |
Purple grapes, plums |
Resveratrol |
Lowers cholesterol, protects against clots |
|
Brown |
Whole grains, legumes |
Fiber! |
Read Chapter 3! |
It gets better. Two different plants can create a synergistic effect—it’s like nature’s version of a match made in heaven. For example:
Tomatoes and avocadoes in guacamole: Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which reduces cancer risk and cardiovascular disease. Healthy fats from avocadoes make the lycopene more bioavailable. Yay healthy fats!
A mixed fruit bowl: A study out of Cornell University discovered that combinations of fruit resulted in greater antioxidant activity that was additive and synergistic. Based upon this, the authors recommended “that to improve their nutrition and health, consumers should be getting antioxidants from a diverse diet.”
Kale and lemon: Kale is a plant-based source of iron, which is non-heme and less bioavailable. Heme iron comes from animal products, is more bioavailable, but also more inflammatory and has been associated with coronary artery disease, colon cancer, and type 2 diabetes. The vitamin C from a lemon cranks up iron absorption and allows you to get what you need from a non–heart disease/colon cancer/diabetes-inducing source, meaning a plant.
Turmeric and black pepper: The active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, a potent anti-inflammatory that actually works great for people with joint pains. By sprinkling black pepper on your curry, you increase the bioavailability of curcumin by 2,000 percent.
Picture sitting down at every meal and eating food that you absolutely love. Your plate is full of color—bright greens and reds, soothing blues and purple, sunny yellow and orange. All the flavors are there—sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (savory). The smells are simply divine, conjuring up memories of the best homemade meal you ever had, making your belly feel warm and your mouth start to water. There are tons of variation in texture, with crunch balanced against soft and chewy. And when you’re done eating, you feel fantastic. No food hangover that requires a bolus of caffeine to compensate for it. You feel energized and light—your very best self. How liberating would it be for you to enjoy a meal like that without worrying about compliance with complex rules or food lists, to be driven instead by color and taste and texture.
This is the life I envision for you. It’s vibrantly colorful. It’s fun and fresh. It’s effortlessly healthy. Plant-based diversity is the antithesis of categorical food restriction. There’s been a trend toward deeper and deeper food restrictions out there, but it’s not working because the true solution is radical abundance, not extreme deprivation. With that in mind, I want to walk you through the science behind some of the targets of dietary restriction and show you that we’re better with these foods back in our lives.
Many of us have been led to believe that whole grains are inflammatory and that they are an unhealthy product of modern agriculture; this belief makes me cringe. We really shouldn’t be lumping whole grains in with refined grains, like sugar. They’re totally different. Whole grains are an excellent source of prebiotic fiber and definitely belong in a diet that’s rich in plant-based diversity. If you’re skeptical, allow me to share some of the research.
In a systematic review and meta-analysis of forty-five studies, increasing your daily whole-grain consumption by just two pieces of whole-grain bread rewarded the participants with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and total cancer as well as a lower likelihood of death from all causes, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes, and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes. Convinced yet?
I’ll give you more: In a meta-analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study they found that every daily serving of whole grains reduces your risk of death by 5 percent and your risk of death by cardiovascular cause by 9 percent.
In another meta-analysis including nearly 250,000 people, those eating the most whole grains had a 14 percent lower risk of stroke than those eating the fewest.
A 2011 meta-analysis of prospective studies found that there was a 20 percent reduction in the risk of colorectal cancer for every three servings of whole grains consumed per day, and the risk was even lower with higher intakes.
Another meta-analysis, this time with fifteen studies and almost 120,000 people, found that eating three servings of whole grains daily was linked to lower body mass index and less belly fat.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of sixteen cohort studies found that eating at least three servings of whole grains per day could lower your risk of diabetes by a third! There was no such benefit from eating refined grains, by the way. In fact, whole-grain bread, whole-grain cereals, wheat bran, and brown rice were all found to be protective on sub-analysis, while white rice actually increased risk.
I can’t write a gut health book without showing you what happens to your microbes when you consume whole grains. In a randomized controlled trial, study subjects who substituted whole grains for refined grains saw growth of SCFA-producing bacteria Lachnospira, increased SCFA levels, and a decrease in pro-inflammatory Enterobacteriaceae. They also noted improvement in the immune system and no effect on gut inflammation. In other words, whole grains were good for the gut. You may recall from Chapter 2 that the long-term adherence to a Paleolithic diet made the gut microbiota less healthy, with more TMAO and fewer SCFAs, which the authors attributed to the elimination of whole grains from the diet.
How about inflammation? Do whole grains cause inflammation? In a randomized controlled crossover study, those consuming whole grains saw their measure of inflammation, the C-reactive protein, drop by 21 percent while those who eliminated whole grains saw theirs increase by 12 percent. In a ten-year study of dietary patterns, whole-grain consumption had the strongest anti-inflammatory effect of the thirty-seven food groups studied. The evidence is clear: Whole grains are anti-inflammatory.
When we discuss carbohydrates, let’s separate destructive, refined grains from the health-promoting whole grains. Whole grains are a great source of the fiber that we read about in Chapter 3, empowering our microbes, and releasing SCFAs that protect us against obesity, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. Whole grains aren’t inflammatory; they’re quite the opposite. If you want to villainize “carbs,” do it to the refined grains and leave the microbiota-supporting, health-producing whole grains alone!
There has been so much talk about gluten in recent years, so let’s get into it. Gluten is a protein found in three specific whole grains: wheat, barley, and rye. And, of course, it’s in any products that include wheat, barley, and rye. Since most of us have never even seen raw wheat, it’s fair to acknowledge that almost all gluten-containing foods are processed foods—bread, pasta, pizza, and cereal. And that, my friends, is one of the main reasons that people may feel better when they go gluten-free. The elimination of ultra-processed foods, including refined carbs, is something that I support 100 percent. But does it make sense to categorically eliminate all gluten-containing products, or are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Gluten is a problem for people with celiac disease. They need to be completely gluten-free and there’s no debate. But there’s the perception by some that gluten is inflammatory, causes leaky gut and autoimmune disease, and that we should all be gluten-free. It’s a growing trend that started with a bunch of test-tube studies and has snowballed to this place where a third of Americans are actively restricting gluten intake. If these test-tube studies are correct and gluten really does cause leaky gut, then we should see improvements in gut health with a gluten-free diet, right?
But we don’t. We actually see the opposite. After healthy subjects without celiac spent a month on a gluten-free diet, counts of healthy bacteria like F. prausnitzii, Lactobacillus, and Bifidobacterium declined while evildoers E. coli and Enterobacteriaceae increased.
In a randomized, controlled crossover study, a “low gluten” diet reduced healthy Bifidobacterium and butyrate-producing Anaerostipes hadrus and Eubacterium hallii. I know you’re still wondering whether gluten causes inflammation, affects the immune system, even causes increased intestinal permeability. When researchers tested humans, they couldn’t find any evidence of inflammation, immune activation, or increased intestinal permeability connected to the consumption of gluten in this study. But there was a difference in immune reactivity in a test tube. As I’ve mentioned before, laboratory tests don’t always translate to human studies.
In another study, whole wheat increased healthy Bifidobacterium and produced metabolites that improved intestinal integrity and reduced intestinal permeability. Let me say that again—whole wheat improved intestinal integrity and reduced intestinal permeability (or leaky gut).
What we’re seeing here is the difference between laboratory and human research. In the lab, you may extract the molecule of interest then study it in isolation, often in a concentrated form in a test tube. Clearly, this is quite different from when a human being actually eats a gluten-containing food in real life. For me, I take those laboratory studies with a major grain of salt and have more trust in the human studies that show us what happens in a natural setting. As you’ve seen, when healthy people eat wheat or other gluten-containing foods, we find that their gut actually appears more healthy. We’ve also seen that a gluten-free or restricted diet appears to diminish the SCFA-producing microbes and to enhance the inflammatory ones.
There’s more fallout from going gluten-free. A “low-gluten” diet causes loss of the genes for carbohydrate metabolism. Back in Chapter 3 we mentioned that we humans only have seventeen glycoside hydrolases, our digestive enzymes for complex carbohydrates. Meanwhile, our gut microbes may have sixty thousand or more of these enzymes. By depriving ourselves of gluten, we actually lose part of that carbohydrate-processing mechanism. So now the gut is weaker and less adapted to processing and unpacking complex carbs; as a result, when you try to reintroduce complex carbs in the future, you struggle. Hello, food sensitivity!
And last but not least, when we eliminate gluten from our diet, the big question is what do we replace it with? We’ve already discussed the importance of whole grains, and gluten-containing foods are the principal source of whole grains in the American diet. In a prospective cohort study of 6,500 people over 2,273,931 person-years, they found that as people consumed more gluten, their risk of ischemic heart disease decreased, which they attributed to the whole grains in gluten-containing foods. In other words, if you cut gluten out, you are increasing your risk of ischemic heart disease, our number one killer. It’s worth noting that this is the complete opposite of people who have celiac disease, where the consumption of gluten sets off an inflammatory cascade that may increase their risk of heart disease.
I’ll admit, gluten is not a simple topic. That’s why you need someone like me, who is qualified and has thoroughly reviewed the science, to give you insights on the right choice for you. In Chapter 5 I will walk you through my gluten protocol to determine whether or not you should continue to consume gluten. Here’s a preview: Most of you should! But by no means am I advocating that you make gluten the centerpiece of your diet. I am advocating, however, for plant-based diversity, and to not exclude health-promoting foods from your diet because when you narrow the spectrum of plants in your diet, you also narrow the diversity of your microbiome. And this is true even with wheat.
The average American eats just 6.3 pounds of beans per year. That’s down by 20 percent compared to fifty years ago. And yet some argue that legumes are the cause of every modern epidemic, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Legumes are jam-packed with fiber. A cup of green peas, for example, has 7 grams of fiber. A cup of lentils? A whopping 16 grams. Pinto beans have 30 grams of fiber per cup.
It’s true that the flip side of all that fiber is that consuming an excessive amount of beans can be hard to tolerate for some. But the benefits of legumes can’t be argued. Excess weight melts away when you eat a diet high in legumes. Your waist gets smaller. Your blood pressure and cholesterol drop to the point of tapering your drug. Your blood sugar balances and the diabetes disappears. And your risk for having a heart attack or developing colon cancer just got chopped in half.
There are literally hundreds of studies to support beans. Let me share just one example. In a randomized, controlled trial of a legume-packed diet versus legume-free, the researchers held the number of calories constant so that it was about nutrients and not calories. What they saw in the legume group was shocking. The C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, dropped by 40 percent. Blood pressure and cholesterol both dropped. But what was most fascinating is that the legume group lost more weight even though they ate the same number of calories. You may recall from Chapter 1 when we discussed that your gut microbiome plays a huge role in weight control, and that it’s more than just calories in–calories out.
So how about the effect of legumes on the gut microbiota? In a mouse model, both navy beans and black beans increased numbers of beneficial SCFA-producing bacteria with coinciding increased SCFA production, promoted colonic barrier integrity, and reduced bacterial endotoxin levels.
In a randomized crossover study, chickpea consumption for three weeks in addition to their regular diet led to increased growth of SCFA-producing bacteria (Faecalibacterium prausnitzii) and decreased growth of the pathogenic and putrefactive bacteria (Clostridium histolyticum and C. lituseburense). The authors concluded that chickpeas “have the potential to modulate the intestinal microbial composition to promote intestinal health in humans.”
Pea protein has been shown to stimulate the growth of the health-promoting bacteria Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria. There was a corresponding shift in the bacterial metabolites with increased levels of the short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). The authors concluded, “Such changes in microbial composition may beneficially impact the intestinal environment and exert a health-promoting effect in humans.”
Fascinating, right? So when you take all of this together it comes as no surprise that in a major study of food-intake patterns from around the world there was one—and only one—food shown to make people live longer . . . LEGUMES!
Let’s talk about legumes and grains together for a minute. Did you know that when you combine beans with a whole grain, you create a complete protein package, ramp up the fiber, and get your protein from a low-calorie, high-nutrient plant source? Remember, the source of our protein matters, and when you replace animal protein with plant sources you find that people are healthier and live longer. Consider that Costa Rica outperforms the United States in life expectancy on a diet centered around beans and rice while spending a mere fraction on health care. They’re not the only ones! Legumes and whole grains are celebrated in the diets of all five Blue Zones. These are longevity foods, and they are the foundation of gut health.
Would you agree that a healthy diet is one that maximizes nutrients in terms of achieving optimal amounts for bodily function? This is the concept of “nutrient density,” meaning that we want as many nutrients as possible per calorie that we consume. But nutrient density alone just isn’t enough to describe an ideal diet. What if you ate kale, and kale only, all day long, and nothing else. Would you be healthy?
Absolutely not. Kale is a superfood, but if it’s the only thing you ate you’d be redundantly and excessively loading up on the nutrients that kale provides but missing out on the nutrients, fiber variety, and microbes you’d get from other plants. For example, if you consumed 2,000 calories of kale per day you’d get 30 times more copper, 80 times more vitamin A, 80 times more vitamin C, and 360 times more vitamin K than you actually need. Hopefully you just urinate it out, but there comes a point for anything in life where too much of a good thing can actually be harmful. Meanwhile you’d be sorely missing the lycopene that you find in tomatoes, the selenium you find in Brazil nuts, and the vitamin B5 from avocados. Eventually those nutrient deficiencies set in. You’d get nearly 150 grams of fiber per day, but it would all be of the same type. No diversity of plants to provide diversity of fiber to a diversity of microbes. You would miss out on all the other species you’d find in the microbiota of other plant foods.
We have a tendency in our culture to obsess over superfoods. Like the celebrities of food, we put them on a pedestal and celebrate their elite nutrient density and special properties. I’m going to give you some of my favorites in Chapter 8, and they’re foods that are dear to my heart. But if you ate only the foods in Chapter 8, your diet wouldn’t be as healthy as the person who’s just really good at maximizing plant-based diversity in their diet. In my program, I focus on maximizing plant-based diversity first, and then incorporate superfoods.
To recap:
Every time you go to the supermarket: Think Diversity of Plants!
Every time you’re cooking a meal: Diversity of Plants!
When you sit down at the dinner table and start loading up your plate: Diversity of Plants!
As a medical doctor, I know when someone is actively dying, even if they’re still alive. You see how one organ affects the other. When one fails, it drags down another, setting off a chain reaction that leads to multi-organ failure and ultimate demise. What if we could do the opposite of this, and simultaneously lift all organs up at once? With a plant-centered diet, you’re not just fixing one problem, you are fixing all of them and optimizing the health of your organs in the process. Not just treating disease, not just avoiding disease, but actually optimizing your body and making it better. Becoming your best self.
Eating a diet fully enriched with all the colors, flavors, and nutrients nature has to offer is all you need. Remember the Golden Rule that will never change:
Diversity of Plants, Diversity of Plants, Diversity of Plants.
To view the 45+ scientific references cited in this chapter, please visit me online at www.theplantfedgut.com/research/.