How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease Paperback – 28 Dec. 2017

About the book: How Not to Die explains how a plant-based diet can extend your life while transforming your quality of living. It offers a wealth of health-boosting nutritional information and hands-on dietary advice that you won’t get from your doctor.About the author: Michael Greger, MD, is an internationally renowned doctor, author and speaker. Additionally, he serves as director of public health and animal agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States and runs the website NutritionFacts.org. Gene Stone is the author of several books on plant-based nutrition, including the bestseller, Forks Over Knives.My highlights:Poor diet is the number one cause of premature death, and it’s often ignored by the medical industry.Meat, dairy, eggs and processed foods that dominate the typical American diet are bad news. The study found that people who ate diets rich in these food groups were at greater risk of heart disease, diabetes and a number of other chronic ailments. Not just that, but excessive animal fat and processed meat also resulted in high cholesterol and an elevated chance of heart disease.A plant-based diet can provide better treatment than pharmaceuticals.Vegetarians of 12 years who began eating meat one day per week saw a drop in life expectancy of 3.6 years.So are vegetarians healthier? Well, cultures that eat plant-based diets certainly experience much less disease than we do in modern American society.Plant-based diets can even help reverse disease.Doctors find it easier to prescribe drugs than to change a diet, even though medication poses potential threats.Plant-based diets have been shown to be just as effective and come with none of the risks.Fruits, especially berries, help deter cancer and boost the immune system.A healthy diet should contain four servings of fruit a day, one of which should be berries. Keep in mind that means whole fruit and not fruit juice.Eating fruit has been found to improve lung function.This is due to fruit’s rich antioxidant content, which limits cellular damage and reduces inflammation. And don’t worry about the natural sugar in fruits causing weight gain. Only the fructose in added sugars is associated with health problems. The fiber, antioxidants and phytonutrients in fruit itself can combat the adverse effects of fructose.This incredible antioxidizing power is believed to come from their pigmentation, and berries are second only to herbs and spices as the most antioxidant-rich foods, with an average of ten times more antioxidants than other fruits.Vegetables are vital to a healthy diet.Whole vegetables, as opposed to processed ones, have been found to protect cellular telomeres – nucleotide “caps” that keep DNA healthy as cells divide and age. Not just that, but vegetables like broccoli and cabbage can aid liver and lung function while cutting the risk of lymphoma and prostate cancer.Eating five servings of veggies a day is the magic solution. Out of these five, two should be leafy greens like kale, arugula and chard. One should be a cruciferous vegetable like broccoli, cabbage or cauliflower. And the other two should include carrots, beets and mushrooms. Cruciferous vegetables are essential as they produce sulforaphane, a potentially powerful, anti-inflammatory, cancer-fighting molecule. These vegetables are best eaten raw since the enzyme that activates sulforaphane is destroyed by heat. Chopping them up before cooking is fine, however, since doing so activates the enzyme, thereby forming sulforaphane. After just 40 minutes, the molecule is preserved, and the vegetable can be safely cooked. Dark leafy greens are important since they contain the most nutrition per calorie of any food on earth. If you don’t like them, just try blending them into a fruit smoothie.Beans and whole grains are great for your health.The American Institute for Cancer Research recommends eating a serving of beans or legumes with every meal since they offer an animal-free protein with added benefits, like fiber.Soy is the most popular bean in America, but processed versions of soybeans, like tofu, should be avoided.Lentils are a good choice for legumes as they can cut a sugar spike, even hours after a meal. Beyond that, they’re loaded with prebiotics, can relax the stomach and slow the rate of sugar absorption.You should eat beans three times a day, and the same goes for whole grains, which can deter debilitating diseases.Whole grains can cut the risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, obesity and even strokesCheck nutritional labels and confirm that the ratio of carbohydrates to fiber is five to one or lower.14 October, 2017 12:29 ShareNuts and seeds are super nutritious.A single daily serving of nuts or seeds can make all the difference in fighting disease?The phytates found in nuts and seeds detoxify excess iron from the body, which can create free radicals linked to colorectal cancer. While phytates used to be considered inhibitors of mineral absorption, they’ve since been found to increase bone density.The most recommended seeds are chia, hemp, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower.Walnuts are the most nutritious. They’re even among the most antioxidizing foods and boast high levels of omega-3s.Herbs and spices make healthy foods even more beneficial.Herbs and spices can add flare to a dish, but these fragrant flavorings are also powerful fighters of disease, especially cancer.Spices like cloves, cinnamon, oregano and nutmeg inhibit an enzyme known as monoamine oxidase, which can spark depression.But of all the herbs and spices, turmeric is the best, especially for cancer.While turmeric is eliminated from the body quite quickly, simple black pepper can suppress this process.When it comes to beverages, water reigns supreme.Aim for at least five 12-ounce beverages per day, and there’s nothing better than pure H2O.Coffee, which benefits the liver and the brain. Those who drink more than two cups of java per day experience half the risk of both chronic liver issues and suicide.The second is tea, which can have powerful medicinal effects.Milk is a big no-goWhile moderate drinking – one drink a day for women and two for men – has benefits for heart disease, booze is also correlated with cancer.Exercise coupled with a healthy diet is the recipe for a long life.While healthy eating is essential, its benefits can only be increased by adding exercise to the mix. The daily recommendation is 90 minutes of moderate or 40 minutes of intense exercise.Final summaryThe key message in this book: Switching to a plant-based diet can help you live longer and more healthily. Many of the debilitating diseases we suffer from today are merely a result of eating animal-based foods. By changing your diet, you can prevent or even reverse conditions as serious as heart disease or cancer.

I've spent the first two decades of my life pretty much ignoring nutrition. I seemed to have a metabolism that allowed me to eat as much junk as I pleased and never gotten overweight. Since a young child, my family could never get me to take an interest in food, and I ate very little of anything healthy. However, I was raised as a vegetarian and I've only ever eaten meat by accident.Three years ago I went vegan due to ethical reasons regarding the suffering of non-human animals. However, I continued to eat complete junk. In the last few years, my diet seemed to be catching up with me.I moved to Japan and practically lived off nothing but rice, chips, beer, green tea and edamame. My health declined. I went to the doctors with my 8th case of common cold or flu or tonsillitis in 9 months and asked if there was any lifestyle adjustments I could make. Can I get a blood test to see what nutrients I may be deficient in? The doctor reacted quite nastily, and having read this book, now I know why. Japan has a healthcare system unlike the NHS and more like the private American system. I was shocked at how much crap I was prescribed for a single cold (much of it Traditional Chinese Medicine that is unproven by science) and how much it cost.The pandemic came. I got a particularly nasty bout of tonsillitis that left me doling out the rest of my money on a week long hospital stay because I couldn't swallow food so needed it intravenously. I had to pack my bags and come home to UK, where my health has continued to deteriorate.I discovered I have a mental condition, a symptom of which is poor diet, poor exercise and poor sleeping patterns. It's defined my life thus far and I have decided not to let it define me any longer.So, I came across this book - the book that would help me get my baked beans and veggie sausage diet into a leafier shape. I always thought nutrition would be so difficult, but not only does Greger simplify everything without coming off as patronising, he also provides ample motivation to get you to eat more healthily. The motivation is right there in the book.Since following this diet, including the portion of exercise he recommends, I have felt such an extreme difference in energy. I now seem to float between rooms of the house, apparently not losing any energy as I move up and down stairs. My posture has become more erect along with other body parts. I can see my abdominal muscles for the first time ever. I have not fallen ill.This book is a gripping read, but also functions as a reference book with a very useful index. It's full of practical advice that is easy to follow and based on studies that are all from pretty good sources. Greger is completely transparent and analytical about each study he mentions, including in his summary the limitations of each study, how it might be improved for more accurate or enlightening results and other very interesting bits and bobs.I have started recommending this book to everyone - including buying an extra copy and sending it to my vegan-nutrition-sceptic scientist brother, as the scientific evidence based manner in which the information here is presented makes a compelling argument not only to defend vegan nutrition, but also to promote a whole food plant based diet as being nutritionally superior to any carnistic diet, provided it is eaten as prescribed by this book.It's impossible to be unbiased when it comes to veganism. Either your vegan or you're not. It's easy for me to see the negative reviews as being biased in favour of carnism, as someone might read my review as being bias because I'm quite clearly a staunch vegan.But the truth is that since adopting a whole food plant based diet, I've felt better and more healthy than I ever remember being. I recommend this to any junk food vegans (like I was) who want to learn how to eat healthily and to any carnists (people who consume animal products) who are sceptical that it's possible for a vegan diet to be nutritionally adequate. What you find in this book might surprise you.

Well written great book. Highly recommend

As expected.

Quite an incredible work or accessible academia that might just change your life. I was prompted to throw my two cents in upon seeing reviews suggesting that you might not like this book as it 'advocates veganism'. Firstly it does not advocate veganism, this book is a rigorously evidence based deconstruction of the western diet. The fact that meat, fish and dairy vastly increase your chances of dying of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, many cancers, dementia etc is simply the truth. It would sort of be like telling a smoker that wanted to improve their respiratory health not to take on board any of the data that proves that smoking is going to kill you because the data proves that smoking is likely to kill you! Also ironically Greger blatantly denounces labels like "vegan" and "vegetarian", he advocates a plant based diet but clearly states that it makes sense to still allow yourself the odd treat - you want Turkey at Christmas? Go ahead, but focus on changing your day to day eating routine.Before reading this book I never thought I'd actually take much on board in a practical sense, I just wanted to learn about nutrition but the case is put forward so convincingly that I have now cut out almost all animal based products from my diet except for parmesan cheese and a spoonful of yoghurt on my museli in the morning.

Fascinating insight into what should have been obvious to me before I read it.Articulated in a way that the uplifting message was loud and clear. We can all live longer by embracing nature's gifts, eating a whole plant based diet