Michael Rosenthal

(4/2023) As I have written before, the Environmental Nutrition newsletter contains scientifically sound information on "Food, Nutrition & Health". It is published by Health Information Network, Inc. of Norwalk, CT.

A recent issue discusses The Nutritarian Diet. The accompanying book for this plan is Eat for Life by Joel Fuhrman, MD. This diet is plant-based and encourages consumption of both raw and cooked vegetables, at least four fresh fruits per day, but not juice, and one cup of beans per day. Dr. Fuhrman recommend salads as your daily main dish and on eating what he calls G-Bombs: greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, and seeds.

Dr. Fuhrman recommends limiting cooked, starchy vegetables, animal protein, full-fat dairy, and eggs. The diet also suggests relegating wild fish and organic meat to side dishes rather than presenting the as entrees. He recommends that alcohol be consumed "in less than moderation" and to avoid it if possible. His recommendation tolerates one alcoholic drink daily. He recommends substituting caffeine-free herbal tea in place of coffee.

Dr. Fuhrman has a list of foods that he recommends avoiding . In this list are sugar-sweetened soda, grilled, cured, or processed meats, all other processed foods, white flour, sugar, sweeteners, and oils. He suggest one begins with an initial six-week plan where one cuts down on carbs, including bread, pasta, sugar, and oil. His diet requires eating meat and dairy for at least six weeks and that salt nit be added to foods.

The diet discourages multivitamins and supplements containing folic acid, beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E. After completion of the first six weeks on the diet, you may choose to reintroduce fat-free dairy meat, fish reined carbs, and olive oil in very small amounts. In another book written by Dr. Fuhrman entitled Eat for Health, he suggests a more gradual transition into this diet plan following a six-week introductory phase. This plan is great for vegans and veggie lovers who enjoy large volumes of raw and cooked produce, says Kathleen Zelman, former nutrition director of WebMD and a current podcast host named True Health Revealed. As you probably recognize from the description, people who love sweets, dairy, meat, and eggs will not be satisfied with this plan.

Dr. Fuhrman promises that if you follow the Nutritarian Diet, you will be able to lose at least 20 pounds. There are no clinical studies at this writing that specifically evaluates the effectiveness of this diet, but general studies of plant-based diets indicate that the diet should be beneficial for managing and reducing the risk of developing diabetes , cardiovascular disease, and some types of cancer.

US News and World Report in its annual review of diet programs rated this diet as safe and effective, but defined it as being "medium to hard" to follow.

As with all diets there are aspects that introduce some difficulty for the dieter. The requirement for daily salads, the elimination of certain food groups, no caffeine, and the discouragement of snacking may make sticking with the diet difficult for many people. The diet may cause trouble tolerating the volume of fruits, vegetables, and beans in the plan. The specificity of the diet will require a lot of time in food preparation. But you might just decide that the potential benefits are worth the revisions in your preparation patterns. (559 words)

The same issue of Environmental Nutrition (September 2022) has a very good article on Iron in the diet. We’ve written about iron in the diet before in this column, but this article is worth a current review on the topic.

Iron is a necessity in our diets to produce hemoglobin and myoglobin. This is necessary to carry oxygen throughout the body. Low levels of iron will leave you physically tired and weak, impair brain function, and weaken the immune system which hinders your ability to fend off illness. Anemia is a condition resulting from an insufficient number of red blood cells. It has been determined that the rate of iron deficiency among Americans has been rising since 1999, and thus rising is the rate illness and even death due to iron deficiency anemia. Much of this rise has been attributed to dietary changes that lead to less iron intake in food, such as consumption of chicken replacing consumption of beef. There has also been determined that there has been a drop in iron levels in a large percentage of iron levels in both animal and plant-based foods. It is also speculated that the body’s demand for iron may have increased. The World Health Organization has determined that one-third of all women of reproductive age in the world are anemic. Poor iron absorption and anemia can result from various digestive diseases, including celiac disease or bacterial overgrowth.

To obtain iron through diet one should eat animal-based foods that contribute heme from animal-based foods including meat, poultry, fish and eggs or nonheme foods such as legumes, whole grains, spinach, dark chocolate, and fortified foods. Pairing plant foods with foods high in Vitamin C such as strawberries, citrus fruits, and dark green leafy vegetables like collard greens and broccoli improves absorption of iron. Certain cereal grains in the millet family including sorghum and teff have been shown to help people raise their hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels. Molasses is surprisingly fairly high in non-heme iron.

If a blood test an inadequate ferritin count (ferritin is a blood cell protein that binds with iron), your physician may suggest a supplement. The level is hard to raise through diet alone. It is wise to do this with a physician’s guidance, since too much iron is not good for you either.

Here is a short but significant item that appears in this same edition of the September 2022 edition of the Environmental Nutrition newsletter. Plant based diet, it is reported may lower the risk of prostate cancer. In the study the plant based diet did not produce any increase risk of prostate cancer, but in some men it did produce a reduction in such risk.

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