Eat To Live: a book review

No Illness which can be treated by the diet should be treated by any other means.”

- Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

When I was in medical school, I took a class on nutrition that required we read the book "Eat to Live," by Joel Furhman. Furhman is a family physician who specializes in treating obesity and chronic disease using diet alone. At that time, I was intrigued by the common sense logic of Furhman's approach, and could not understand why more doctors did not refer to his book to help them when developing diets for their patients.

Furhman explained what he called the 90/10 rule—where he encouraged people to obtain 90 percent of their calories from unprocessed fruits and vegetables—with animal products accounting for only 10 percent. This type of diet encourages people to eat foods that are high in nutritional content with very few calories. In Furhman's estimate, the most nutritious foods are green leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and beans (roughly half should be eaten raw), with animal products coming in dead last.

While many people prefer to make the meat dish the main course, from a nutritional standpoint, it is probably better to make the salad the main course; with meat acting as a kind of condiment. What this means is that people who eat this way consume foods that are high in nutritional value with very few calories. This is in contrast with the way most people live and eat today; where they consume high calorie foods that have little nutritional value whatsoever. Because this type of eating is naturally much lower in calories, but loaded with fiber and nutrients, people feel full, quickly begin to lose weight, and experience much better health overall.

Perhaps the most interesting observation I have made about this diet is that it so closely resembles what we believe people closer to nature eat. An example would be the Native American populations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, like the Sahaptin of the Columbia River, which I studied while a student at the University of Washington. Most anthropologist today believe that gatherers and hunters subsist mostly on a vegetarian diet with meat only eaten in small quantities. We also find that people who eat this way, live much longer and experience far less chronic diseases.

When in doubt about what to eat, Furhman suggest you eat 2 pounds of vegetables and fruit a day (1/2 of these should be raw and 1/2 cooked), to obtain optimal health. This way of eating is also very high in fiber (which has been found to lower cholesterol and help in elimination). If you are looking for an excellent book on general information about health and diet, I cannot think of a better one to recommend than Eat to Live, it is by far the best book I have ever read on health and nutrition for the health professional and layman alike.