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Dietary Categories

Omnivore

An animal that eats anything of any nutritional value regardless of source. Many believe humans are omnivores but recent studies of vegetarian societies and human evolution is proving otherwise. Researchers in multiple fields are finding that how our biology reacts to animal protien says we are born to be vegetarians.

Chicken Vegetarian

I had friends that called themselves Chicken Vegetarians because they ate no meat other than chicken, particularly skinless white meat. This was part of a high protein diet. When supplemented with more protien they called it a "Caveman Diet". While chicken is less fatty than beef it only rates a microscopic amount higher than steak on the Fuhrman ANDI system (see below). Meat of all types is very high calorie for the amount of nutrients.

Vegetarian

Someone who for either moral or dietary reasons does not eat meat. However, most Vegetarians will consume animal products that do not require killing the animal such as diary products and eggs. Most also eat some fish for the omega-3 fats.

Vegan

These are stricter vegetarians that for moral reasons will not eat meat OR animal products of any sort. This includes wearing leather and wool.

Raw Foods

There are folks that believe that the only good food is raw food including meat. There are both raw foods vegetarians and omnivores. There are also Frutitarians who eat nothing but fruit.

Kosher - Religious

Many religions have dietary restrictions as part of their doctrine. Some are based on moral principals and others on social tradition. Some are strictly Vegan, others not. The Kosher rule of not mixing meat and dairy on the same plate are based on complex morality from the Torah (do not cook the calf in the milk of the cow). Most of these diets can be improved without going outside their boundries.

Nutritarian

This is a new term coined by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. A Nutritarian is someone who eats food that has been proven to be the best for their health with no moral baggage. However, it turns out that this is MORE than a Vegetarian diet, it is more restrictive and generally does away with most of the foods resulting from the agricultural revolution as well as meat.

Nutritarians eat nutrient dense foods based on a rating system invented by Dr. Joel Fuhrman that uses the formula:

H = N / C    or     Health equals Nutrients divided by Calories
This in turn is converted to a patented ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) score on a scale of 1000 to 0. The higher the rating the better the food is for you. A Nutritarian can eat beef, chicken or cheese in small quantities if they like as long as they understand the health consequences. Certain fish and shell fish are recommended over mammalian and dairy products. One can be a strict Nutritarian and follow Dr. Fuhrman's guide lines to better health OR be a moderate Nutritarian and try to eat healthier by increasing the level of green vegetables in one's diet. But the best diet is a strict Nutritarian diet void of animal products, without processed foods and low in sodium.

Vegetarianism

In the United States and perhaps some other places in the developed world when someone says they are a Vegetarian, eyes roll and people think,

"Oh NO, not another one of those hippy dippy vegan kooks!"
Even if they don't say it you know they are thinking it. After that anything the Vegetarian says about vegetarianism being a healthier way to eat is just so much noise. . . Nobody listens and they will defend to the death their right to have bacon for breakfast, a hamburger for lunch, and chicken for dinner every day of the week. I've known a number of vegetarians in my family and respected their belief and often difficult position in a meat eating society. Often they would bring a Vegetarian dish to a meal they had been invited to insure they could eat. This societal rudeness indicates just how deeply ingrained our unhealthy eating habit are. Many such as Dr. Joel Fuhrman claim that low nutrition high calorie foods, especially sugar, oil, meat, and high glycemic starches are highly addictive. Perhaps it is this food addiction that makes non-vegetarians so rude to vegetarians.

For many years I had thought about becoming a Vegetarian for health reasons, not moral reasons.

I now know I would have done it wrong!
Many Vegetarians have just as unhealthy of diets as non-vegetarians. Most Vegetarians eat a lot of bread and pasta, concentrated oils, cheese and meat substitutes such as Tofu made from soy beans. While Vegetarians can get sufficient protein in their diet by eating beans with lintels or barley they often get most of their calories from nutrient light grains such as wheat and from oils. These are the foods that make you fat and do little to protect you from heart disease or cancer. And while beans are very good for you their ANDI score is relatively low (100 or less). Vegetarians who eat large amounts of green vegetables either raw or cooked have a much healthier diet than those that eat a lot of potatoes, pasta and bread. Just being a Vegetarian is not the healthiest way to eat.

ANDI Scores - The Essential New Food Rating System

While the value of many foods were known they were not scientifically quantified in an organized manner. A few Vegetarians and Nutritionists knew kale was very good for them but they also highly rated other things that were not one tenth as good for one's health nutritionally. They could not qualify their beliefs in a logical form. As an example, white rice is very low scoring so adding rice to beans in the classic "beans and rice" that many vegitarians ate to balance the protiens in their diet lowered the ANDI value of the dish to about 60 or less. Using brown rice only lowers it to 70 but using lintles (another protien balancer) keeps the score at 100. Adding red and green vegatables to the dish such as peppers and kale can raise its score to nearly 200. Four times the nutritional value of "beans and rice" and a better tasting dish. But prior to Fuhrman's ANDI rating system nutritionists did not know and could not tell you these things. As a result there is a LOT of bad nutritional information.

What doctor Fuhrman has done is put a logical and scientific value on the nutritional quality of foods so that it is easy to eat healthy. His ANDI scores lets you know that Kale scores 1000, Brussels Sprouts 672, Broccoli 376, beans 100, Rice 40, Chicken Breast 27, Whole wheat bread 25, most Cheese only 10 to 15 and sugar a 1 or less because it is pure calories with no nutritional value. Fuhrman suggests that you want the bulk of your diet to be foods with scores higher than 100. You can also determine what recipes are better for you as in our beans example above.

However, the ANDI scores are also only part of the picture. Some of our low scoring favorites such as bread and cheese are also very high in sodium (salt) a point that does not lower their ANDI score. Most processed foods including the canned versions of foods that SHOULD be good for you almost always have too much sodium for a healthy diet. The "healthier" choices from the same brand are commonly higher sodium than the alternatives. Many things that do not taste salty such as children's cereal and pasta dishes have high levels of sodium which is covered by the sweet taste which is produced using another questionable product, high fructose corn syrup. IF you ignore the low ANDI scores given animal protein there is also new evidence both from global nutritional studies and laboratory studies that say that cancer is directly proportional to the amount of meat people eat. If you gave food negative points for high sodium levels, synthetics like high fructose corn syrup or artifical sweeteners and other products supporting cancer those low scoring foods would have values less than zero, negative values which could only be evaluated as toxic. Those hippy dippy vegans were right not to consume animal products!

The ANDI scores DO give weight to micro nutrients (vitamins, trace minerals, phyto nutrients (color)). These are things that we know the healthy human needs and things that we do not yet know how they benefit health but suggest they are for the good. For a long time it has been known that the Omega-3 oils in nuts, seeds and fish were essential to heart health but now we are finding that the same also benefits the brain and may be a significant factor in dementia and Altzheimers. Substituting foods containing these oils for others in a low sodium diet has been found to actually reverse heart disease. Good nutrition CAN BE the cure.

The big nutrition lies: Protein only comes from meat, fish eggs. Dairy (milk) products are the best source of calcium. Olive oil is significantly better for you than other vegetable oils. A 100% Vegan diet will be missing vital nutrients. Medical Establishment Lies: Diabetes is incurable. You need medication to control high blood pressure. Surgery is the only solution to cardio vascular disease. FACTS (based on modern science): The USDA Food pyramid is virtually upside down. Salt (sodium) is the most significant factor in high blood pressure and the resultant strokes and mortality. Your blood pressure should and can be the same at age 80 as age 8. A high nutrient Vegan diet can CURE diabetes, heart disease and prevent cancer. Combined with a low salt diet and exercise you can significantly increase your life span and quality of life. New research shows that animal protein in the diet supports cancer growth. Societies that eat no meat have very low or zero cancer.

New Science

Dr. Fuhrman, his associates and others are making new discoveries about nutrition every day. There has been a revolution in nutritional science in the last decade and Dr. Fuhrman has been the first to apply this knowledge to a useful system.

One new thing in the ANDI rating system is the fact that the traditional method of measuring calories is based on physics. In the laboratory, foods are dehydrated, then burned and the energy released is measured and expressed as calories. However, the human body does not equally convert every available calorie to energy. For example, some of the carbohydrates in beans are difficult to digest and are not used efficiently by the human body. Thus the calories used in the ANDI rating formula H = N / C have been reduced about 20 to 25% for beans and their ANDI scores have risen proportionally.

This is a new and evolving science. The ANDI scoring system is based on existing data that is constantly being updated. Every item in the ANDI scoring system must have a database record with calories, nutritional components and other factors that are still being discovered and their value integrated into the system. As we learn more about human nutrition the ANDI values will continue to change.

However, do not expect big changes. The general rules that dark green (or intense colored) vegetables are the best holds true numerically as well as in clinical nutrition studies. Future changes will be mostly fine tuning of the system.

The Nutritarian

Vegetarians and Vegans have a head start but Nutritarian's have a system to follow based on scientific fact. The Nutritarian has the information to make rational dietary decisions without the guess work and mystery of the past. The juice diet gurus, the raw foods extreamists, the unheathy high fat weight loss diet charlatans, the beef and dairy industry and others have no hold on the Nutritarian.

Via the publications of Dr.Joel Fuhrman and Eat Right America the Nutritarian can learn the truth about nutrition. Perhaps one day they will convince the U.S. government, one of the biggest supporters of bad nutrition who forces the corporate line of the beef and dairy industries on our children. But in the mean time we need to educate ourselves and our children.

Dr. Fuhrman and others have proved that a Nutritarian diet can CURE diabetes and heart disease. It is also believed that a Nutritarian diet can prevent cancer as well as slow its growth.

Evolution and Conclusion

While some of our ancestors may have appeared to live primarily on meat it was for a very short time on the evolutionary scale and did not greatly effect our biology. They survived but we do not know how healthy they were during their short existence. They were also very physically active and a high protein diet was necessary for survival. If modern society is any indication the women were the "gatherers" and provided a significant amount if not the majority of the food in the form of nuts, seeds and greens. Our prehuman ancestors may have been hunter gatherers and omnivores but they were primarily vegetarians. Our evolutionary ancestors prior to the hunter gatherers were like the apes of today and almost entirely vegetarians. These creatures were our beginning and vast majority of our evolution over some 50 million years. Today there are societies that are entirely Vegan and they do not have the heart disease, diabetes and cancer rates of the "more prosperous" society.

What this all adds up to is that humankind evolved as a vegetarian and to be healthy should still be vegetarians. Modern nutritional science and medical practice is now backing this up.