Re: Doctor's healthy eating debate and Fuhrman style soup

I think I found the 10 minute debate you referred to above, and I watched it and found it very interesting too. It's from expo 2006:

What's the Healthiest Diet?

As I see it, starches give you more energy, and what Dr. John McDougall is saying is basically Darwinian theory, namely in the past, villages that eat starch and get energy would survive and take over the weaker population. I tend to agree with this, and Dr. Joel Fuhrman did say that his book "Eat to Live" is primarily for weight loss, i.e. tackling the already obese population. So my view is I don't need to trade energy for longetivity as in modern times our physical work output is lower. So I think I need to eat a low starch high nutrient diet until I lose enough weight, then I can consider introcucing starchy foods, or perhaps sooner if I decide to do so much exercise I need more energy.

I think also that different people have different nutritional requirements, and this has evolved over time. Thus Eskimos would be used to oily fish, but people from more tropical climates would find their digestive systems have adapted to tropical fruit. Of course, the jet plane is now here, which completely throws confusion on to the slow wheels of evolution.

I also found Dr Milton Mills comments interesting, namely that we have cultivated high starch foods such as white potatoes, and "real" potatoes are thinner and red, and have a higher nutrient to starch ration. Fuhrman says the same about the white button mushrooms that we eat today in the video "Cooking up Great Health with Dr. Fuhrman", he basically says avoid them.

Anyway, I made some of Fuhrman's high nutrition soup from kale, brussell sprouts, sliced runner beans, brocoli, parsley and a pack of mixed beans (barley, red lentil, yellow and green split peas and marrowfat peas). I did what he did, i.e blended some of it (I also added a hanful of cashews to the blend) and added it back to thicken it. Tasted great. Over the next few weeks I will see how I get on, and may be able to test if his theory works.

I have also ordered "Eat to Live", it's actually hard to get and I was annoyed to find out that the publishers have withdrawn the ebook version, which is my preferred format. Even though you still see the ebook on some sites, it fails at checkout. Never mind, I want it mostly for recipies, so paper is OK for the kitchen.

Sounds like your sleep was well needed! Hope you feel better today.

- oh by the way, we dont have "collards" over here. At least now I know what they are though, lol!