Dr. Fuhrman Fridge Chart

If you're interested in pursuing a more nutrient-dense, disease-preventative diet and haven't picked up Eat to Live by the Nutritarian expert Dr. Joel Fuhrman yet, you simply must! I can't sing this book's praises enough. It's accessible, compelling, and surprisingly hard to put down. I know, who would think a nutrition book could actually be a page-turner? Amazingly, this one is! What I love about his information is that it's easy to remember and easy to apply. You can also obtain great articles, tips, and advice on his websites:

Dr. Fuhrman

Disease Proof

He has other books (which I definitely want to read: Super Immunity, Disease-Proof your Child, The End of Diabetes, and more). 

I made this chart with some of his condensed nutrition guidelines for our fridge. That way, when I'm making food choices throughout the day, I can keep good goals, focus, and caloric decisions in view. I provided a link to this print-out so you can slap it onto your fridge, too! Some of Dr. Fuhrman's staple advice, as reflected in this chart, is as follows: 

• "The salad is the main meal."
• "Try to eat a pound of fresh greens and a pound of cooked veggies a day" (An ambitious goal, but the idea is to work toward it!)
• GBOMBS is his acronym for the best cancer-preventative, immune-boosting foods we can eat: Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Nuts/Seeds.
• As a Nutritarian, Dr. Fuhrman emphasizes eating foods with the most nutritional bang for their caloric buck. The calorie breakdown in the last column demonstrates that eating a diet rich in low-calorie/high-nutrient foods (like those toward the top of the list) make it almost impossible to over-consume calories. While a well-varied diet should also include legumes, healthy fats (nuts/seeds/avocados), grains, and fun treats too, the idea is to hover in the high-nutrient/low-calorie categories as much as possible. 
• Also, the Nutritarian diet discourages or severely limits oil consumption because, as you can see, it packs the most calories per pound of any food. Oil is comprised of 100% pure fat calories and contains virtually no nutrients whatsoever to make up for it (unlike nuts/seeds which are high-fat but nutrient-rich). Also, oil is not a whole food (there are no oil trees growing anywhere we know of :), it has the potential to go rancid, and it can create carcinogens when heated. Plus, a diet that regularly includes any kind of oil not only compromises heart-health, but also makes over-consuming calories dangerously easy which will frustrate weight-loss. If those aren't enough reasons to ditch the grease, "quality" oil is dang EXPENSIVE! I honestly just got out of period of laxity where I was incorporating/allowing too much oil in my diet and I've had to get back on track in recent weeks. To learn more about cooking without oils (which is in fact possible!) check out this article on Straight Up Food.

Go HERE for the Printable Fridge Chart! Enjoy!
For more on calorie and nutrient density, see this article from Forks Over Knives.

*Information collected from Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book Eat to Live and related internet sources