Revisiting Eat to Live

Updated March 17, 2013; reformatted 9.17.2015
So I've been reviewing my notes made while reading Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live as I've been looking into the evidence about saturated fat and heart disease. I previously published them here.

Fuhrman's Facts Hold Up

Although my review was not entirely positive, I have found that the facts as presented by Fuhrman have stood up to subsequent scrutiny and research, something that is not always true for other diet doctors I've read. (Michael Eades' claims in Protein Power comes to mind.) I have not adopted Fuhrman's program, but I have incorporated some of his teachings into my diet. Specifically, I have lowered the amount of red meat that I eat (though I have not eliminated either). And I have made an effort to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in my family's diet.

In fact, I was so impressed that Fuhrman's presentation was factual that I bought the book for my ballerina dancer to help her be as lean as possible on a healthy diet. Following Fuhrman's precepts have allowed her to healthily become leaner. She's able to eat a lot of food, mostly fruits and vegetables. Too many dancers have very poor diet habits, I wanted better for her and Fuhrman's is the first plan that made sense to her, and let's her eat a decent amount of food so that she doesn't feel deprived.

But the inspiration for this post was my investigation into the saturated fat claims of various paleo authors and bloggers. So I decided to remind myself what Eat to Live says about fat intake. Most people have the impression that the diet is vegan (it is not, and he says both in the book and at his website that the health benefits of veganism is not proven) and that it's very, very low fat. Low fat is relative of course, but I wanted to go back and remind myself just how low fat it was.

Fat, Heart Disease, and Cancer

Fuhrman's diet is, in fact, low fat. It's also very low in trans fatty acids (trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils), but trans fatty acids are being removed from foods, because the evidence against them is overwhelmingly damning. The consensus on saturated fats is less clear.

Here is a link that will allow the reader to see the pages of Eat to Live wherein saturated fat is discussed:

On page 135 (result 28 out of 41 in the Google Book search), Fuhrman says extracted fats (otherwise known as oils) are cancer causing because they contain calories but not nutrients. Fuhrman's entire thesis rests on maximizing nutrient per CALORIE as opposed to nutrient per ounce or gram. Excess calories causes obesity, and obesity is a risk factor for cancer. He's also against excess omega-6 PUFAs, something he shares with the paleosphere.

Fuhrman says that saturated fats and trans fatty acids are the most dangerous in terms of heart disease and cancer risks. These are the fats he says to limit. He does not say avoid all fats, in fact near the bottom of the page he notes that low fat diets can be harmful if inadequate healthy fats are consumed. However, he clearly favors plant food sources for healthy fats. Animal sources of fats come with more saturated fat. In particular, he is anti-cheese, saying it provides the most saturated fat in the standard American diet.

But he's not against fat for the non-obese

Fuhrman has noted on his website that Eat to Live was aimed at obese people. It's a diet book. People looking to lose weight need to eat fewer calories, and so higher fat plant food options are limited in that program. In his book Eat for Health that is not aimed at overweight dieters but rather at people looking to maximize their health and longevity, the amount of fatty plant foods prescribed is higher. I have not read Eat for Health.

Here is a short video of Fuhrman talking about fats. It's about an 8 minute excerpt with a commercial tacked onto the end selling the whole video. In the excerpt he is unequivocal: a diet of less than 10% fat is unhealthy. It's not about the fat, if you're diet is 40% fat, but high in micronutrients, then he says it can be a healthy diet. The source of fat matters, in his view.

Most of the verbiage surrounding the Paleo Diet online revolves around obesity or auto-immune issues (the elimination of grains, especially gluten containing ones often helps people, as does the elimination of lactose). Little is said about cancer, except that cancer cells need glucose to survive, so some cancers have been successfully slowed using a low carb eating regime.

But avoiding cancer is certainly a valid way to extend a healthy life.

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