Nutrition gurus agree: don't drink soda and eat your veggies

Over the years, I think I have read about every nutrition guru there is: from Weston Price to Fuhrman, from Ornish to the Paleo Diet, from Fit For Life to Atkins. Of course, all guru's are quite vocal about their passion. What I find disappointing is that they all are so aggressive towards their "competitors": the other self proclaimed gurus. I wish they would look at what they have in common, instead of what separates them. So let's take a look at the similarities:

The good

• Eat fresh vegetables: opinions on starchy vegetables differ somewhat, but all gurus agree that non starchy vegetables are great.
• Eat fresh fruit: some gurus prefer low sugar fruit such as berries, or recommend fruit in specific combinations with or without other foods, but they all recommend fruit in some way.
• Eat nuts and seeds: the gurus do disagree on the amounts of nuts and the types of nuts. Some recommend soaking, sprouting or roasting, but they all agree that nuts and seeds can be part of a healthy diet.

The bad

• Do not eat added sugars: this includes sugar, high fructose corn syrup and other concentrated sugars.
• Do not eat refined grains.

Regardless of which diet style you prefer, if you just severely limit added sugars and refined grains, and radically up your intake of vegetables, you will be healthier than almost anybody else in a country where soda and sweet drinks are the main source of calories in the diet.

May 3, 2006