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"It's pretty shocking to learn that calories from beverages on average account for 1 of every 5 calories in the american diet.2 Worse news: Soft drinks alone are the source of 33 percent3 of all added sugars and 7.1 percent of total calories in the american diet.4 In teens, it's even higher pushing over 12 percent of total calories! Indeed, soft drinks are making a major contribution to our added poundage." - Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews, Superfoods Rx Diet: Lose Weight with the Power of SuperNutrients (Get the book.)

"The dramatic increase in processed foods in recent years and the fact that fast food has become a staple of the american diet mean that most people are consuming unprecedented amounts of food-derived glycotoxins. A high-fat diet clearly enhances glycation. Cutting-edge research shows that restricting dietary glycotoxins in people with diabetes results in a significant reduction in substances that indicate inflammation; namely, C-reactive protein (CRP) and peripheral mononuclear cells, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha)." - Steven V. Joyal, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Diabetes: An Innovative Program to Prevent, Treat, and Beat This Controllable Disease (Get the book.)

"But the typical american diet is vastly unbalanced and contains insufficient amounts of nutrients required for optimal health. In addition, the soil and water in which a lot of our foods are grown are either littered with chemicals or so depleted of nutrients that they can leave the food depleted as well. Much of our foods are grown or irradiated in order to have a long shelf life. There is some controversy as to whether this process destroys the plants' natural enzymes that benefit our health but would also make the food decompose quicker." - Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith, The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps (Get the book.)

"So this is what putting science, and scientism, in charge of the american diet has gotten us: anxiety and confusion about even the most basic questions of food and health, and a steadily diminishing ability to enjoy one of the great pleasures of life without guilt or neurosis. But while nutritionism has its roots in a scientific approach to food, it's important to remember that it is not a science but an ideology, and that the food industry, journalism, and government bear just as much responsibility for its conquest of our minds and diets." - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Get the book.) "In the very next election, in 1980, the beef lobby succeeded in rusticating the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the american diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein squatting in the middle of its plate." - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Get the book.)

"The average american diet provides: (a) An abundance of vitamin E. (b) Just enough vitamin E to prevent heart disease. (c) Less than optimal amounts of vitamin E. (d) Plenty of vitamin E if enough fruits and vegetables are eaten. 44. Natural vitamin E is: (a) dl-alpha-tocopherol. (b) Mixed tocopherols from food. (c) SRR-alpha-tocopherol. (d) All of the above. 45. Enriched white flour, compared to whole wheat flour, has: (a) No vitamin E. (b) Two percent of the vitamin E. (c) The same amount of vitamin E. (d) Twice as much vitamin E. 46. Vitamin K is: (a) Water soluble." - Dr. Steve Blake, Vitamins and Minerals Demystified (Get the book.)

"Here's a comment from the author of one large research study about the American diet: "A large proportion of Americans are undernourished in terms of vitamins and minerals. You can actually be obese and still be undernourished with regard to important nutrients. We shouldn't be telling people to eat less, we should be telling people to eat differently."3 So let's take a look at some of the SuperFoods and their SuperNutrients that are going to help you shed pounds on the SuperFoodsRx Diet." - Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews, Superfoods Rx Diet: Lose Weight with the Power of SuperNutrients (Get the book.)

"The standard North american diet is full of acids, fats and proteins that cause health concerns. What are the signs that I may need to detoxify?" - Heather Caruso, Your Drug-Free Guide to Digestive Health (Get the book.)

"Nine percent of the calories in the american diet today come from a single omega-6 fatty acid: linoleic acid, most of it from soybean oil. Some nutrition experts think that this is fine: Omega-6s, after all, are essential fatty acids too, and their rise to dietary prominence has pushed out saturated fats, usually thought to be a positive development. But others strongly disagree, contending that the unprecedented proportion of omega-6s in the Western diet is contributing to the full range of disorders involving inflammation." - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Get the book.)

"In general, the american diet provides more than enough protein to meet our needs. Beans, soy, fish, and whey are the featured protein champions in this book. You may ask, "Can't lean cuts of beef, chicken, pork, and so forth fit well into this program?" Sure! In fact, some of the recipes contain some of these animal protein sources as ingredients. But I wanted to feature these special protein foods for two reasons: We don't eat enough of them and these protein foods have special value-added attributes which I will explain later. Chewing the fat: All fats are not created equal." - David W. Grotto, RD, LDN, 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life! (Get the book.)

"But today we're eating soy in ways Asian cultures with much longer experience of the plant would not recognize: "Soy protein isolate," "soy isoflavones," "textured vegetable protein" from soy and soy oils (which now account for a fifth of the calories in the american diet) are finding their way into thousands of processed foods, with the result that Americans now eat more soy than the Japanese or the Chinese do. Yet there are questions about the implications of these novel food products for our health." - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Get the book.)

"Grain, although inexpensive, is a poor source of protein, omega-3 fats, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and vitamins, and it generates an inordinate amount of acid in the american diet. About 1 percent or more of the world's population is allergic to gluten—a protein in wheat, barley, rye, and (sometimes) oats, causing bowel inflammation that leads to faulty absorption and vitamin D deficiency. We know that you're better off eating more lean protein and three times as much produce as protein." - James Dowd and Diane Stafford, The Vitamin D Cure (Get the book.) "If you eat a typical North american diet, you probably consume two servings of produce a day—and you eat fruit more often than you eat green, leafy vegetables. But you probably get only about 60 percent of the amount of magnesium the CDC tells us we need. According to the National Academy of Sciences, an adult needs about 2.7 milligrams per pound of lean body weight (2.3 milligrams per pound for children). That means that if you're 150 pounds and lean, for example, you need 420 milligrams of magnesium a day." - James Dowd and Diane Stafford, The Vitamin D Cure (Get the book.) "Nutrient-dense, they make a great substitute for cheese in the North american diet and create only about a third of the acid that cheese does. Unlike cheese, though, they contain almost no salt (unless salt has been added), and they have mostly monounsaturated fat and substantial amounts of fiber. Ground nuts add texture, flavor, and nutrition to salads, meat, and vegetables. Nuts are some of the richest sources of dietary magnesium. Large studies of cardiovascular risk factors (weight and cholesterol) never show that nuts make you fatter or raise your cholesterol." - James Dowd and Diane Stafford, The Vitamin D Cure (Get the book.) "Unfortunately, the typical North american diet has one of the lowest intakes of omega-3 fatty acids in the industrialized world? fewer than 200 milligrams a day. You get DHA when you eat dark-meat fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and sardines (the very same kinds of fish that are high in vitamin D). Raw fish, such as sushi, is an even better source than cooked fish. When primitive man consumed brain tissue from wild animals, he got generous amounts of DHA." - James Dowd and Diane Stafford, The Vitamin D Cure (Get the book.)

"Because the typical american diet contains such an overkill of omega-6 and its major component of linoleic acid, supplementation of omega-6 is not usually needed. But omega-3 is a different story. More and more physicians are recommending omega-3 supplements to patients. We've been doing it for years in the form of fish oil, which is high in the beneficial eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). 4. More fish, less beef and dairy. Besides their saturated fat content, meat and dairy are high in methionine, an amino acid precursor to homocysteine." - Stephen Sinatra, M.D. and James C., M.D. Roberts, Reverse Heart Disease Now: Stop Deadly Cardiovascular Plaque Before It's Too Late (Get the book.)

"ANDREA I was trapped inside the typical american diet with its false sense of security. I weighed 300 pounds and was not diagnosed with illness. My back ached, veins in my legs hurt, I felt ill after ingesting most foods?especially dairy—and yearned to wear normal-sized clothing. I joined a support group as size 24 to 26. Applying myself to the protocol, feeling centered with a new sense of values, I soon said "no" easily and lost seventy-five pounds, to size 18." - Gary Null and Amy McDonald, The Food-Mood Connection: Nutrition-based and Environmental Approaches to Mental Health and Physical Wellbeing (Get the book.) "Food: Nutrition, Allergies, and Sensitivities Not only are the foods we eat overprocessed and robbed of all nutritional value, but the usual american diet still consists of few fresh fruits and vegetables and inordinate amounts of sugar and caffeine. When I was growing up, we got eggs or hot cereal like oatmeal, whole grain toast, and juice for breakfast. Today most children start the day with a sugared snack, a cola beverage, and high levels of caffeine. And we're supposed to believe that there is no connection between that and a child bouncing off the walls an hour later in school?" - Gary Null and Amy McDonald, The Food-Mood Connection: Nutrition-based and Environmental Approaches to Mental Health and Physical Wellbeing (Get the book.)

"The SAD (Standard american diet) is backward, with emphasis on starchy carbohydrates and meat. This imbalance can be corrected by adding fruits and vegetables to the diet while limiting starchy carbohydrates. A green salad at least once per day and at least one cooked green vegetable daily, gradually adding more greens, will achieve an ideal diet. In addition to increasing the number of salads and vegetables eaten, you may wish to add green drinks and/or capsules to your daily routine. (See Resource Directory for specific products." - Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith, The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps (Get the book.)

"American diet.4 In teens, it's even higher pushing over 12 percent of total calories! Indeed, soft drinks are making a major contribution to our added poundage. Of course, if you cut out the 150 calories— all from sugar—you get in each can of soda from other places in your diet, you'd wind up even in terms of calories (except for the nutrients missed, which is a major minus!) but most people don't do this. Keep in mind that just one soda a day that's not compensated for by some other reduction in your diet can add up to 15 pounds in just 1 year." - Wendy Bazilian, DRPH, MA, RD, Steven Pratt, MD, Kathy Matthews, Superfoods Rx Diet: Lose Weight with the Power of SuperNutrients (Get the book.)

"Eating the more or less typical american diet consisting of red meat, fried foods, full-fat dairy products, refined grains, and desserts is, in fact, synonymous with unintentionally attempting suicide. In an observational study, investigators examined the relationship between the dietary patterns of more than 1,000 people who had been treated for stage III colon cancer and their risk of colon cancer recurrence." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"The typical magnesium-deficient american diet produces little magnesium for the body to store, so stress may quickly put you into the red. "In essence, you are creating a second front of stress, and thus you have intensification of stress reactions," Seelig contended. "Without adequate magnesium and the life-supporting activities it contributes to in the body, events can dramatically become life-threatening." Medically, perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the stress-magnesium connection concerns cardiovascular disease." - Stephen Sinatra, M.D. and James C., M.D. Roberts, Reverse Heart Disease Now: Stop Deadly Cardiovascular Plaque Before It's Too Late (Get the book.)

"The standardized american diet also increases the risk of obesity, which, while it doesn't technically "cause" varicose veins, can definitely raise the risk for them, especially if you have a genetic tendency toward them in the first place. Interestingly, the list of risk factors for varicose veins in general is pretty similar to the list of risk factors for heart disease. Women are more than twice as likely to develop varicose veins as men, and female hormones may play a part as well as genetics. Obese people of either sex are prone to them as well (see above)." - Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why (Get the book.)

"The key lies in nutrition—specifically, in abandoning the toxic american diet and maintaining cholesterol levels well below those historically recommended by health policy experts. The bottom line of the nutritional program I recommend is that it contains not a single item of any food known to cause or promote the development of vascular disease. I often ask patients to compare their coronary artery disease to a house fire. Your house is on fire because eating the wrong foods has given you heart disease." - Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Get the book.) "One group continued eating a typically high-fat american diet. The second ate a diet in which fat was reduced to 20 percent of total calories. In the third group's diet, the fat level was held to 15 percent or less. At the end of twelve weeks, the first two groups craved fat just as much as ever. But those who had eaten less than 15 percent dietary fat over that period had completely lost their desire for fat.1 The reason weight-loss diets fail is the same reason present cardiac rehabilitation for coronary artery disease fails: patients continue consuming fat." - Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Get the book.) "Like heart disease itself, these others are part of the bitter harvest of the toxic american diet. And like traditional treatments for heart disease, their treatment is not preventive. Having your breast cancer amputated, your malignant prostate gland radically removed, or your cancerous colon resected is painful, disfiguring, and costly— and too often does not resolve the underlying problem. My own research has concentrated on coronary artery disease, and how plant-based nutrition can prevent and also arrest and reverse it." - Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Get the book.) "It is hard to deny the evidence, mounting with every passing year, that people who have spent a lifetime consuming the typical american diet are in dire trouble. Dr. Lewis Kuller of the University of Pittsburgh recently reported the ten-year findings of the Cardiovascular Health Study, a project of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. His conclusion is startling: "All males over 65 years of age, exposed to a traditional Western lifestyle, have cardiovascular disease and should be treated as such." - Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Get the book.)

"The typical North american diet used to be higher in beta-sitosterol, but with increased consumption of processed foods and genetically modified foods, our diet has become relatively deficient. I have no doubt that this deficiency has contributed to the rise in both heart disease and cancer. I recommend supplementing your diet with beta-sitosterol, particularly if you are a woman with breast tenderness, fibrocystic breast disease, or high cholesterol." - Phuli Cohan, The Natural Hormone Makeover: 10 Steps to Rejuvenate Your Health and Rediscover Your Inner Glow (Get the book.)

"The typical american diet, filled with sugar and processed food doesn't allow healthy, optimal brain function. Estimates vary widely, but several million school-age children have received an official diagnosis of ADD and ADHD, and twice as many display some of the symptoms of the disorders. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 8 percent of children between the ages of four and seventeen have ADD/ADHD, and more than 3 million of them are taking prescription medications to treat their symptoms." - Jay Gordon, The ADD and ADHD Cure: The Natural Way to Treat Hyperactivity and Refocus Your Child (Get the book.)

"The average american diet, consisting of very fatty, protein-rich, highly processed food items, has almost nothing in common with the diet typically consumed by folks in developing countries. Fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains still form the standard diet of people living in most developing countries, although the Western influence of bringing unnatural and fast foods into their towns and villages is now making its way into the eating habits of these populations." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

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