33 Of the Healthiest Foods on Earth

And, they all happen to be fruits and vegetables: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-murdock/a-recipe-for-longevity_b_205355.html

As he writes, Dole's chairman is 86 and in great health. He does an hour of cardio and strength training a day and eats mostly fruits and vegetables.

That's essentially what I do, and it has helped me manage my weight.

Still, people seem to think what I do is radical. I was just at a party on Saturday night, and, as usual, the topic turned to dieting. Two women asked how I managed to take off so much weight and keep it off.

As what typically happens, when I explained I eat 60-70% raw over the course of a week, they seemed shocked. One questioned how I get enough protein, and the other thought I was putting myself at risk for osteoporosis.
I tried to explain how we've been led to believe that we need to eat unhealthy foods to be healthy. While entirely eliminating food groups probably isn't healthy (sorry vegans and vegetarians), we certainly do not need to be eating as much meat, fish, poultry and dairy as we've been led to believe.

For example, we all seem to believe we need dairy for healthy bones. But researchers at Harvard, Yale, Penn State and the National Institutes of Health have studied the effects of dairy intake on the bones. And, as pointed out in Skinny Bitch, not one of these studies found dairy to be a deterrent to osteoporosis. One study even found that diary actually leeches calcium from the body. Researchers at Yale found that the countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis were those in which citizens consumed the most meat and dairy products.

Now I love cheese. I could live on nothing but cheese and be quite content. But, the raison d'etre of dairy is to put a lot of weight on baby animals quickly. An interesting factoid from Skinny Bitch is that cows' milk grows a 90 pound calf into a 2,000 pound cow over the course of two years. Another one is that cows' milk doubles a calf's birth weight in 47 days.

If cows milk can put that much weight on a calf so quickly, then what do you think it does to your weight?

Not that I could ever entirely give up cheese. I just eat it much more sparingly then I did prior to losing the weight. And, if I do eat cheese I eat really, really good cheese. No more generic hunks of Swiss. Another good tip, stick to goat's milk or sheep's milk cheeses which are lower in fat and less likely to pack as many pounds on as cows' milk cheeses.