"Eat to Live," says Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (Interview)

Joel Fuhrman M.D. is not your typical board-certified family physician. He's also the co-founder and chief medical officer of Eat Right America and best-selling author of Eat To Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss.

"We as a society believe that health can be bought through doctor visits, pills, and surgeries," he explains. "Americans do not believe that 'low-tech' interventions, like eating healthy food and exercising actually work, and therefore they are not willing to put forth the effort to change lifestyle habits."

He's got plenty more to say so don't miss my interview with Dr. Fuhrman

(just below the celebrity name-dropping video I've embedded).

WATCH VIDEO: G Word: Keep it Vegan

Alanis Morissette loses 20 lbs on Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live diet

My Conversation With Joel Fuhrman

Planet Green: The topic of "health care" can get discussed for months with barely a mention of prevention. Do you feel this is mostly due to the fact that there's a lot less money to be made in preventing disease than attempting to treat it?

Joel Fuhrman: Yes, we are a product of decades of promoting the value of medications by the drug companies and medical profession. That is where all the money is made, not in prevention. However, the diseases that kill most Americans are preventable. Certainly, the drug companies have taken over our society's view of what is considered "health care." The reality is that health must be earned by living a healthy lifestyle, it cannot be bought and our brainwashing about the trumped up value of medications have resulted into constantly rising health care costs, without significant health benefits to society to show for it. If we want to improve the situation, we need to address the cause. The only way to reduce these costs is to reduce the prevalence of the devastating but preventable diseases that plague Americans. Why should anyone have a heart attack, a stroke or get demented. People have a right to know they can control their health destiny.

PG: You've written: "Most people have no idea that most diseases—including cancers, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes—are the result of nutritional folly and are avoidable." In a nation in which most folks are led to believe that getting sick is inevitable, how are you trying to change perceptions?

JF: I am getting the word out that these diseases are not only preventable, but reversible through superior nutrition. Many of the so-called 'age-related' diseases, like heart disease, were almost non-existent 100 years ago. However, patients are consistently told by physicians that food has nothing to do with the diseases they develop. Despite physicians' disbelief or lack of awareness, even heart disease is entirely avoidable and reversible with nutritional intervention—invasive treatment with surgery is not only necessary, it is not effective either. I have an extensive collection of case studies documenting complete and predictable recoveries from type 2 diabetes, angina, autoimmune diseases, asthma, allergies, depression, and many more. The key is taking responsibility for your own health and well-being and be willing to do what it takes to earn back good health. I am also in the process of conducting research studies to document the benefits of nutritional excellence and to directly test my nutritarian diet as a therapy for common lifestyle-related diseases and publish the results in peer-reviewed journals. A few studies have already been completed and are awaiting publication. I also am involved with funding nutritional research via my work as the Director of Research at nutritionalresearch.org and promoting lifestyle medicine with other physicians via the American College of Lifestyle medicine and serving on their board of directors.

PG: As back to school season kicks in, what would you like changed in the way kids eat at school and learn about health at school?

JF: Children go off to kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, and sadly during all of this education they are never taught the most important thing they need for a successful life—how to take care of their precious health. Learning about nutritional excellence would save millions of lives and we could win the war on cancer. It would be wonderful if school lunches were made to be more nutritious, and if kids were taught about the benefits of fruits, vegetables, and other whole plant foods during class, but the bottom line is that children need to learn about healthy eating at home. No matter what they learn at school, parents eating the standard American diet (SAD) who are addicted to their disease-causing diets will inevitably sabotage the results. So teaching the children is not enough, we must educate the parents simultaneously. Parents also need to set a good example and be consistent by keeping only healthy food in the house. Sadly, most parents harm their children's health without even knowing it. Of course, they want what is best for their children, but they don't realize how powerful food is—that the diets most parents feed their children contribute to cancers in adulthood. My book, Disease-Proof Your Child is all about this subject. It contains information that every parent and teacher in America needs to read. It is challenging to raise healthy kids in our unhealthy world, but it is essential, and we should tackle this challenge as a community.

PG: Did you go to traditional medical school? If so, what marked the turning point for you in terms of challenging so many of the standard Western medicine paradigms?

JF: I was on the US Olympic World Figure Skating Team, and competed all over the world as a pair skater in the early 1970's. I decided to go back to school to gain my pre-med requirements after college because I was passionate about using nutrition to get people well and what I could accomplish as a medical doctor to improve people's lives. Yes, I did attend a traditional medical school—The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. However, I was convinced that nutritional excellence was the most sensible and effective way to help sickly Americans before I began medical school. My purpose in going to medical school was to pursue a career in nutritional medicine.

PG: How can Planet Green readers learn more about you and connect with your work?

JF: There are a number of articles in the library of my websit,e DrFuhrman.com. We also have a Member Center on the site where members can interact with one another and with me on the "Ask the Doctor" forum. I am able to advise people from all over the world and the camaraderie and disease recoveries are tremendously rewarding. To keep up on the latest nutrition research, readers can check out my blog at DiseaseProof.com and sign up for my email list on DrFuhrman.com. To become familiar with my dietary recommendations readers could also read my most recent book Eat for Health, a four-phase approach to adopting a nutritarian diet. Also my best-selling book Eat to Live was just recently completely updated and revised. The second edition will be available this coming January. It is available now in a Vook (video-book combination) for I-phones, I-pads, or computers too.