addiction-stoking processed-food industry,
and the artificially-animal-fattening tenden-
cies of agriculture. But he’s also grumpy with
medicine.
“I learnt very early, from the experience
of my grandmother, how much nutrition
alone can do to reverse disease. But that’s
still not the way we teach medicine. Doctors
are not taught enough about nutrition. And
so doctors aren’t using all this data that’s
available to inform their treatments. I hope
the book will help them to start using it.”
He opened his evidence-based campaign
with a first bestseller, How Not to Die, focus-
ing on health and longevity. Inevitably
came the pressure to reframe his science-
only focus for weight loss.SHORTCUTS, TRICKS AND HACKS
An ebullient evangelist, Greger found
himself playing the same game as the diet
industry with its “secret miracle foods” and
“weird tricks”, only with heavy artillery. He
says reliable, reputable scientific studies have
provided hard evidence of shortcuts, tricks
and hacks that really work.A few daily pinches of cheap commer-
cially available ground spices – including
cayenne, cumin and turmeric – can speed
weight loss. So can three cups of green tea.
The vinegar fad is not nonsense, either. And
those who in the 1970s followed eminentAmerican nutritionist Adelle Davis in her
veneration of nutritional yeast are far from
being cranks (see panel, page 20).
Greger laments that even as the science
behind obesity and health grows clearer, it
seems to take 17 years for that science to
enter mainstream consciousness and prac-
tice. He says governmental food pyramids
are part of that lag.
But here’s the part where Greger’smega-science digest may strike some readers
as yet another woke whack over the head:
he has found most of the science points
towards a whole-plant food diet. He seldom
uses the V-word, but veganism is the Rome
to which almost all roads in his book lead.
As chance would have it, Greger’s book
was finalised around the same time that
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change’s report on food and land use was
published last year. It recommended a dras-
tic reorientation from animal produce to a
plant-based diet. Speaking from California,
Greger says this interview is the first time he
has been asked about the parallels between
the two publications, and he welcomes the
comparison.
“The science points overwhelmingly
towards a plant-based diet, and when you
look at food production, we can produce
nutritious plant food using as much as 90%
less water than animal-based food.”
Confronting to many people in a social
and ideological sense, the vegan/vegetarian
movement is now running into practicalGE issues, including climate warming’s effect
TT
Y^
IM
AG
ES
CONQUERING THE KILOS
“If you get migraines,
you’ll probably stop
having them. And youwill lose weight without
being hungry.”