Today I'm going to tell you about my diet, my shopping list, and my recipes, which my friend TK requested live on Twitch. I'm putting this on YouTube and on the Jerry Banfield Show podcast as well. My diet comes from the book How Not to Die, and the subtitle is Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. Long story short, it is a whole plant based diet. That means most of what I eat is whole fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and beans, and I minimize processed foods, animal products, anything from meat to cheese. I also don't take any medications or supplements on a daily basis. The idea is that whole plant foods are one of the most nourishing things I can feed my body. They're very natural, they're naturally filling, and I eat mostly those and minimize everything else.
If you want to see the research behind this, I suggest you read the whole book How Not to Die, because I am not educated as a medical doctor. Michael Greger is educated as a medical doctor. I have not devoted my life to researching and finding all the scientific data. Michael Greger has devoted his life, and he has a team of people that goes through all the research. If you're wondering, well, Jerry, why do I hear about all these other diets, and does this mean it's vegan? I do mostly vegan. Occasionally, maybe a few times a year, I'll have a small portion of meat. For example, I got an eggs benedict with my wife a month or two ago that had some salmon and eggs. I made some beef stroganoff for my mother when we visited, which had a little bit of beef in it. I eat mostly whole plant vegan, and I keep everything else to a minority of what I eat.
Why understanding the diet is what made me take action
Getting an understanding of why this diet is so helpful is what really helped me take action on it. I ended up changing my diet and really following this book, and it's worked for six years. I lost 30 pounds effortlessly on this diet after I had already pre-treated it. I previously lost 50 pounds by getting sober, and then by tracking every single food I ate for a year on MyFitnessPal. In my experience, this diet makes it very easy to be at a natural, healthy weight. I weigh about 165 pounds right now, and for a guy that's 5'11", that's a very healthy weight.
Being overweight, in my experience, leads not only to all kinds of health problems, but you don't get treated as well when you're overweight either. People are very biased on the whole. For some reason, collectively we take it that it's okay to discriminate against and be nasty to people based on their weight, and often it's silent. It's not even open. In fact, the majority of people surveyed say they would rather face racial or gender discrimination than face discrimination based on their weight. That was pretty shocking to me. So if weight has been a struggle for you, here's a very simple solution: read this book, follow it, and be accountable to other people. Tell people you're reading this book. Tell people what you're reading about. Very simple.
The food I eat impacts my thinking
The thing that really sold me on changing my diet is when I realized the foods I eat impact my thinking. And it's a cycle: the food you think about impacts the food you eat, and the food you eat impacts your thinking. I noticed that when I took in a whole bunch of processed foods and a whole bunch of animal products, I would mentally get depressed. One time it was very telling. I was feeling great, I ate this massive meal full of like five different kinds of meat and animal products, and it left me feeling almost immediately depressed. I realized, wow, what I eat is impacting how I think. I've eliminated almost all of my depression from being sober, connecting with others, and eating a whole plant based diet.
I was recommended this book by my uncle, who's been a doctor for 40 years. He said he gives it to every one of his patients. I'll address one last bit of resistance you might have, which is: well, why doesn't everybody know about this? In my understanding, this diet prevents, stops the progression of, and even can reverse most of, if not all of, the top 15 causes of death. This diet is extreme. Over the last couple of years, I've expressed frustration that the media is full of telling people how to prevent one thing with one action, when this book shows you how to prevent all of the top 15 causes of death.
I'll tell you why, but you don't have to know. If you're thinking, well, why doesn't everybody know about this, in my opinion it's because it's profitable to sell you crap that's made cheaply. Companies are keeping secrets and making huge amounts of money selling you foods that aren't good for you, and then selling you treatment for diseases that could be eliminated based on diet. If you look at the massive amounts of money that would be lost by the health care system and by our food production system if people switched to a diet like this, you're talking about huge amounts. So there's this self-interest in the medical system to actually keep people sick, because sick people are profitable. And there's an interest in all the food production systems to get people to eat processed foods. And people have a self-interest to sell their own little diet to make a bunch of money. I've seen it from a bunch of other sources. This is the best source. This works extremely well. All my health issues cleared up, except I've got a little rash, which is a little bit of extra yeast, and that seems to be breaking up too. And I only was desperate enough to try this because I'd tried everything else.
Won't all the food suck without meat?
Now I'll get into the details, because it's important to explain to you why I do the diet. That's what drives the decisions I make about what I actually eat, my shopping list, and my recipes. So if you're thinking at this point, okay, I'd like to try that, but isn't all food going to suck without having meat and animal products? In fact, I've enjoyed more variety of foods in the last six years since I made this change than I did in probably the entire rest of my life before that. That's because a lot of us are habitual eaters. We eat the same kinds of things all the time.
When you try to make a switch to this diet from the standard American diet of burgers, hot dogs, and occasionally a salad with a bunch of meat and cheese on it, which is how I used to eat, you feel the discomfort of going against your previously programmed habits. It's the same with any change, like getting sober, starting a new relationship, or getting out of a relationship. There's how you've been doing things, which is kind of like autopilot, and then there's a moment of, all right, I want to do things like this now. It's a bit of discomfort to get how you want things to be lined up and to take yourself away from how you used to do them. Thankfully, getting sober was so difficult for me that changing my diet was pretty easy by comparison. It was uncomfortable. When I first started, I was like, what do I eat? I remember standing in a grocery store in the fruit and vegetable section thinking I have no idea what to buy right now.
Whole foods still have the water in them
One of the biggest differences with whole plant foods versus processed foods is that they still have the water in them. Whole plant foods are basically something like a banana, an apple, a stick of celery, or a bean, whether canned or in a bag. If you want to be at a healthy weight, and that's been a struggle for you as it was for me, this is life-changing information. Most processed foods have the water removed from them. So when you start eating mostly whole plant foods, the foods are very filling, and you've got to be careful you don't overeat, because this is how you lose weight. Whole plant foods are so filling that it's difficult to eat too many calories. I've tried. It's difficult to eat too many calories on whole plant foods because they fill you up so much. This is the basic magic of the diet in terms of maintaining a healthy weight. I'm 165 pounds for 5'11", so I'm at a very healthy weight. My body moves and feels fantastic.
It makes it easy to do yoga, and yoga is one of the best things you can do. Yoga used to be reserved for royalty. The masses couldn't be allowed to know about it because it helped so much for health and mental functioning. Yoga used to be just for the divine and royalty, and now we've got it available today for the masses.
Chew your food, don't blend it
The whole plant foods are so filling that you've got to be careful about how much you eat. The first few weeks I started this, I made all these smoothies, so I recommend you do not make smoothies. Do not blend your foods up. Chew your foods up. If you switch to a whole plant based diet, there's a lot of chewing compared to what you're used to, because with processed food, they strip all the water from it and strip a lot of the fiber from it, so you don't have to chew that much. Well, good God, do you have to chew with the diet I'm on.
I read somewhere, in the book Breath by James Nestor, that chewing actually naturally releases stem cells, which is logical. Stem cells are basically cells in your body that can go be any type of cell. You need some more brain cells, a stem cell goes up there and turns into a brain cell. You need some more cells somewhere else in your body, your stem cells can go be any kind of cell in your body. You've heard about stem cell treatments. Well, one way to naturally release stem cells is to chew. It's logical, because if you're chewing, then your body is thinking, okay, we're getting new food to make new stem cells, therefore we can afford to release the stem cells we've got to repair any areas of the body that need to be repaired. So one of the things this diet helps with is that you chew a lot more. Don't blend your food into smoothies. I do not drink smoothies or juice anymore. When I first started this diet, I did a lot of juice and a lot of smoothies. Don't do that.
So how do I actually buy stuff? What do I actually buy at the store? Usually I buy healthy helpings of fruits and vegetables. I like bananas and strawberries. I love Larabars.
Larabars are still a whole plant food because they're peanuts and chocolate chips and dates. Basically, things are whole plant as long as they haven't had significant parts of them stripped out. If something has just been crushed and mashed, that is still a whole plant food. Hummus is still a whole plant food. I eat a lot of hummus. I eat a lot of salads.
So when I go to the store for myself, what I buy is a few different fruits to eat, like bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. Then I buy lots of vegetables. I like celery and carrots, and I like broccoli that's chopped up so I can put it on top of a salad. I love peanuts and peanut butter, so I buy Larabars that have dates, which is a fruit, plus peanuts and chocolate chips and something else in there too. They basically just smash it up. I start almost every morning off with a peanut chocolate chip Larabar, which is so good.
What a Day of Eating Looks Like for Me
For grains, I love oatmeal. My wife will make pasta stuff sometimes. If I'm just doing my own food, and my wife's not cooking anything vegan for me, I generally will have a Larabar and some fruit for breakfast, like bananas, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes. I'll have them straight out of the fruit and vegetable aisle, not processed into something else.
For lunch, I like to have a big salad, and I grow my own lettuce at home. In my experience, growing your own fruits and vegetables as much as possible is extremely healthy, because of all the things done to store-bought produce. They put wax on them, spray them with pesticides, and then you've got them traveling and getting handled. I grow my own lettuce at home in a hydroponic farm, inside and outside in my garden when I can. Then I make a huge salad, and I make my own salad dressing with olive oil and a whole bunch of spices.
If you read Dr. Greger's book, he'll also talk about spices, which are really helpful. In the sequel, How Not to Diet, so just add a T to the title, he gives an absolutely incredible slew of diet tips if you're overweight. They're all natural, and when combined with a whole plant based diet, in my experience they're extremely effective at losing weight. For example, having a couple of tablespoons of vinegar, or putting in some cumin and turmeric. These things work better than diet pills. They're just not profitable to sell you the same way diet pills are, and that's why you probably don't know about them.
My Salad Dressing and Recipes
So I make my own salad dressing with olive oil and sesame seed, or tahini, which is ground up sesame seeds. I pour a bunch of tahini, pour some vinegar, a couple of tablespoons of it, and put some flax seed in there. Then I use a bunch of spices like turmeric, give it some flavor with cayenne pepper, maybe a little Frank's RedHot Buffalo Sauce, get in there with a little soy sauce for some salt, and some ginger, and a few other spices like that.
Then I put the lettuce in with the broccoli. I buy a bag of chopped up broccoli, cabbage, and carrots to give me three different vegetables. And then if I have some avocados or something like that, I'll put that on top, and put the dressing on top. Then I get some Tostitos chips, which is a processed food, but the idea is that you minimize things besides whole plant foods and maximize the whole plant foods you eat. So I grind up the Tostitos, kind of like a crouton on there, and then I have a huge salad that's really filling.
Often for dinner, I love popcorn. Popcorn is actually a whole grain, and it's very filling and very tasty. I put some olive oil and salt on it, and sometimes heat up some cayenne pepper and garlic powder, and eat a nice big bowl of popcorn. I air pop it at home. It's really cheap. You get an air popper, and it's only like 15 bucks for a huge, maybe one pound or even more, thing of popcorn seeds. That's a ton of different popcorn, super cheap.
I also love to make my own olive hummus. To make olive hummus, I use Kalamata olives and a half bag of garbanzo beans, or some other kind of beans, in the Instant Pot. I take them out of the Instant Pot and drop them in the blender. I put in maybe a half cup of olive oil, a half cup or so of Kalamata olives, a half cup or so of the pitted garlic green olives, a squeezed lemon, some tahini, and some balsamic vinegar. That's my favorite hummus to make. Then I use the celery, the carrots, and some Triscuits to dip into it. That is most of what I eat.
Trusting Your Body and Its Cravings
About once a week, I'll go out on a date with my wife. If I really feel like it, I may get something like eggs Benedict with some salmon, or with asparagus, or spinach and tomatoes. I trust my body. Once you get your body and your mind in a really healthy place, in my experience your cravings will tend to be very accurate. I was sick a few months ago one day, and I really was craving avocado toast. I had hardly eaten anything, I threw up, and the first thing I really craved was avocado toast.
You also crave based on habits. So if you're really sick and the first thing you crave is a fast food burger, that's your body using what you've given it in the past. That's its best reference point for how to feel better. I've come to believe that the better you feed your body, the more your cravings will give you the most sustainable food.
So that's my diet, my shopping list, and my recipes. I also love any kind of Mexican, so I do a lot of vegan tacos. For example, I'll get some of the Beyond Meat at the store, which is a plant based meat, throw that in with some spices, and then put that on a taco shell. That's delicious. I love eating that.
Eating Healthy Doesn't Have to Cost a Lot
You'd think it costs a lot of money to eat healthy, but it doesn't. Whole plant foods are actually pretty cheap, and they're extremely filling. The key is that your body will easily shed calories if you just fill your stomach up with low calorie foods. Dr. Greger did an example like this: you could have a bag of carrots or a pint of ice cream, and they're both just as filling. But the pint of ice cream will have thousands of calories, and the bag of carrots will barely have any. You'll be full either way. So even if you need to dip the carrots in a little bit of dressing, whatever you've got to do, get down more plant foods and cut back on the rest.
What's so cool is that I'm so healthy that I feel I have permission. If I want to eat a couple of cookies, I can do that. If I want a piece of cake, I can do that. And it doesn't put weight on me, because I have calories to spare.
Thank you very much, TK, for asking about my diet, shopping list, and recipes. I'm very excited to share this out there. If this way of eating speaks to you and you want to keep going deeper on health, life, and everything I'm working through, you can come hang out with me and the Jerry Banfield Family and ask me any question you've got, any time, and I'll be happy to answer it. If you'd like to see more of how all this fits together for me, you can also watch my Life playlist.