Jonny Bowden again shows why he is one of the best nutrition writers in the country. I strongly recommend this book for anyone looking to achieve optimal health.
Barry Sears, Ph.D.
New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Zone
The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth is packed with sound, useful information that will help you make the right choices in eating for health and pleasure.
Leo Galland, M.D.
Author of The Fat Resistance Diet
and The Four Pillars of Healing
Foods are drugs and Dr. Bowden provides a great tour through the best 150 choices.
Mehmet C. Oz, M.D.
New York Times Best-Selling Author of YOU: The Owners Manual
and YOU: The Smart Patient
Jonny Bowden has captured the essence of optimal nutrition in his marvelous book. The totality of knowledge, humor, clarity, and ease of reading could make this one of the best sources for a healthy food guide to come along in decades. It should be on everyones table so that we really know that what we eat is what we become.
Mark Houston, M.D., M.S., S.C.H., A.B.A.A.M., F.A.C.P., F.A.H.A.
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Vanderbilt University
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association
Author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension
The 150
Healthiest
Foods
on Earth
The Surprising, Unbiased Truth
About What You Should Eat and Why
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
Text 2007 Jonny Bowden
First published in the USA in 2007 by
Fair Winds Press, a member of
Quayside Publishing Group
33 Commercial Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
11 10 09 08 07 1 2 3 4 5
Digital edition: 978-1-61673-416-9
Hardcover edition: 978-1-59233-228-1
ISBN-10: 1-59233-228-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowden, Jonny.
The 150 healthiest foods on earth: the surprising, unbiased truth about what you should eat and why / Jonny Bowden.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59233-228-1
ISBN-10: 1-59233-228-5
1. Nutrition--Popular works. 2. Food--Composition--Popular works. I. Title.II. Title: One hundred fifty healthiest foods on earth.
RA784.B64 2007
613.2--dc22
2006030412
Cover design by Dutton and Sherman Design
Book production by Leslie Haimes
Printed and bound in China
The information in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or medical practitioner. Please see your health care provider before beginning any new health program.
DEDICATION
Seven Special Women
Nancy Fiedler: You fed and nurtured our family with both your delicious food and your balanced wisdom for two decades, and I am eternally grateful to you for it.
Vivienne Simon Bowden, my mother, who did not live to see this book published but would have loved reading about the foods and, even more, would have loved having Nancy cook them for her.
Coleen OShea: A great agent is more than a deal negotiator. A great agent nurtures. She inspires. She supports. She is a diplomat when telling you your ideas suck and a cheerleader when she tells you theyre great. And you always trust her. Coleen O Shea is a great agent.
Lora Ruffner, whose utterly inexhaustible supply of goodwill and expertise in design and marketing has been invaluable to my career. She has been my personal cheerleading section. Professionally, I owe her and her partner, Neil Beaty, my website and personally, I am eternally grateful for her belief in me, her friendship, and her undying support.
Regina Wilshire, who gave tirelessly and selflessly of her endless store of information on food and health and contributed many of the recipes that will be used in the follow-up cookbook. She was always there to answer any question, no matter how obscure, and to help me make some of the toughest decisions about what to include and what not to include.
Sue Copp, M.S.: The nutrition gods gave me the best assistant on the planet, without whom I would never have been able to finish this book on time (or if I had, it would not have been as good). How lucky I was to be able to score one of the smartest nutritionists I know as an assistant on this project.
And of course...
A very special dedication to Allegra Christy Bowden (1997May 29, 2006), who lay at (and on) my feet for most of the time this book was being written and whose heart and soul filled our house with love.
Anja, with whom I share both wind and wings.
Its all because of you.
If you are what you eat
and you dont know
what youre eating,
do you know who you are?
Claude Fischler
CONTENTS
Introduction
Let food be thy medicine,
and medicine be thy food.
Hippocrates
The other day, someone asked me if honey is a good sweetener.
My answer was, It depends.
If by honey you mean the stuff you buy in the supermarket that comes in the cute little bear, the answer is no. If by honey you mean raw, unfiltered, uncooked, unpasteurized organic honey, then the answer is an unqualified yes.
Which reminds me of a story.
I was coming out of the sixteen-cinema multiplex at the Lincoln Center Theatres in New York one evening, and just as I blended into the huge crowd exiting the theater on this Friday night, I ran into an old friend I hadnt seen in ages. We bumped smack into each other on the escalator going down to the main floor and decided to go to the local Starbucks and catch up. As soon as we sat down, we started talking about the movie. That was so moving, I said. Moving? she said incredulously. I thought it was completely maudlin and sophomoric. What are you talking about? I asked. The acting was incredible, the writing was sophisticated. Sophisticated? she snorted. Well, maybe if you consider Adam Sandler sophisticated!
Silence.
We looked at each other...
... and suddenly realized...
... we saw different movies.
Theres a lesson in that, and it has to do with food. And language.
The person asking me about honey didnt make a distinction between the bear kind and the raw unfiltered kind, yet they are two completely different foods. If I had answered the question without knowing which she was talking about, it would have been like having a discussion about the movie and not realizing that one person had seen a drama and one had seen a comedy. You and I could be having a discussion about what its like to have a pet, but if youre thinking cats and Im thinking dogs were not talking about the same thing, even if we think we are.
I was never more aware of this issue than when I was writing and researching this book. Take salmon. Great food, right? Every nutritionist recommends it. Theres only one problem: Farm-raised salmon is not the same food as wild salmon. As youll see, one of them (the wild kind) is loaded with
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