Jibrin Janis - The pescetarian plan : the vegetarian + seafood way to lose weight and love your food

No book can replace the diagnostic expertise and medical advice of a trusted physician. Please be certain to consult with your doctor before making any decisions that affect your health, particularly if you suffer from any medical condition or have any symptom that may require treatment.

Copyright 2014 by Janis Jibrin

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

B ALLANTINE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING - IN -P UBLICATION D ATA
Jibrin, Janis.
The pescetarian plan : the vegetarian + seafood way to lose weight and love your food / Janis Jibrin, M.S., R.D.; recipes by Sidra Forman; photographs by Kate Headley. First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-345-54716-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN (invalid) 978-0-345-54717-0 (ebook)
1. Reducing dietsRecipes. 2. Weight loss. 3. Cooking (Fish) 4. Veganism. I. Title.
RM222.2.J523 2014
641.5635dc23 2013041935

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I f youve never equated healthy with delicious, just wait until you get a load of Chef Sidra Formans Shrimp Grilled with Barbecue Peach Chutney, Kale Soup, Chocolate Cupcake with Mint Glaze, and all her other delicious recipes. Thank you, thank you, Sidra, for translating The Pescetarian Plan so deliciously! (And simplythese recipes are a breeze to make.)

Another big thanks to photographer Kate Headley, who managed to capture the dishes beauty and allure perfectly. Im in good company: Kates sophisticated-yet-relaxed images have appeared in Martha Stewart Weddings as well as Brides, Southern Living, and other national publications.

Registered dietitians Caroline Kaufman and Tracy Gensler provided invaluable research help, no easy task because nutrition science is something of a moving target. (Is saturated fat really so bad for you? See the state of the science .) Even my pescetarian agent Peter Steinberg sent cutting-edge research studies that made their way into this book. (I wish I could say I converted him, but he was already eating this way when we met.) And thanks to Gary R. Gensler, MS, for helping me do the math (literally) to confirm the great omega-6 to omega-3 ratios in the Pescetarian meals in this book.

Every writer needs an editor to trim and tighten text, but few are lucky enough to get two pros, as I did for this book. Donna Fennessy, whom I met when she was editing my articles for SELF magazine, gave invaluable feedback. Marnie Cochran at Ballantine helped me organize the book and coaxed me into cutting the excess (yes, this book could have been a lot longer).

JANIS

CONTENTS

---

---

---

---

---

---

INTRODUCTION

E at fish and youll protect your heart, plus youll stay smarter and happier andno jokehave a better sex life. Go vegetarian and youll be thinner, dramatically reduce your risk of developing heart disease and cancer, and live longer. But why not have it all? You can! Just combine the two eating styles and become a pescetarian; its a vegetarian diet with the addition of seafood (the word pescetarian comes from pesce, the Italian word for fish). Its a delicious, easy, and fun way of eating.

I realize that I just made a bunch of outrageous-sounding claims, like thinner, happier, better sex life. And to be fair, I cant know exactly how your particular body will react to a pescetarian diet. But as a dietitian who has spent a career examining every imaginable type of diet, I can tell you that the case for pescetarianism is incredibly strong. The research does support my claims, as Ill show you later on in the book. In fact, its so compelling that I cant find another type of diet that can touch it.

While pescetarianism isnt yet a household word, I predict it will be soon; it might be new to Americans, but it has a long track record. Just look around the world at people who live the longest andmore importantthe healthiest. Their diets are pescetarian (or nearly so). For instance, pescetarianism is the backbone of two of the worlds healthiest ways of eating: the traditional Mediterranean and Japanese diets. For The Pescetarian Plan I chose the Mediterranean approach, because thats the food I grew up on.

Scientists have picked apart these traditional diets and figured out what makes them tick: lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, not too much sugar, and seafood. And fish aloneespecially fatty fish like salmon, trout, and sardinesis proving indispensable to our health. It provides the omega-3 fats our bodies need but that have nearly disappeared in the American diet. Starved of these important fats, were more prone to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression, and Alzheimers.

Meanwhile, red meat promotes those very diseases that fish helps protect us from. And poultry has its own issues such as salmonella and the unethical treatment of chickens. The Pescetarian Plan contains all the slimming, health-promoting elements of the traditional diets, without red meat and poultry. Your body will never have it so good!

Okay, you might be thinking, fish used to be healthy. But isnt it now full of mercury and other contaminants? Plus, what about the environmental issues? Overfishing has drastically diminished the worlds supply of fish. And some fish farms leave too heavy an environmental footprint.

All true, but fortunately, if you choose carefully, you can put seafood thats clean, delicious, and green on your plate. And theres more good news: Governments, nonprofits, and industry are working on laws that protect the oceans, and there has already been some progress made. In Ill direct you to the best catches and inform you of ways that you can help save the oceans.

Its been called The Island Where People Forget to Die, the small Greek island of Ikaria, and as you might imagine, its a great place to live. Men here are four times as likely to hit the age of 90 as American menand in good health to boot. Depression is virtually nonexistent among elderly men and women, and their brains stay sharp, with just a quarter the rate of Alzheimers and other forms of dementia as in the United States.

What are they doing right? Well, their diet, for one. Its a diet very similar to the one you are holding in your hands! Its the traditional Mediterranean diet, the one that first piqued researchers attention in the 1950s and 1960s, when they found that people on the Greek island of Crete were living longer, healthier lives.