Universal Diet Principles

The most important thing about diet at this time and place — with its overabundance, chemistry creations, and industrial complexes bent on maximizing profits — is to watch what you don’t eat. Pay more attention to which foods to avoid.
Too much of these toxic foods can kill any diet. Too much negates any positive food.
Conversely, cutting these down to near (ideally total) elimination is all one needs to do in order to have a healthy diet — which is to say a positive relationship with food.
For this reason we’ll start with the foods to avoid.
Vegetable Oils
Dr. Catherine Shanahan posits certain vegetable oils are among the worst things a human can consume in her meticulously-researched book Deep Nutrition.
These vegetable oils are harmful to humans on a genetic level. Not good.
So read labels and try to avoid these as much as possible:
Canola oil
Soy oil
Sunflower oil
Cottonseed oil
Grapeseed oil
Safflower oil
Non-butter spreads (including margarine) and the so-called trans-free spreads
Sugar
Sugar is the real white death. Too much sugar — or worse, sugar-like substances — is the main cause of the obesity epidemic.
Limiting this addictive substance to none or once a week works wonders. For help with this, I’d recommend something like The 21-Day Sugar Detox Daily Guide.
Getting 1–2 servings of quality no-pesticides used fruit a day can be net positive.
But try your best to avoid these toxic ingredients. Click for sugar info and 61 (!) different names for sugar from UCSF.
Soy
Soy is a cheap filler that’s harmful to humans on a hormonal level. It promotes estrogen (which too much of is harmful for women as well as men), and it’s in like everything processed.
So steer clear of:
Bean curd
Kinnoko flour
Lecithin
Miso
Mono-diglyceride
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
Natto
Okara
Shoyu sauce
Soy sauce
Soya, soja, or yuba
Tamari
Tempeh
Textured soy flour (TSF)
Textured soy protein (TSP)
Textured vegetable protein (TVP)
Tofu
Now that all that Standard American Diet crap is off the table, what can we eat?
Actually, it does leave plenty of options for getting enough — getting the optimum amount of healthy calories. I’ll strongly recommend a few by name to fill the vacuum.
Eat these foods.
Healthy Fats
The right kind of fats are good for you! A thousand times better than most crap marked “low-fat,” in fact.
The benefits from these fats are numerous, so are the uses. If you’d like an elaboration on either, just ask me or Google.
But for now, just know these super foods:
Ghee (I use Ancient Organics)
Organic coconut oil
Avocado
Organic butter
Sprouted pumpkin seed (I eat GoRaw brand)
Organic Bone Broth
Bone broth from animals raised the right way — with no antibiotics, free-range, etc. — are an amazing source of collagen, glucosamine, and numerous other important micronutrients found virtually nowhere else.
Bone broth is good for your vital gut, your joints, and your skin. Probably more.
Plus, you can make a delicious snack with it.
Chicken bone broth with ghee and Italian seasoning tastes like an all-liquid chicken noodle soup.
It can be the base for soups with other herbs, vegetables, and proteins, too.
I use Pacific bone broths.
Cruciferous Vegetables
Broccoli, broccoli sprouts, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower all contain a powerful micronutrient called Sulfuraphane (pronounced sul-fur-a-fain).
Sulfuraphane may be the best natural anti-aging substance. Like repair and protect on a genetic level best.
Try to get at least 3 servings of these every week. Organic / grown without pesticides.
Spinach
Pesticide-free spinach is the ultimate green in my book (or blog post). If it’s good enough for Popeye…
But really, clean spinach is packed with great micronutrients. The perfect backbone for any salad.
These principles are not an exhaustive look at diet. (In fact, I recommend everyone read Deep Nutrition and Becoming a Supple Leopard for basic fitness education. The good stuff they don’t teach you in school.)
However, these principles do lay out a solid foundation one can build their best diet upon.
Avoid vegetable oils, sugar, and soy. Eat superfoods like healthy fats, bone broth, cruciferous veggies, and spinach.
You got this!
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor. The content in this post is for educational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare provider prior to beginning or modifying a diet or exercise routine.
Hate that I have to say that in order to not be liable for another person’s actions, but I do. So I did.
David Ferm is the author of Neo-Samurai Haiku and the co-author of Weight Lifting Essentials. He’s a freelance wordslinger who writes mostly about business, education, fitness, and technology. Ferm has helped clients across 4 continents tell their stories in a compelling way.
David lives in the Now with his Self.
