A short Philosopher's Notes TV summary by Brian Johnson of Joel Fuhrman's book Super Immunity. The episode argues that to achieve “super immunity” you must make nutrient-dense whole plant foods—especially cruciferous and leafy greens—the foundation of the diet rather than simply adding produce onto a standard diet. Key claims: cruciferous vegetables offer disproportionate cancer protection, Fuhrman's health equation (Health = Nutrients / Calories), processed foods dominate the standard American diet, regular exercise markedly reduces colds and speeds recovery, and superior nutrition can unlock major lifespan and healing potential.
Questions this video answers
62%.
A 20% increase in plant food intake corresponds to a 20% decrease in cancer rates.
A 20% increase in cruciferous vegetable intake corresponds to a 40% decrease in cancer rates.
28 servings of vegetables per week decreased prostate cancer risk by 33%.
Three servings of cruciferous vegetables per week decreased prostate cancer risk by 41%.
Chapters
Hey guys, this is Brian with another Philosopher's Notes TV episode. This one is on Super Immunity by Joel Fuhrman, the essential nutrition guide for boosting your body's defenses to live longer, stronger and disease free. Joel Fuhrman MD is on Whole Foods Scientific Advisory board. And if you've ever walked into a Whole Foods and seen their ANDI scale, the aggregate nutritional density index, you have him to thank for that. He came up with that idea. We'll talk about that in this note. But what we want to do here is learn from Dr. Fuhrman on how we can go from average immunity to superimmunity. Some of the big ideas we're going to cover are Dr. Fuhrman's pyramid flashing oil lights. We don't just want to snip the light, we want to take care of the problem. Cruciferous vegetables. They are our primary disease fighters. He has something called goms or G bombs. Greens, onions, mushrooms, berries, beans and seeds. Pretty powerful stuff. Health equation. Health equals nutrients over calories. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the importance of exercise and we'll talk about your extraordinary healing potential. We'll see what we can get through in these 10 minutes. So book is packed with goodness. This book and E2 have fantastic. Here's what Dr. Fuhrman tells us. He says most health authorities today are in agreement that we should add more servings of healthy fruits and vegetables to our diet. He says, I disagree. What? Well, he says thinking about our diet in this fashion doesn't adequately address the problem. Instead of considering adding protective fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds and nuts to our disease causing diet, we, we must make these foods the main focus of the diet itself. So he's got a different type of pyramid than what we might be used to checking out. He says it starts with vegetables half raw, half cooked. That is the base of our pyramid here. Then we add on the fruits and the beans, legumes. For him, it's the seeds, nuts, the avocados, whole grains and potatoes. And then you have a limited side of eggs, fish, fat free dairy, red meats, et cetera. So the point here is don't try to add on vegetables at the end of the discussion, start with them. These are the keys to your super immunity. Whatever details you get into around how much of this stuff you have, everyone's going to agree on. This needs to be our platform, needs to be our foundation. Healthy fruits and vegetables with vegetables right there at the base. Now he has a great way of thinking about it. He says most of what doctors do today to treat diseases does little to extend human lifespan. And in some cases it's often worthless and even harmful. Why? Because what it's doing is it's encouraging patients risky lifestyle behaviors and self destructive eating choices to continue. Now, if you can take a drug to avoid taking care of the problem, that's just not a good idea. He says. It's kind of like when you treat symptoms and you don't halt the advancing pathology, which is likely to get worse. The solution is akin to your mechanic fixing the flashing oil light on your car's dashboard. By simply snipping the wire to the light, sure, you can get rid of the symptoms. You no longer see the flashing light. You no longer have the symptoms that you don't want to experience in your life. But you did nothing to deal with the underlying problem. So let's not treat the symptoms, which is kind of like snipping the flashing oil light. Thank you light for coming back on. Let us go to the root of the problem. Here's one way to go to the root. We want to go to cruciferous disease fighters. He says green vegetables such as kale, cabbage, collards and broccoli, plus some non green vegetables such as cauliflower and turnips are called cruciferous vegetables. Now these cruciferous vegetables are extraordinary in how they help us treat disease. Get this Dr. Fuhrman tells us cruciferous vegetables are twice as powerful as other plant foods. They've done studies where they've seen a 20% increase in plant food intake generally corresponds to a 20% decrease in cancer rates. But a 20% increase in cruciferous vegetables corresponds to a 40% decrease in cancer rates. That's amazing. Increase your cruciferous vegetable intake by 20%, you will decrease your cancer rate likelihood by 40%. That's amazing. He continues by saying 28 servings of vegetables per week decreases prostate cancer risk by 33%. But just three servings of cruciferous vegetables per week decrease prostate cancer risk by 41%. I got that a little. Wow, that's worth rewinding and listening to again. Cruciferous vegetables are our primary disease fighters. Now, these include arugula, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, horseradish, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, red cabbage, turnip greens, watercress. Go check out your produce department. See how many of those you can throw into your shopping cart on your next trip. And do yourself and your family a favor. And dramatically reduce your risk of getting cancer. Dr. Fuhrman talks about his G bombs. I'm going to move to one of the core tenants of his entire philosophy, which is his nutrient density ratio, and this is his equation for health. Health equals nutrients over calories. Health equals nutrients over calories. Now, the idea here is we need to avoid low nutrient foods, such as white breads and processed foods, soft drinks, sweets, and fruit juices and all that stuff, which are really high in calories but really low in nutritional value. You want to jack up your nutritional value through all this kind of stuff that we're talking about and watch how much of your calories are coming from nutrient den. I'm sorry, depleted foods. He says this incredibly. By 2010, processed foods had become 62% of the calories consumed in the standard American diet. 62% of our calories come from processed foods. Look, the idea here is simple. We need to eat more whole, unprocessed, unrefined foods, starting with the most nutrient dense foods we can find, which are those cruciferous vegetables, the leafy greens. Right? The romaines, the kales, and all these collards and wonderful, wonderful, dense, leafy greens. Big salads twice a day. In his other book, Eat to Live, he talks about if you can get one thing out of his book, it would be eat a huge salad twice a day. Make that the main course. Everything else comes around the now moving from nutrition for a moment to exercise, Fuhrman goes off. He says the researchers found that the frequency of colds among people who exercised five or more days a week was up to 46% less than that of people who were largely sedentary. And when you did get sick, you got better quicker if you exercise. He says exercise not only helps your immune system fight off simple bacterial and viral infections, it also decreases your chances of developing heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer. We've got to develop an exercise program. Here you go. Exercise five plus times per week. You will get basically 50% less colds. And when and if you get them, you're going to recover much more quickly. Get out there and exercise with your family. Make it a lifestyle habit, a daily practice. And remember our other videos on exercise. Not exercising. Not only does it boost your immune system, but not exercising is like taking a depressant. Tal Ben Shahar tells us, we don't want to take depressants. That's never a good idea. Life has enough stress and challenges to it. We don't need to contribute to it. So let's exercise. As we integrate all these ideas, Fuhrman tells us your body has an amazing healing potential waiting to be unleashed by the gift of superior nutrition. He says most of us should be able to extend our lifespan to surpass 95 good years of age. 95 good years of age. Super Immunity will do that for you. Focusing on some of these ideas, get his book Super Immunity. Eat to live. Powerful stuff. He says great health can be yours, but you can't buy it. You must earn it. Great health can be yours, but you can't buy it. You got to earn it. Get to work with the little things. Fundamentals. What's the biggest idea you got out of here and how can you implement it in your life today? Think about that. Get your super Immunity on. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another great day. See ya.
