A Nutrient Rich Diet Vs The South Beach “diet”.

Agatston, whose book “The South Beach Diet” reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, was the featured speaker at the fourth annual luncheon marking women’s health week at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Is he really promoting womens health?…

This is a cause for concern. That the South Beach diet went to #1 is one thing, what it promotes is another. While many eating the South Beach Diet will likely be eating better than they were before, the nutritional recommendations of the diet are not health- promoting in the longer run.

The South Beach Diet really is all about weight loss and convenience in eating, and forgets about health. (Not to imply that eating healthy isn’t convenient, it is)

It’s not just South Beach.  It’s all diets that promote animal products and high sodium, high fat foods  (part of a calorie-controlled plan) as the major part of the diet. Weight loss, in the case of the South Beach Diet, does not come from eating trully better, improved health and a successful lifestyle, it comes from eating less.

My clients ask me a lot if I eat chicken or fish. The answer is, I do.  I just don’t eat it everyday.  I eat all kinds of vegetables, fruit, beans and nuts…  I combine them in so many different ways that are simple quick and easy to prepare. 

A Nutrient Rich diet is not a canned diet. It looks different for everyone because Nutrient Rich is first and foremost a food quality standard, not merely a weight loss diet, even though losing weight the Nutrient Rich Way, is the most effective way in existence.

A successful Nutrient Rich diet is not based on high fat, high sodium foods, animal protein or calorie control. When you eat better, you’ll actually eat more initially and naturally less over time because your body is getting what it needs for health.

I know the South Beach Diet promotes vegetables and other Nutrient Rich foods, but know this, the South Beach diet is still a diet trap, because it is based on traditional diet industry principles that keep people stuck. It focuses on weight loss, but not health in any real sort of way.  

Among Agatston’s critics is nutrientrich.com Science Advisor Joel Fuhrman M.D, himself a family physician.

DrFuhrman did not question all of Agatston’s advice but said his diet relied too much on meat and other fat foods.

“That’s what these guys do,” he said. “They give lip service to a healthy diet, but then they promote animal products at every single meal.”

Nutrition experts are trying to convince Americans to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables and a lot less meat, he said.

The average American diet contains about 40 percent animal products, but the first phase of the South Beach diet contains 60 percent, Fuhrman said.

“It should be closer to 10 to 20 percent,” he claimed. “It should be calling for meat every other night or once a day instead of three times a day.”

Fuhrman, of course, has his own book, titled “Eat to Live.” He bristles, though, at the idea that his views simply represent those of a competing author.