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healthyeater New Member 
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Hello to the forum! Question about the Eat to Live plan: How much is your budget to follow the plan? I find it expensive to follow it strictly. How do you make your dollar stretch and still eat healthfully? As far as the diet itself goes: I have no problem abstaining from meat, sweets and processed foods in general. So long as they aren't around the house, I don't really miss them. I love smoothies and salads. Dr. Fuhrman's main dish recipes don't seem all that tasty, but I'm willing to bend the rules somewhat by using other authors' vegetarian recipes-- those who cook better IMHO. :) Dr. Fuhrman doesn't really address budget in his books (no surprise there). |
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Nir Senior Administrator 
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Hi. Money Saving and Eat To Live are two of my interests (and I think that money saving would be an interest for me even if I wasn't on a budget). I am not really a "recipe" person - I prepare food so it is ready to eat, often eating a "mono meal" of a single food or just throwing a bunch of vegetables (raw and cooked) next to each other. Yet that does not stop me thinking of myself as "doing ETL" or being a Nutritarian. I get some free produce from my parents who have an allotment and I buy cheap produce at the outdoor market stall. I use the freezer and have stuff leftover now (winter) back from the more plentiful season. Nuts and seeds are expensive so I buy the more common ones (flax, sunflower, walnuts) in larger quantities (and I am cheeky - I ask for nuts and seeds as my Christmas/birthday present). As I no longer need to lose weight, and I am quite an active person (about 2 hours exercise a day) I need to fuel myself. As the pyramid indicates...  I have a choice of where those extra calories come from - they could be vegetables (like sweet potatos), beans, fruit, or nuts/seeds/avocados. Now those are all delightful choices if money (and time) were no object but I confess that at times I drift towards wholegrain choices such as oatmeal and popcorn - which whilst being a couple of Dr Fuhrman's approved choices are not as nutritious as his first choices. In general I find that I drift towards being more thrifty, I am drifting away from Dr Diet Fuhrman and towards the cheaper John McDougall diet - with more emphasis on cheapness and less on health. So I keep reminding myself what it is all about at regular intervals, by listening to one of Dr Fuhrman's teleconferences or radio podcasts. I think that if my income increased I would be more willing to spend more - my health is a worthy cause. Dr Fuhrman would argue that in the US where many people have to pay something towards their healthcare it easily makes financial sense to spend a bit more on produce and seeds and nuts and less on surgery and treatments. |
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healthyeater New Member
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Nir, thank you so much for your reply. I was having trouble writing a post thru a different browser. I've spent the past month refining my meal plans so that I can follow the Eat to Live plan as far as money will allow. It's not easy when the foods he wants you to eat are more expensive than what you currently use, like almond milk instead of cow's milk. And I can't find a cheaper alternative than almond milk. Another example: dates. Medjool dates aren't cheap and date sugar is hard to find too. VitaMix is expensive. I use a food processor but it doesn't work for frozen fruit sorbets and it can't cut sticky foods like dates. Can you tell me about a good blender that's cheaper than the VitaMix that Fuhrman recommends? So far what works for me is vegetable soups which last for days. I also buy in bulk at the local wholesale club. Don't know yet about farmer markets. I cannot think of a way to make my diet cheaper and still follow Eat to Live. I checked out McDougall. It's nice of him to offer his diet course online along with recipes. But starch as the center of the diet? It seems to differ from Fuhrman's diet a great deal. Which works better for you? Can McDougall's diet reverse diseases like diabetes? |
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Nir Senior Administrator
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I use a run-of-the-mill food processor for my smoothies: I use frozen fruit - I microwave them for about 60-90 seconds to defrost so they are not rock solid before putting in the food processor. I don't use any type of milk - problem solved - cheapest option :) Any dates are fine - I tend to use dry ones as they are cheaper (in a kilogram bag) remember they are not a staple food - dried fruit is used occasionally and as a sweetener in recipes, nutritionally dates/raisins are not a super-food are they. Fresh fruit win (and those tend to be the lower-sugar ones, berries etc.) Fuhrman points out that the most nutrient-dense foods are green vegetables (and also draws our attention to cruciferous vegetables). meanwhile McDougall says that we're not really "basing" our diet on green/yellow vegetables because we can't get all of our calories from them and we have to get calories from somewhere. Fuhrman asks us to think of "salad as the main dish" (in terms of volume), McDougal looks at calorie maths and suggest need to come from somewhere other than veg. I could quite happily do a Fuhrman diet with calories mainly coming from beans, avocados, sweet potatos, fresh fruit and seeds and nuts. If I get a job I will probably give my food intake a major intake in this way. But even now I am sticking to the essentials LOTS OF GREEN VEGETABLES (and then cheap grains - popcorn) |
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Imran New Member
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Hi, all the members of this forum I am here to share my ideas about diet plan for both girls and boys. It is true that we should eat to live but do not live to eat otherwise we have to face many diseases in our life. The most common disease is increasing fat. Due to fat we cannot perform our duties properly. So, we should use only proper diet. |
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