Review: How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been consistently reducing my meat consumption for several years now - mostly for ethical reasons (I don't find mass-breeding and mass-killing of animals any appealing - and choose not to close my eyes to it simply because it is happening "somewhere else" and not close to my freezer with that frozen piece of beef well packaged in a plastic).

After reading this book I have a much more egoistical reason to reduce meat consumption. There is a whole lot of scientific evidence showing that eating meat is bad for my health, is highly correlated with the risk of heart diseases, several types of cancers and other common causes of death due to illnesses.

The situation seems to be especially worrisome in USA with less regulations as of animal breeding conditions, more gene modifications and more feeding of antibiotics to animals that are then fed to humans - compared to Europe. But the eating habits of a big part of population in Europe is not much better than in the U.S.: a lot of fatty and processed food filled with sugar, a lot of animal products and way too little of vegetables, berries, lentils, nuts and fruits.

Reading this book can at times get you thinking if any possible malady in the world can be shown to be related to meat. It is indeed one-sided. However, there is a lot of uncontroversial advice in the book as of what needs to be more of and less of on our dining tables. A 1/4 of the whole book (more than 100 pages) is filled with literally thousands of references to scientific research - quite impressive.

I liked the way Greger explained that the goal of this book was not to promote vegetarianism or veganism - it was to promote healthy food.

Several decades of relevant research combined with witty and intelligent writing style - a worthwhile reading.

Will I stop eating any meat, fish, eggs and diary products after this book? No. I am not going to be religious about it - and won't say 'no' to a good dish now and then.

Will I reduce consumption of all above? Definitely - even more drastically than before.

Any other choices I will take more of? Even more organic and more whole foods (as opposed to processed salty-sugary-junk "kindly" offered by food industry).