Dean Ornish’s book “The Spectrum” is a fabulous book. He divides foods into 5 groups with group 5 being the worst for us and group 1 being the best. He lets you decide which group you are currently in and then you can try to move to a lower group at the pace you decide. He even talks about if you have a group 5 meal then eat a group 2 or 3 the next day or mix group 1 items with group 5 items. The mixture seems to make the group 5 foods better for you. He shows you how to lose weight and avoid or reverse many modern diseases. His experience comes from 30 years of documented experiments.

Group 1 foods are mostly fresh vegetables, spices, fish oils, etc. Group 2 foods are olive oil, safflower oil, nuts, rice, salmon etc. Group 3 foods are other oils, salt many fishes, canned vegetables, etc. Group 4 foods are Chicken, turkey, shark, swordfish, etc. Group 5 foods are red meats, Full fat cheeses, cream, desserts, etc. This is not a diet but a way to live healthy and survive longer. He doesn’t give you an all or nothing attitude. If you are a red meat-eater (group 5), try eating more fresh vegetables (group 1) with it. We can all change the way we eat and benefit ourselves.

If we don’t start changing our health for the better, we will end up a totally broken society. Our healthcare costs are out of control. We will break Medicare and make most insurances only affordable to the rich. We can’t continue to build more and more hospitals and have people getting sicker not healthier. Government can’t fix this problem! Only we can.