Recently in America we have had a philosophical/political war about diversity. Some conservatives complain that it is overdone, beaten to death by woke liberals. Some liberals reply that many conservatives are bigots, cloaking their bigotry with claims that we have emphasized diversity too much and taken the rights of those who are not part of certain minority groups.

Greger discusses a different type of diversity that I think all might agree on.

Experiments have shown that eating a wide variety of different whole plant foods decreases radiation exposure damage, lowers systemic inflammation, and improves cognition. The beautiful thing is that this is independent of quantity; small amounts of many whole plant foods will do the trick.

This was taken to an extreme in a study in which a variety of cancer patients were secretly given a tiny amount of pomegranate, broccoli, turmeric and green tea in capsule form; another group was given placebo capsules with only filler. Quantities of food: 1/100 of a pomegranate; less than a small broccoli floret; 1/8 tsp of turmeric; 1/6 of a bag of green tea. Cancer progression was measurably slowed in those who ate the microdoses of the four healthy foods compared to those who only were given a placebo.

It’s been well documented that a whole food, plant based diets slow disease progression, reduce recurrences, and increase longevity across a spectrum of cancer patients. This diet is particularly effective in breast and prostate cancer as I have discussed in prior blogs. The remarkable thing about these new studies is demonstrating that diversity of foods is paramount and that quantities can be minuscule. EVEN THOSE WHO HATE FRUITS AND VEGGIES CAN BE HELPED. I’ve met many people who avoid whole plant foods but cannot imagine anyone who can’t eat the tiniest amounts of lots of different vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, legumes, nuts and seeds. This seems a no brainer even for those who don’t have cancer or another chronic disease.