Sublime

The beauty of crafting salads is that there are no rules! Throw together as many veggies as you can and drench them with olive oil, which will increase the absorption of their many nutrients (including carotenoids, which can boost brain-processing speed).

In the final analysis, I tell my patients that on the basis of the least bad, least ambiguous data available, MUFAs are probably the fat that should make up most of our dietary fat mix, which means extra virgin olive oil and high-MUFA vegetable oils.

Robert H. Lustig, a professor of pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, is considered the leading authority on the dangers of sugar.

Avoid the consumption of polyunsaturated oils (revisit chapter 2) and increase consumption of extra-virgin olive oil. Consume ample fat-soluble antioxidants like vitamin E (found in avocados, almonds, and grass-fed beef), carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin (found in kale, avocados, and pistachio nuts), and astaxanthin (found in krill oil).

By this point, you are starting to understand how to keep inflammation in your body to a minimum: avoiding sugars, grains, and oxidized oils, while consuming ample plant nutrients and fiber (we’ll cover more in the following chapters before we put it all together in the Plan).

As he saw it, the people of the Mediterranean built their diets around plant foods and seafood—vegetables, legumes, fish, olive oil, grains, and nuts.