What is nutritarian diet? Founder, plans, advantages, cons!

There are innumerable diets for weight loss in the world and in the USA. Nutritarian diet is one such diet in which stress is on consumption of plant origin foods that are nutrient dense. Know more about this diet below.

What is Nutritarian diet?

A New York-based doctor, Dr. Joel Fuhrman created the nutritarian diet. In this, there is an emphasis on consumption of plant based and nutrient dense foods for weight management. Joel has authored two books on this: the first one released in 2011 is “Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss.” Later in 2021, he updated it and the title read “Eat For Life”.

In this diet, one can feed themselves on plant foods that are nutrient sense. But the dieter should not consume much of animal protein, processed foods, and even olive oil. This is to retrain the palate to consume healthier and natural foods. Joel opines:

“In other words, the habitual consumption of salty foods and sweets do not only diminish your ability to sense salt and sweet but weaken the ‘taste muscle’ in general. So when you stop this overstimulation, food can taste flat for a few months while ‘taste muscle’ can reset itself to savor deeper flavors in whole foods that you never knew existed before. According to the nutritarian approach, you’re empowered to reach your ideal weight while warding off heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and autoimmune conditions.”

Advantages of this diet

The diet does help in weight loss and also to maintain the ideal weight for body. Moreover, this diet can keep off chronic diseases of the body such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline etc. Also, it reduces risk of inflammation and cancer.

The foods in this diet are healthier and cheaper and also gluten free. The whole family can safely consume this diet with no great fear of nutritional deficiencies. This type of eating is also good for the environment and climate. It has less carbs and less fat. Since processed foods are not in this diet, salt and sugar intake reduces. Hence it is good for the cardiovascular system. It has high fiber and is good also for the bowel movements.

It has its own food pyramid with vegetables and fruits at the bottom, followed by seeds, nuts and avocados, whole grains and potatoes, eggs, oil, natural animal products, and very little, if any, of processed foods. Green nutrient sense foods are vital in this diet.

Plans of the diet and cons

There are three plans in it:

Quick 20-day detox program

With this, you can lose 10 pounds in 20 days. In this, unhealthy foods are omitted.

Six-week jump-start plan

It is more flexible but still rather strict plan. One can lose considerable weight with it.

Ongoing “Eat to Live” plan

This is the most flexible plan with similar philosophy.

Each plan has a salad in it every day. But this plan can develop monotony. One cannot eat outside in restaurants.

Also, read What is whole 30 diet? Its pros and cons explained!

There are strict rules to remember and follow. There is a high likelihood of nutritional deficiencies coming up in the long term. Some foods are labeled bad and this is not right during eating. Due to the restrictive nature and no snacking rule, binge eating might result.

Eating balanced and wholesome is best for health and weight.