Michael Greger

“In a Harvard University study, the diets of nearly 1,000 women were analysed before their morning melatonin levels were measured. Meat consumption was the only food significantly associated with lower melatonin production, for reasons that are as yet unknown.”

“You have to build up to green smoothies. Everyone loves fruit smoothies: you can add a handful of baby spinach to a fruit smoothie and may hardly even taste it. Next, try two. Slowly, your taste buds can adapt to more greens.”

“We need to boost our intake of healthy plant foods and reduce our dependence on animal-based foods.”

“The benefits of a healthier diet are far-reaching because they also equate to fewer animals being bred into inhumane factory farm conditions and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.”

“High levels of stress can lead to weakened immunity, rendering animals much more susceptible to disease. This makes the average poultry factory farm a hotbed for outbreaks of avian flu.”

“Nutrition is an exciting, dynamic field - there are more than 10,000 articles published on human nutrition in medical journals every year.”

“The fumes produced by frying bacon contain carcinogens called nitrosamines. Though all meat may release potentially carcinogenic fumes, processed meat such as bacon may be the worst.”

“Everyone feels sad occasionally. A full range of emotions is part of what makes us human.”

“Don't forget that fruit can be cooked - think of baked apples, poached pears and grilled pineapple. But if you like drinking fruit, blending will preserve more nutrition and fibre than juicing.”

“Many people assume the diseases that kill us are pre-programmed into our genes. High blood pressure by 55, heart attacks at 60, maybe cancer at 70, and so on... But for most of the leading causes of death, our genes usually account for only 10-20 per cent of risk.”

“Simply switching to a healthy, plant-based diet can lessen stroke risk by reducing cholesterol and blood pressure, flooding your body with antioxidants and improving blood flow.”

“While consumers may be more shocked by pink slime or the feeding of Prozac to poultry, the routine feeding of millions of pounds of human antibiotics to chickens presents a much graver threat.”

“As a physician specializing in nutrition, my priority is to the health of the public.”

“Anyone who's promoting the exact diet that they were in previous years probably isn't keeping up with the latest science, though in general, the balance of evidence has remained remarkably consistent - centering one's diet around whole plant foods.”

“The typical Western diet is the number-one cause of premature death and the number-one cause of disability. In other words, a long and healthy life is largely a matter of choice.”

“Women with a higher intake of berries appeared to have delayed cognitive aging by 2.5 years. So it's like your brain is 2.5 years younger if you're eating berries.”

“Though pigs have been proven susceptible to a porcine spongiform encephalopathy, the National Pork Producers Council claims that no naturally occurring cases of 'mad pig' disease have ever been discovered.”

“Without enough nitric oxide, your arteries can stiffen, raising blood pressure and your risk of heart attack.”

“Good news for orange lovers: citrus fruit intake has been associated with reduced stroke risk.”

“Most Alzheimer's sufferers aren't diagnosed until their 70s. However, we now know that their brains began deteriorating long before that.”