The 80/10/10 Diet
by Douglas N. Graham
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Book Reviews of The 80/10/10 Diet
Book Review: Life Saving Lifestyle Book
Summary: 5 Stars
We have a family of five our ages range from 54 to 10. All of us live for the most part 80/10/10 lifestyle with great success (we do have some of the gourmet raw treats every now and then in moderation). Our children thrive and love living this way. They don't get picked by other kids and benefit from great health. No strep throat or ear infections at our house. No allergies or asthma and most definitely no ADD.
My husband has been living what Dr. Graham has written about for over 30 years now. He had severe rheumatoid arthritis and gave his body the conditions necessary to repair and heal itself. He has had no arthritis during the last 30 years.
I've been a primarily raw vegan for 11 years and for the last 3 almost 4 years been 100% with no regrets, looking back or craving for cooked food. During this time I've reduced the fat/protein, dumped the salt and slept more. I've upped the fruit intake and eat at least 1lb of tender greens and 1-11/2 lbs of veggies. 80/10/10 is a MUST READ for any true health seeker. Dr. Graham is right on and what he says works. You get out of it what you put into to it for sure. To me living this way is like a fountain of youth or it least it is slowing it down for me. My hair is shiny and black, my smiles lines are diminishing and the crow's feet around my eyes are hardly noticeable. People often mistake me for being 15-20 years younger than I am. I was so sick for most of life with many healthy issues including mega colon. I do not have even one issue that I used to have and the mega colon which I was told would never be cured is totally gone. When given the proper conditions to do so, the body will heal and repair itself, it will thrive.
In the beginning, when you start, I found it helpful to log in and measure everything eaten because it is just SO easy to get the extra fat and protein. Life is simple, fast and peaceful living this lifestyle. I say lifestyle because it is just that. It is no different to our family than tying shoes or scratching and itch. It is just what we do, how we live and what we love.
You could not give yourself or your family a better gift than to make this lifestyle change.
Perhaps, one day at a raw food event we will get to meet Dr. Graham in person and thank him in person for the time and work he put into writing the book and sharing this timeless information in words that everyone can understand and for bringing Natural Hygiene back to the spot light so that people everywhere can have the opportunity to regain and maintain their health.
Book Review: Cant agree with everything in this book.
Summary: 3 Stars
This book really didnt hit the mark for me. There is alot of good information in here but Dr Graham says some things that I feel are really fanatical and "out there". And I am already a hot food vegetarian and extremely open minded against Big Pharma and Western Medecine/Nutrition.
But he says things such as these:
Vinegar is poisonous for the human body.
Olives are not meant to be consumed as people food.
Juicing veggies such as with a GreenStar or Champion juicer is harmful because they get digested too quickly and cause a spike in blood sugar (or something like that).
Even the grains most people think are healthy such as brown rice, whole wheat bread and so forth should be excluded from your diet.
You should throw out your entire spice rack and condiments. (I paraphrased that)
The cellulose in cruciferous veggies such as brocoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts is abrasive while passing thru your intestines. (Thats news to me as I thought this was the best form of fiber a human should eat).
Eating more than half of a Haas California avocado in 1 day will put too much fat in your diet.
But that being said I did read 80% of the book. I read it with an open mind and did derive benefits from it. The best thing I learned from it is to quit buying all those garbage supplements, vitamins and enzymes from the health food store and instead to look to mother nature and get these vitamins and minerals from the whole foods that I eat.
I really wish Dr Graham would substantiate many of his statements with reference to peer-reviewed journal or something the way that John Robbins does in his books.
Look people, I agree you should try to add as many fruits and greens as possible to your diet but to exclude beans and bread I think is just too fanatical. I dont think anyone could adhere to such a strict regimen of deprivation. And being a skinny guy already as a hot food vegetarian I would probably look like that cartoon character "rattle me bones" if I observed 80/10/10-RV religiously.
Book Review: A Wonderful Way of Eating, But Transition Gradually
Summary: 5 Stars
The 80/10/10 dietary lifestyle is a simple way of eating that can radically and positively transform one's health and attitude. I've experienced it myself. Some reviews claim that the diet is based on "bad science," but perhaps that's because scientific research is not currently geared toward prevention.
I've used myself as a guinea pig, and my husband has done the same. We've both been raw vegans for several years and our health has steadily improved. After trying the 80/10/10 lifestyle, that improvement went to hyper-speed. We are middle-aged, and we looked and felt like twenty-somethings.
After about four months of eating 80/10/10, we moved and started new jobs. With the added stress, we found ourselves craving fats, and we gave in to the cravings. We're still in excellent health and are still raw vegans, but we don't look as spectacular as we did a year ago! We hope to be able to return to the 80/10/10 lifestyle as we adjust to our new surroundings and responsibilities.
If you do buy this book and are convinced by the text to try the 80/10/10 way of eating, our advice is to go slowly. It's really a lifestyle shift, rather than a diet, and if you go in with that mindset, you're less likely to fall off of it during times of stress. It can be easy to become compulsive and set yourself up for internal battles if you limit yourself too much, too soon. You can begin with an awareness that fresh fruits are the best choice at any time and just start to notice when you make other choices. Observing yourself gives you good baseline data and helps you figure out emotional triggers for eating certain types of food. Working this out while you're transitioning is a lot easier than switching to the lifestyle first and fighting with yourself later.
I'd love to see Dr. Graham or another 80/10/10 adherent write a new book about the process of transitioning to this lifestyle. I highly recommend The 80/10/10 Diet. If we all ate this way, we could eradicate disease and despair in short order. Just make the shift slow and easy.
Book Review: Poorly researched.
Summary: 1 Stars
I am only 9 pages into this book and already I am disappointed.
There is a nice block quote from a pdf from "[...]" Dr. Graham quotes that pdf as fact (a story about how patients supposedly know more about nutrition than physicians).
Quote: "That explains the results of a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that pitted doctors against patients head to head in a test of basic nutrition knowledge. The patients won."
I checked the source on that. The reference is "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 58, 319-325" available online at [...].
The important parts are Tables 1 and 2 showing physicians' and patients' nutrition knowledge, respectively. Physicians' aggregate scores pre and post-intervention: 73.1% and 75.7%. Patients' pre and post-intervention knowledge: 46.4% and 50.2%.
In NO WAY imaginable do patients know more about nutrition than physicians.
The only sentence that says something like that is: "Before intervention, 52% of patients scored higher than the physician with the *lowest score* on the ... exam" (emphasis mine). Yes, some physicians are dumb and some patients are smart, but on average, physicians know (much) more about nutrition than patients, as proven by the very study they quote!
Now, because someone at [...] has poor reading comprehension skills, and the fact that Dr. Graham didn't fully check his sources, many people now believe that patients know more about nutrition than physicians. This is unacceptable. I now call into question all "facts" reported in this book. Unless you check his sources, and his sources' sources, you don't know if what he is saying is true.
[EDIT: Sorry about the [...] where links should be above. Amazon is removing them. For the first and last, search google for "atkins facts" and the middle one (of the article) just search Google for the journal name, then navigate to the correct volume/page number. Sorry for the inconvenience.]
Book Review: Hypoglycemia
Summary: 1 Stars
I read the book two years and dug into this diet with gusto. At first, I felt fantastic -- lost more weight than I needed to, felt energetic, skin looked great, etc. Over time, I developed what I now realize was hypoglycemia, resulting in an inability to sleep at night, irritability, unstable energy levels, brain fog, etc. At first, I thought it was a cleansing reaction. But, after 1.5 years, I now know it was due to the ingestion of mass quantities of raw fruit. I also suffered from severely dry skin due to the near total absence of fat in my diet. I kept trying to make the diet work for me despite increasing exhaustion, inability to concentrate and a strong sense of malaise. I thought for sure I must have a thyroid problem, but tests proved otherwise. FINALLY, I took a leap of faith and began increasing the fats (primarly coconut oil and butter) and proteins (fish, turkey and chicken) in my diet (particularly breakfast) and immediately began feeling better. My skin is softer and more supple, my hair thicker, my energy more stable, my moods much more pleasant, etc. I still feel I am recovering from this diet as my sleeping woes have not completely vanished (though they are greatly improved) and my digestion is somewhat impaired as my system didn't have to digest much of anything for so long.
In summary, I feel this diet is great as a temporary cleanse. But, it is potentially damaging if attempted as a permanent lifestyle change. The notion that this diet can nourish a physically active person for a lifetime is absurd. I especially regret following the diet while pregnant and breastfeeding. Though my son is healthy, he has several food intolerances and I struggled with a low milk supply that improved once I added more protein to my diet. Bottom line -- tread carefully and be aware that you will develop nutritional deficiencies on this diet.