The Diet

The Perfect Health Diet

Here’s our Perfect Health Diet food plate:

PHD_Apple_plate cropped

NOTE: This is our new food plate, updated 2015. Foreign translations of the original food plate may be found here.

We recommend:

  • About 3 pounds [1.4 kg] of plant foods per day, including:
    • About 1 pound [0.45 kg] of safe starches, such as white rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and taro;
    • About 1 pound [0.45 kg] of sugary in-ground vegetables (such as beets or carrots), fruits, and berries;
    • Low-calorie vegetables to taste, including fermented vegetables and green leafy vegetables.
  • One-half to one pound [0.25 to 0.5 kg] per day of meat or fish, which should include organ meats, and should be drawn primarily from:
    • ruminants (beef, lamb, goat);
    • birds (especially duck and wild or naturally raised birds);
    • Shellfish and freshwater and marine fish.
  • Low omega-6 fats and oils from animal or tropical plant sources, to taste. Good sources include:
    • butter, sour cream, beef tallow, duck fat;
    • coconut milk or oil
    • palm oil, palm kernel oil, olive oil, avocado oil, macadamia nut butter, almond butter, cashew butter
  • Acids to taste, especially citric acid (lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, grapefruit juice), lactic acid from fermented or pickled vegetables, vinegars, tannic acids from wine, and tomatoes.
  • Broths or stocks made from animal bones and joints.
  • Snacks or desserts from our pleasure foods: fruits and berries, nuts, alcohol, chocolate, cream, and fructose-free sweeteners like dextrose or rice syrup.

By weight, the diet works out to about 3/4 plant foods, 1/4 animal foods. By calories, it works out to about 600 carb calories, primarily from starches; around 300 protein calories; and fats supply a majority (50-60%) of daily calories.

In the shadow of the apple are foods forbidden because of their high toxin content. Notably:

  • Do not eat cereal grains — wheat, barley, oats, corn — or foods made from them — bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, oatmeal. The exception is white rice, which we count among our “safe starches.” Rice noodles, rice crackers, and the like are fine, as are gluten-free foods made from a mix of rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch.
  • Do not eat calorie-rich legumes. Peas and green beans are fine. Soy and peanuts should be absolutely excluded. Beans might be acceptable with suitable preparation, but we recommend avoiding them.
  • Do not eat foods with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Do not drink anything that contains sugar: healthy drinks are water, tea, and coffee.
  • Polyunsaturated fats should be a small fraction of the diet (~4% of total calories). To achieve this, do not eat seed oils such as soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, or the like.

We highly recommend certain foods for their micronutrients. These include liver, kidney, egg yolks, seaweeds, shellfish, fermented vegetables, and bone broths.

We also recommend augmenting the diet with certain supplements. See our Supplement Recommendations page. These nutrients are deficient in modern diets due to removal of minerals from drinking water by treatment, depletion of minerals from soil by agriculture, or modern lifestyles that deprive us of vitamin D by indoor living.

We recommend tweaking the diet for certain diseases. Neurological disorders often benefit from a diet that is ketogenic; other conditions may benefit from lower carb diets. These variations are discussed in the book:


See the “Buy the Book” page for other purchase options.

Leave a comment ?

3,945 Comments.

  1. How to eat your way to diabesity | The Healthy Skeptic - pingback on October 19, 2010 at 9:04 am
  2. Our Mission « The Green Bough - pingback on February 8, 2011 at 1:28 am
  3. My new favorite book on nutrition and health - pingback on March 16, 2011 at 5:47 pm
  4. The Perfect Health Diet « 2sparrows - pingback on May 20, 2011 at 9:18 pm
  5. Day 6 – Adding starches to my diet | Paleo Adventure - pingback on September 12, 2011 at 12:35 pm
  6. Primal Blueprint September Challenge | Rethinking mental health - pingback on September 12, 2011 at 6:37 pm
  7. Sugar: the sweetest way to wreck your health | just3 group - pingback on September 18, 2011 at 8:41 am
  8. Starch and Exercise | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page - pingback on September 19, 2011 at 10:15 am
  9. O Manual da Alimentação Perfeita « Anus Cerebralis - pingback on September 21, 2011 at 10:25 am
  10. Getting Started – A Quick Guide for the Sama’s - pingback on September 21, 2011 at 2:16 pm
  11. Muscle pain and coconut cream | Rethinking mental health - pingback on October 9, 2011 at 5:25 pm
  12. Perfect Health Diet – Linee guida in italiano « Jaco types - pingback on October 17, 2011 at 4:05 am
  13. Gluten Free Sandwich Buns | - pingback on October 20, 2011 at 7:45 pm
  14. Monday, October 24, 2011 | CrossFit Solana Beach - pingback on October 24, 2011 at 12:03 am
  15. Perfetc Health Diet | tetrafarmakos - pingback on November 6, 2011 at 11:19 am
  16. Sunday Cooking Marathon « 3 Crows Whidbey - pingback on November 13, 2011 at 12:57 pm
  17. zimonyi.hu » Mit együnk? Praktiuksan - pingback on November 21, 2011 at 6:38 am
  18. Is the term, ‘safe starches’ an oxymoron? - pingback on November 22, 2011 at 11:34 am
  19. Amino Question | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page - pingback on November 30, 2011 at 1:50 pm
  20. “So What is Your Diet Exactly?” « Health Heralds - pingback on December 5, 2011 at 3:07 pm
  21. ~pjgh » Blog Archive » Coming in From the Cold - pingback on December 14, 2011 at 10:37 am
  22. Fat is Good | Denver Fitness Journal - pingback on December 25, 2011 at 10:01 am
  23. Experimentet del 3 « Annas Liv - pingback on December 26, 2011 at 4:46 am
  24. My 30-Day Fitness/Nutrition Experiment | Mike Skiff - pingback on February 12, 2012 at 8:30 pm
  25. Toxic! | kiwiketo - pingback on February 14, 2012 at 6:53 pm
  26. Closing in on 400! | CrossFit NYC - pingback on February 21, 2012 at 11:01 pm
  27. Workout 12.1: 7 minutes in heavin’ | CrossFit NYC - pingback on February 23, 2012 at 8:17 am
  28. Jimmy Moore inquires about "safe starches" - pingback on March 23, 2012 at 7:41 pm
  29. Should You Be Afraid of Starch? | A Healthy Journey - pingback on April 2, 2012 at 6:47 pm
  30. Our Endorsement of Real Food « Reebok CrossFit Nürnberg - pingback on April 27, 2012 at 6:51 am

Leave a Comment


NOTE - You can use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Trackbacks and Pingbacks: