Review: Fuhrman’s ‘The End of Dieting’

In this week’s Breakthroughs, we will look into a dieting book which proposed a “new” dieting strategy. In his book The End of Dieting: How to Live for Life (2014, Harper Collins), Joel Fuhrman proposes a “nutritarian” approach to dieting as a “diet lifestyle.” “Nutritarian” is a new term that Fuhrman coined to roughly refer to a dietary framework (comparable to “vegetarian”) that focuses on designing a dietary program consisting of food combinations that provide “superior nutrition.”

The book is divided into two parts:

Part One, which contains three chapters, attempts to debunk historical dietary programs as “diet myths” and proposed that the end of dieting must be allowed to pass away in dietary literature. Chapter One deals with his concept of “toxic hunger,” while Chapter Two discloses what he understands as “diet myths.” Chapter Three proposes an end to this diet trend.

Part Two is longer with four chapters, expounding his diet theory and nutritarian proposal. Chapter Four describes what Fuhrman considers as “real food” and their respective nutritional power. Chapter Five details a “boot camp” nutritarian diet, which is followed by a nutritarian diet plan in Chapter Six and sample recipes in Chapter Seven. Meanwhile, the Appendix includes a discussion on supplementation in diet.

While the theoretical innovation proposed in this book provides a fresher perspective on nutritional dietetics, the concepts of nutritarian diet and super nutrition are not new in dietary faddism and literature. It is a dietary imperative that nutritional argumentation must be proposed in order to persuade health and wellness advocates in history. Even the enduring lifestyle dietary program of vegetarianism proposed a nutrition-based argument in its dietary conceptualization and food mix. Its hunger satisfaction concept, for instance, is not far from that of the South Beach Diet, which cardiologist Arthur Agatston designed for his patients with heart disease.

In a sense, the nutritarian lifestyle diet is still another diet fad with roots in basic nutritional dietetics, which may not appeal to health advocates who are well-versed in the nutritional science. However, the book may appeal to those who seek fresher information about their current dietary practices and perhaps to enhance their store of knowledge in nutritional dietary literature.