Dean Ornish

The Life Choice Diet

The Life Choice Diet is a low-fat vegetarian way of eating with less than 10% calories from fat (for most people, this would be a diet with 15 to 25 grams of fat per day). The focus is on beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, with processed foods and nonfat dairy products consumed in moderation. Simple sugars and alcohols, like fat, are to be avoided.

Guidelines -- "all you really need to know"

You can eat the following foods whenever you feel hungry until you are full (but not until you are stuffed):

Beans and legumes (lentils, kidney beans, peas, black beans, red Mexican beans, split peas, soybeans, black-eyed peas, garbanzos, navy beans, and so on)
Fruits (apples, apricots, bananas, strawberries, cherries, blueberries, oranges, peaches, raspberries, cantaloupes, watermelons, pears, honeydew melons, pineapples, tomatoes, and so on)
Grains (corn, rice, oats, wheat, millet, barley, buckwheat, and so on)
Vegetables (potatoes, zucchini, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, mushrooms, eggplant, celery, asparagus, onions, sweet potatoes, spinach, and so on)

You can eat the following foods in moderation:

Nonfat dairy products, including skim milk, nonfat yogurt, nonfat cheeses, nonfat sour cream, and egg whites
Nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products, including whole grain breakfast cereals, Health Valley chili (and many other Health Valley products), Kraft Free nonfat mayonnaise and salad dressings, Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips, Quaker Oats oatmeal, Nabisco fat-free crackers, Fleishmann's Egg Beaters, Pritikin soups.

Read labels. Some of the nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products are high in sugar, so avoid these when possible. Ingredients are listed on food labels in order of the amount contained in that food. In other words, if the first ingredient is sugar, then there's more sugar than anything else in that food. Also, on most packages you'll find the number of grams of fat, the number of calories, and the amount of cholesterol.

Here are the foods to avoid as much as possible:

Meats (all kinds, including chicken and fish)
Oils (all kinds) and oil-containing products, including margarines and most salad dressings
Avocados
Olives
Nuts and seeds
High-fat or "low-fat" dairy, including whole milk, yogurt, butter, cheese, egg yolks, cream, and so on
Sugar and simple sugar derivatives (honey, molasses, corn syrup, high fructose syrup, and the like)
Alcohol
Any commercially available product with more than two grams of fat per serving

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