Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

Diet’s guiding principles, listed on page 40, there is no end to the nutritious and tasty meals you can create.
     
    Drink a nutritious smoothie each day. A daily nutrient-rich smoothie will ensure the body gets all the nourishment it needs in a whole-food form. The smoothies suggested in this book are not meant as a supplement to whole food: They are whole foods, just blended. Daily nourishment in the form of liquid will help take the strain off your digestive system, thereby providing even greater energy.
     
     
    Eat a big green salad each day. Packed with chlorophyll, a leafy, green salad is among the healthiest of foods. Eating a big salad a day will boost overall health. It will help build new blood cells and keep the regeneration process going. High in fiber and minerals, salads are part of the base of the Thrive Diet pyramid (see page 40). Topping the salad with a high-quality dressing made from cold-pressed oils will add essential fatty acids and antioxidants. You’ll find recipes for dressings starting on page 251.
     
     
    Eat a raw energy bar each day. Raw energy bars are an easy way to pack nutrition in a convenient form. I make a big batch every few weeks and store them either in the refrigerator or freezer. You’ll find they are part of the Thrive Diet’s daily meal plan.
     
     
    Eat a substantial, balanced afternoon snack. A properly balanced snack that contains ample protein, high-quality fats, and fiber will provide you with energy and mental clarity. It will supply the nutrition that the body requires and ensure that hunger is not too ferocious at dinnertime. Being too hungry at dinner is a common reason for extra weight gain: People simply eat too big a meal in the evening. A healthier approach is to space out food intake throughout the day.
     
    At a Glance
     
    • A holistic approach is the key element to long-term health and success.
    • High net-gain foods reduce energy expenditure and therefore uncomplementary stress.
    • Great gains in both physical and mental health can be made by simply eating natural whole foods.
    • Fatigue and biological debt can be eradicated by nourishing the adrenal glands. The 12-Week Meal Plan is designed to lower nutritional stress, and lower stress means healthier adrenal glands.
    • Recalibrating will yield everlasting energy.
    • For permanent results, allow your body to adapt gradually to a new eating plan.
    • The Thrive Diet is not about perfection or idealism, it’s about progress.
     
     

three
     
    the thrive diet
for a healthy environment
     

the energy requirements of food production
     
    The production, processing, and delivery of food have tremendous impact on our environment—greater than any other industry. The energy used in producing and distributing food accounts for roughly 60 percent of the total energy North Americans produce. Of that 60 percent, more than 85 percent is generated from the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. The combustion of fossil fuel to create energy in turn creates greenhouse gases. It is now commonly accepted among climatologists and other experts that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming. With the rising environmental cost of extracting and burning oil, not to mention its cost in dollars, the search for alternative energy sources is on.
     
    Although there are alternatives that may help marginally reduce our dependence on oil over the coming years, no great savior is in sight. Ethanol, derived from corn, is a renewable resource and an oil alternative; however, large tracts of land are needed to grow the corn that would yield only a trivial energy gain in the form of ethanol. Even if all the arable fields in North America were planted with corn to produce ethanol, that ethanol would replace only one-fifth of the oil we currently consume. Of course, if fields are dedicated to ethanol production, they cannot also be used to produce food. Simply put, the energy cycle of ethanol is quite high, only marginally lower than that of oil when it is extracted, processed, and refined.
     
    The term energy cycle refers to the amount of total energy used to produce any given object, and it is the prime consideration in our search for alternative fuel sources. The goal is simple: net gain. Just as it is in our best interest to eat foods with a high net gain in order to gain maximum energy, the production of food should adhere to the rules of efficiency—more energy should be drawn from the