Top 60 Joel Fuhrman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Life is a highway – the enjoyment you get depends on the lane you choose.”

— Joel Fuhrman

2. “You cannot buy your health; you must earn it through healthy living.”

— Joel Fuhrman

3. “Permanent results only come from permanent changes in lifestyle and diet style. You don’t get permanently well unless you permanently change the way you live.”

— Joel Fuhrman

4. “Healthy people eating healthy food should never need to take an antibiotic.”

— Joel Fuhrman

5. “The most important thing to remember about food labels is that you should avoid foods that have labels.”

— Joel Fuhrman

6. “Nutritional excellence is the only real fountain of youth.”

— Joel Fuhrman

7. “You cannot escape from the biological law of cause and effect – food choices are the most significant cause of disease and premature death.”

— Joel Fuhrman

8. “Food is really and truly the most effective medicine.”

— Joel Fuhrman

9. “The self-healing power of the body is often overlooked because it is rarely given a chance to act in a world that expects the quick fix.”

— Joel Fuhrman

10. “Blueberries, strawberries and blackberries are true super foods. Naturally sweet and juicy, berries are low in sugar and high in nutrients – they are among the best foods you can eat.”

— Joel Fuhrman

11. “Seeds and nuts are indispensable for cardiovascular health. The protective properties of nuts against coronary heart disease were first recognized in the early 1990s, and a strong body of literature has followed, confirming these original findings.”

— Joel Fuhrman

12. “Most brown bread is merely white bread with a fake tan.”

— Joel Fuhrman

13. “When people tell me they will give it a try, I say don’t bother, you have already decided to fail. It takes more than a try to quit addictions; it takes a commitment. A commitment is a promise that you stick with, no matter what.”

— Joel Fuhrman

14. “For both optimal health and weight loss, you must consume a diet with a high nutrient-per-calorie ratiothere are no shortcuts.”

— Joel Fuhrman

15. “To provide optimal levels of protective micronutrients, a diet must be vegetable-based, not grain-based.”

— Joel Fuhrman

16. “Medicines cannot drug away the cellular defects that develop in response to improper nutrition throughout life.”

— Joel Fuhrman

17. “Reducing dietary salt is not only important for those who already have elevated blood pressure – limiting added salt is essential for all of us to remain in good health.”

— Joel Fuhrman

18. “All berries and their juices – including blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, acai berries, goji berries, elderberries, and strawberries – are super foods.”

— Joel Fuhrman

19. “Beans or legumes are among the world’s most perfect foods. They stabilize blood sugar, blunt the desire for sweets, and prevent mid-afternoon cravings. Even.”

— Joel Fuhrman

20. “Fasting and natural diet, though essentially unknown as a therapy, should be the first treatment when someone discovers that he or she has a medical problem.”

— Joel Fuhrman

21. “Primates are the only animals on the face of the earth that can taste sweet and see color. We were designed by nature to see, grasp, eat, and enjoy the flavor of colorful, sweet fruits.”

— Joel Fuhrman

22. “The primary benefit of a vegan diet is that the removal of animal products usually necessitates a higher amount of nutrient-rich plant produce. The cons of a vegan diet could be the inclusion of too much heavily processed food, including seitan and isolated soy protein, flour, sweeteners and oils.”

— Joel Fuhrman

23. “If you eat the standard Western diet that most people eat in the modern world, it’s quite likely you will develop heart disease.”

— Joel Fuhrman

24. “Anything you adopt temporarily only begets temporary results, and fluctuating your weight up and down is not lifespan favorable.”

— Joel Fuhrman

25. “Eat some beans with every lunch. Among your choices are chickpeas, black-eyed peas, black beans, cowpeas, split peas, lima beans, pinto beans, lentils, red kidney beans, soybeans, cannellini beans, pigeon peas, and white beans.”

— Joel Fuhrman

26. “Leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and spinach are the most nutrient-dense of all foods.”

— Joel Fuhrman

27. “One final note: soaking whole grains, such as brown rice, buckwheat, and quinoa, for a day before cooking them increases their nutritional value.3 Certain phytonutrients and vitamins are activated as the grain starts to germinate. These include powerful chemopreventive phenols that inhibit the growth of abnormal cells.”

— Joel Fuhrman

28. “Now, which food has more protein – broccoli or steak? You were wrong if you thought steak. Steak has only 6.4 grams of protein per 100 calories and broccoli has 11.1 grams, almost twice as much.21.”

— Joel Fuhrman

29. “There are also stretch receptors in the stomach to signal satiety by detecting the volume of food eaten, not the weight of the food. If you are not filled up with nutrients and fiber, the brain will send out signals telling you to eat more food, or overeat.”

— Joel Fuhrman

30. “Whether the patient has a cardiac condition, hypertension, autoimmune disease, fibroids, or asthma, he or she must be informed that fasting and natural, plant-based diets are a viable alternative to conventional therapy, and an effective one.”

— Joel Fuhrman

31. “Lower caloric exposure and episodic fasting can extend the life span of all animals, the longer we spend in the catabolic state, the longer we live.”

— Joel Fuhrman

32. “The three irrefutable facts about health and foods are these: Vegetables, beans, seeds, fruits, and nuts are good for you. Excessive amounts of meat or animal products cause disease. Eliminating refined carbohydrates will aid in sustainable weight loss and overall health.”

— Joel Fuhrman

33. “Green vegetables are the highest in overall nutrient density, meaning that they contain the most micronutrients per calorie, and of course they are the foods richest in alpha-carotene.”

— Joel Fuhrman

34. “If you have a significant layer of fat around your waist, it means you have regularly consumed food in response to toxic hunger or have eaten recreationally. The body does not store large amounts of fat when fed a wholesome natural diet and given only the amount of food demanded by true hunger.”

— Joel Fuhrman

35. “Dieting by portion control doesnt work because one is constantly fighting addictive drives.”

— Joel Fuhrman

36. “As your level of micronutrients increases – by consuming greater amounts of high-nutrient foods – your appetite will naturally decrease. The result is that you will become healthier and will look and feel young well into your later years.”

— Joel Fuhrman

37. “And people who eat beans merely twice a week were found to have about a 50 percent reduction of colon cancer.8 Imagine the protection we would achieve if we ate beans almost every day in conjunction with other well-investigated cancer-fighting foods.”

— Joel Fuhrman

38. “The most common and least expensive mushrooms – white button mushrooms – showed these strong benefits. If that’s not enough great news about mushrooms, there’s more.”

— Joel Fuhrman

39. “And certain animal products, such as commercial beef and processed meats, are more disease-promoting in our diets than others, such as frogs, salamanders, sardines, snakes, and wild salmon.”

— Joel Fuhrman

40. “Our body is like a machine. If we constantly run the machinery at high speed, it will wear out faster. Since animals with slower metabolic rates live longer, eating more calories, which drives up our metabolic rate, will cause us only to age faster. Contrary to what you may have heard and read in the past, our goal should be the opposite: to eat less, only as much as we need to maintain a slim and muscular weight, and no more, so as to keep our metabolic rate relatively slow.”

— Joel Fuhrman

41. “Since the foods Americans consume are so calorie-rich, we have all been trying to diet by eating smaller portions of low-nutrient foods. We not only have to suffer hunger but also wind up with perverted cravings because we are nutrient-deficient to boot.”

— Joel Fuhrman

42. “Regardless of whether we are required to purchase medical insurance, know that we can only buy real health insurance in the produce section of the local supermarket.”

— Joel Fuhrman

43. “Once or twice a week, make a giant pot of vegetable bean soup and use that soup for several days to limit cooking chores.”

— Joel Fuhrman

44. “Clearly, it is difficult to eat healthfully in our crazy world, where it seems that everyone else is on a mission to commit suicide with food.”

— Joel Fuhrman

45. “Why don’t we just get our population healthier so we don’t need medical care?”

— Joel Fuhrman

46. “To maximize the immune-function benefits of cruciferous vegetables, do the following: 1. Chew all cruciferous greens very, very well, trying to crush every cell. 2. Puree, blend, or chop cruciferous vegetables before adding them to stews or soups. 3. When steaming green cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage, try to undercook slightly so they are not too mushy.”

— Joel Fuhrman

47. “The modern diet is grossly deficient in hundreds of important plant-derived immunity-building compounds which makes us highly vulnerable to viruses, infections and disease.”

— Joel Fuhrman

48. “The time may come when not offering this substantially more effective nutritional approach will be considered malpractice.”

— Joel Fuhrman

49. “When you eat mostly high-nutrient foods, the body ages slower and is armed to prevent and reverse many common illnesses. The natural self-healing and self-repairing ability that is hibernating in your body wakes up and takes over, and diseases disappear. A nutrient-rich menu of green vegetables, berries, beans, mushrooms, onions, seeds, and other natural foods is the key to achieving optimal weight and health.”

— Joel Fuhrman

50. “Don’t be alarmed if during the first week or two of healthy eating, you feel worse and the desire to use food to curtail discomfort is heightened. This usually passes within the first four days.”

— Joel Fuhrman