Top 80 Michael Greger Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “We should all be eating fruits and vegetables as if our lives depend on it – because they do.”

— Michael Greger

2. “The most ethical diet just so happens to be the most environmentally sound diet and just so happens to be the healthiest.”

— Michael Greger

3. “The primary reason diseases tend to run in families may be that diets tend to run in families.”

— Michael Greger

4. “The foods we choose make a difference.”

— Michael Greger

5. “Be a shining role model of the best qualities humane eating embodies: caring, compassion, and empathy.”

— Michael Greger

6. “The poultry industry commonly injects chicken carcasses with salt water to artificially inflate their weight, yet they can still be labelled “100 percent natural.” Consumer Reports found that some supermarket chickens were pumped so full of salt that they registered a whopping 840 mg of sodium per serving – that could mean more than a full day’s worth of sodium in just one chicken breast.”

— Michael Greger

7. “Women with the highest saturated fat intake had a 60–70 percent greater chance of cognitive deterioration over time. Women with the lowest saturated fat intake had the brain function, on average, of women six years younger.”

— Michael Greger

8. “I ask the internist why there aren’t more Ornish-like studies. ‘There aren’t any financial interests involved.’”

— Michael Greger

9. “Supplements don’t appear to work. Studies have repeatedly shown that antioxidant supplements have no beneficial effects on respiratory or allergic diseases, underscoring the importance of eating whole foods rather than trying to take isolated components or extracts in pill form.”

— Michael Greger

10. “But for most of the leading causes of death, the science shows that our genes often account for only 10–20 percent of risk at most.15 For instance, as you’ll see in this book, the rates of killers like heart disease and major cancers differ up to a hundredfold among various populations around the globe. But when people move from low- to high-risk countries, their disease rates almost always change to those of the new environment.”

— Michael Greger

11. “The best way to minimize your exposure to industrial toxins may be to eat as low as possible on the food chain, a plant-based diet.”

— Michael Greger

12. “Fighting the Blues with Greens Here’s a statistic you probably haven’t heard: Higher consumption of vegetables may cut the odds of developing depression by as much as 62 percent.26 A review in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience concluded that, in general, eating lots of fruits and veggies may present “a non-invasive, natural, and inexpensive therapeutic means to support a healthy brain.”

— Michael Greger

13. “The top-five sources of arachidonic acid in the American diet are chicken, eggs, beef, pork, and fish, although chicken and eggs alone contribute more than the other top sources combined.17 Just a single egg’s worth of arachidonic acid a day may significantly raise arachidonic acid levels in the blood.18 Overall, omnivores appear to consume about nine times more arachidonic acid than those eating plant-based diets.”

— Michael Greger

14. “In 1918, the virus didn’t learn how to kill humans crowded in filthy chicken sheds. Instead, it may have gotten that education in the trenches of World War I. In 1918, the soldiers may have been the chickens.”

— Michael Greger

15. “One of the most important medical discoveries in recent years was the realization that inflammation appears to play a role in many of our chronic diseases, including at least eight of our top ten leading causes of death.”

— Michael Greger

16. “Like so many other organs, the brain possesses a miraculous ability to heal itself, to forge new synaptic connections around old ones, to learn and relearn. That is, however, if you don’t keep damaging it three times a day. A wholesome diet and exercise may offer your best hope for remaining sharp and healthy into your twilight years.”

— Michael Greger

17. “You know you’re grown up when summer is just a season.”

— Michael Greger

18. “A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled weight-loss trials found that about a quarter teaspoon of black cumin powder every day appears to reduce body mass index within a span of a couple of months.”

— Michael Greger

19. “As if the pandemic weren’t tragic enough, in the decade that followed, a million people came down with a serious Parkinson’s-like disease termed “encephalitis lethargica,” the subject of the book and movie Awakenings.232 Some researchers now consider this epidemic of neurological disease to be “almost certainly” a direct consequence of viral damage to the brains of survivors.”

— Michael Greger

20. “With no serious downsides, a one-in-three potential benefit for end-stage cancer seems like it would spark further research, right? But who’s going to pay for a study of something that can’t be patented?”

— Michael Greger

21. “With few, if any, new classes of antibiotics in clinical development,674 an expert on antibiotic resistance at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy warned that “we’re sacrificing a future where antibiotics will work for treating sick people by squandering them today for animals that are not sick at all.”

— Michael Greger

22. “Mother Nature’s powers cannot be stuffed into a pill.”

— Michael Greger

23. “Nearly everyone is suffering from a fiber-deficient diet, and that’s just based on the wimpy federal recommendations of fourteen grams per thousand calories, which comes out to be about twenty-five grams per day for women and thirty-eight daily grams for men.1273 That’s a far cry from the hundred grams our bodies were designed to get,1274 based on the diets of modern-day, isolated, hunter-gatherer tribes.”

— Michael Greger

24. “The majority of the antibiotics produced in the world go not to human medicine but to prophylactic usage on the farm.1336 This may generate antibiotic resistance.”

— Michael Greger

25. “Pistachios are not just the most melatonin-rich nut, they are off the charts as the most melatonin-rich food ever recorded.2957 To get a physiological dose of melatonin, all you have to eat is two. Two cups? Two handfuls? No, just two pistachios. Pistachio nuts were found to contain 0.2 mg of melatonin per gram.2958 It only takes 0.3 mg of melatonin to cause the normal daily spike our brains give us, so just two nuts would presumably do the trick.2959.”

— Michael Greger

26. “But in a society where it’s normal to die of heart disease, having a “normal” cholesterol level is probably not a good thing.”

— Michael Greger

27. “Fewer than 3 percent of Americans reach even the recommended minimum daily adequate intake of fiber.”

— Michael Greger

28. “As soon as the dying stopped, the forgetting began.”

— Michael Greger

29. “When people are randomized into diet-and-exercise interventions versus diet alone, the diet-and-exercise groups do better, but the difference in weight loss only averages about two pounds.3095 The studies lasted between three and twelve months, and all that extra prescribed exercise seemed to translate into only a few pounds lost.”

— Michael Greger

30. “Said USDA microbiologist Nelson Cox, “Raw meats are not idiot-proof. They can be mishandled and when they are, it’s like handling a hand grenade. If you pull the pin, somebody’s going to get hurt.” While some may question the wisdom of selling hand grenades in the supermarket, Cox disagrees: “I think the consumer has the most responsibility but refuses to accept it.”

— Michael Greger

31. “Remarkably, those small moments of movement can add up to more than two thousand calories a week, which just so happens to be what those overfed study subjects started burning up and about what you’d get from the hour-a-day exercise recommended for weight loss.”

— Michael Greger

32. “Try this at home: Measure your heart rate before and after drinking two cups of water. Within ten minutes of drinking the water, your heart rate should slow by about four beats per minute, and by fifteen minutes, you should be down six or seven beats.”

— Michael Greger

33. “This is consistent with the findings of the Deception and Fraud in the Diet Industry hearings in Congress that concluded most programs actively suppress facts about what to expect regarding chances of success. 913.”

— Michael Greger

34. “Is there any danger in drinking too much water? Absolutely, yes. Even healthy kidneys can only handle about three cups of water an hour.”

— Michael Greger

35. “Those randomized to even just thirty seconds a day of a cold-water blast ended up taking off fewer sick days from work.3484 Foods.”

— Michael Greger

36. “In compliance with World Health Organization guidelines, Europe has forbidden the feeding of all slaughterhouse and animal waste to livestock.1267 The American Feed Industry Association called such a ban “a radical proposition.”

— Michael Greger

37. “In the United States, the average numbers of animals on chicken, pig, and cattle operations approximately doubled between 1978 and 1992.1112 This increasing population density seems to be playing a key role in triggering emerging epidemics.”

— Michael Greger

38. “For most of human existence, we were only getting the pinch of salt a day naturally found in whole foods.1902 Now, thanks mostly to processed foods, we’re exposed to ten times more than our bodies were meant to handle.”

— Michael Greger

39. “According to the American Lung Association, smoking tobacco contributes to up to 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths. Men who smoke are twenty-three times more likely and women thirteen times more likely to develop lung cancer than nonsmokers. And smokers aren’t just harming themselves; thousands of deaths each year have been attributed to secondhand smoke. Nonsmokers have a 20–30 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer if they’re regularly exposed to cigarette smoke.3.”

— Michael Greger

40. “In 2012, the American Dietetic Association changed its name to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics but didn’t appear to change its policies. It continues to take millions of dollars every year from processed junk food, meat, dairy, soda, and candy bar companies. In return, the academy lets them offer official educational seminars to teach dietitians what to say to their clients.64.”

— Michael Greger

41. “For disease prevention, berries of all colors have “emerged as champions,” according to the head of the Bioactive Botanical Research Laboratory.39 The purported anticancer properties of berry compounds have been attributed to their apparent ability to counteract, reduce, and repair damage resulting from oxidative stress and inflammation.40 But it wasn’t known until recently that berries may also boost your levels of natural killer cells.”

— Michael Greger

42. “In a meat industry trade publication, an Alabama poultry science professor explained why we don’t have such a “heavy-handed” policy: “The American consumer is not going to pay that much. It’s as simple as that.” If the industry had to pay to make it safer, the price would go up. “The fact,” he said, “is that it’s too expensive not to sell salmonella-positive chicken.”99.”

— Michael Greger

43. “As the Mayo Clinic rather indelicately put it, “Most people are infected with Salmonella by eating foods that have been contaminated by feces.”102 How does it get there? In slaughter plants, birds are typically gutted by a metal hook, which too often punctures their intestines and can expel feces onto the flesh itself. According to the latest national FDA retail-meat survey, about 90 percent of retail chicken showed evidence of contamination with fecal matter.”

— Michael Greger

44. “Give people about a quarter cup a day of tomato paste, and get an improvement in artery function within fifteen days, an effect attributed to both anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.”

— Michael Greger

45. “Certain foods, such as meats, appear to harbor bacteria that can trigger inflammation dead or alive, even when the food is fully cooked. Endotoxins are not destroyed by cooking temperatures, stomach acid, or digestive enzymes, so after a meal of animal products, these endotoxins may end up in your intestines. They are then thought to be ferried by saturated fat across the gut wall into your bloodstream, where they can trigger the inflammatory reaction in your arteries.44.”

— Michael Greger

46. “Those on a Standard American Diet lose about 5 percent of the calories they eat in their waste,1198 but a higher-fiber diet can double that.”

— Michael Greger

47. “One poultry specialist mused, “Mathematically, it is evident that the present rate of improvement in growth cannot be continued for more than a couple of decades, or the industry will be faced with a bird that virtually explodes upon hatching.”

— Michael Greger

48. “Tyson Foods, the largest chicken-producing corporation in the world,2304 found itself before the Supreme Court in 2005 for refusing to pay workers for time spent donning protective clothing at a poultry plant. The Court ruled unanimously against Tyson.2305.”

— Michael Greger

49. “The fumes produced by frying bacon contain a class of carcinogens called nitrosamines.31 Although all meat may release potentially carcinogenic fumes, processed meat like bacon may be the worst: A UC-Davis study found that bacon fumes cause about four times more DNA mutations than the fumes from beef patties fried at similar temperatures.32.”

— Michael Greger

50. “USDA’s chief flu researcher David Swayne recommended producers try to recoup the costs of culling by selling sick birds for human consumption.”

— Michael Greger