# The Pegan Diet by Mark Hyman - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? A new approach to healthy eating.

At first glance, paleo and vegan diets look like radically different approaches to nutrition.

That’s in part down to a set of common clichés that pit the high-fat, low-carb doctrines of meat-eating paleos against the kale-first policies of supposedly self-denying vegans.

In truth, the two diets are a lot more alike than not.

Meat aside, both promote a plant-rich whole-foods diet that avoids starches, sugar, dairy, and additives.

The Pegan diet takes a best-of-both-worlds approach, blending these two complementary nutritional philosophies into a set of simple, science-driven guidelines that promote health and longevity.

In these blinks, you’ll learn:  how eating well can improve your mood; why meat doesn’t have to be an ethical disaster; and  how to make vegetables the star of every meal.

The first principle of a healthy diet is to eat plant foods from every color group.

For all the different diets out there these days, all truly healthy approaches to nutrition have one thing in common – they’re plant-rich.

The Pegan diet is no exception.

Note, though, that plant-rich isn’t the same as plant-based.

Peganism isn’t about only eating vegetables, fruits, legumes, and so on.

Unlike vegan diets, there’s a place for high-quality animal proteins and fats in Peganism.

Despite that, plant foods are the diet’s foundation.

Why?

There are two reasons.

One, plant foods are nutrient-dense – high in nutrients and low in calories.

Secondly, they’re loaded with beneficial chemicals linked to disease prevention.

Luckily, these compounds are easy to spot – you just have to look at what you’re eating.

The key message here is: The first principle of a healthy diet is to eat plant foods from every color group.

Every bite of food that comes from a plant – say, a tomato or zucchini – is packed with nutrients.

The added bonus?

Given their low calorie count, you can eat most plant foods in abundance.

They’re also rich in something else – phytochemicals, a group of around 25,000 chemical compounds produced by plants to ward off diseases, pests, and viruses.

Phytochemicals don’t just protect plants, however – there’s lots of evidence that they boost immunity, reduce inflammation, and even decrease the risk of cancer in humans.

But which plant foods should you be eating?

A simple rule of thumb is to eat the rainbow.

In other words, try to make sure you’re eating vegetables and fruits from every color group every day.

Each of these groups is linked to particular health benefits.

Let’s start with red plant foods.

Think tomatoes, cherries, and beets.

These are rich in compounds with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that help protect your cells.

Orange foods like apricots, mangoes, and carrots, meanwhile, contain phytochemicals linked with boosted fertility and better mood control.

Lemons, bananas, and yellow onions are part of the yellow group and contain digestion-promoting phytochemicals like gingerol and lutein.

Green plant foods such as broccoli, cabbage, and cucumbers protect blood vessels, which encourages healthy blood circulation.

Finally, there are blue plant foods like blackberries, figs, and prunes, which are all great for mood balance and neural health.

Food can be a kind of medicine, and vegetables and fruits are your pharmacy.

Follow the rainbow and you’ll be giving your body all the nutrients it needs.

2020 was a tough year.

A balanced diet rich in “brain foods” can enhance your mood.

As the pandemic raged around the world, millions lost their jobs and businesses.

Death and illness were everywhere.

It wasn’t just the headline-grabbing tragedies that took their toll, though.

Worry, boredom, and isolation all fed into a mental health crisis.

Today, depression is the fourth most common disease globally, and the number one cause of disability.

In such trying times, you need all the support you can get.

One powerful tool is food.

Eating well, it turns out, isn’t just good for your physical health – it can also make you happier.

Here’s the key message: A balanced diet rich in “brain foods” can enhance your mood.

A growing body of evidence confirms the link between diet and brain health.

This data comes from universities like Harvard and Stanford, which are at the forefront of a new discipline called nutritional psychology.

Researchers in this field have shown that the mind and brain are part of a single, dynamic, “bidirectional” system.

What does that mean?

Simple: what you do to your body also affects your mind.

Take a 2017 study published in BMC Medicine.

It looked at the effects of swapping processed, sugary, and starchy foods – the basis of a typical Western diet – for whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and small amounts of high-quality meat.

The result?

Amazingly, the latter diet was up to 400 percent more effective in treating depression!

So how can you give your mood a boost?

The first thing to do is reduce your intake of refined sugars, carbohydrates, and artificial sugars.

These cause blood sugar levels to spike, which in turn impairs cognitive functioning.

Next, cut out late meals, which lead to calories being stored as fat rather than being burned for energy.

But make sure you’re eating regularly during the day.

When you skip meals, your body thinks it’s dying and starts diverting scarce resources away from the brain to maintain basic bodily functions.

That’s why fasting can cause dizziness, loss of focus, and “brain fog.

”  As we’ve seen, plant foods should form the basis of your meals, but you can also throw some brain foods into the mix.

These are rich in omega-3s, magnesium, vitamin D, antioxidants, and B vitamins, all of which support your brain.

Oily fish like sardines and mackerel, B12-loaded seafood such as oysters, and fermented foods – think pickles, kimchi, or sauerkraut – are all great choices.

The “75 percent rule” will help balance your carb intake.

Avoiding carbohydrates and the blood sugar spike they cause is an important part of maintaining cognitive health.

But it’s important to note that not all carbs are alike.

In fact, carbohydrates come in two forms – slow carbs and refined carbs.

So what’s the difference?

Well, refined carbs like white bread and pasta have plenty of calories but little nutritive value.

When you eat them, you’re not really nourishing your body – you’re simply spiking your blood sugar levels.

Slow carbs, by contrast, are plant foods that are packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals that help your body release energy slowly – hence the name.

Vitally, they don’t throw your blood sugar out of balance.

The takeaway?

You don’t have to fear carbohydrates – you just have to make sure you’re eating more good carbs than bad.

The key message is this: The “75 percent rule” will help balance your carb intake.

A good way of thinking about carbohydrates is to consider their glycemic load.

This refers to how foods with lots of glycogen – sugar, basically – effect blood sugar levels.

Refined carbs have a high glycemic load, which causes your blood sugar to spiral upwards.

In excess, these carbohydrates can lead to unwanted weight gain and conditions like diabetes.

Slow carbs have a low glycemic load, which is why you want to be eating more of them.

It helps to remember the 75 percent rule: slow carbohydrates should make up three-quarters of the food on every plate you eat.

Let’s break that down.

Slow carbs also come in two forms – non-starchy and starchy.

This is the difference between, say, broccoli and sweet potato.

Non-starchy plant foods like broccoli have a very low glycemic load.

Starchier sweet potatoes are still nutritious, but their load is higher – though not as high as bread or pasta.

This is why you want your 75 percent to come from non-starchy slow carbs.

Luckily, there are tons of slow-carb foods to choose from.

Broccoli, bok choy, tomatoes, cauliflower, mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, and onions are great examples, and can all be eaten in abundance.

Sweet and regular potatoes, yams, squash, and pumpkins are examples of starchy slow carbs.

These have a place on your plate, but they should be part of the remaining 25 percent of your meals.

As a rule of thumb, that should come to no more than three and half cups over a regular week.

Ethical meat consumption relies on regenerative farming.

When it comes to eating meat, there are two important considerations – ethics and health.

Let’s start with the ethics.

Vegans reject meat consumption out of hand, of course.

Pegans, on the other hand, don’t see meat consumption as a black-and-white issue.

But what kind of meat you’re consuming really is.

Consider factory-farmed red meat.

Vast swathes of the plant’s delicate ecosystem are destroyed every year to rear cattle in terrible, inhumane conditions.

In the United States, animals are fed an antibiotic-laced diet heavily based on monocrops like soy, which in turn can only be produced in sufficient quantities by razing even more of that ecosystem.

Ethically and environmentally, this meat is a disaster.

But there is an alternative.

The key message here is: Ethical meat consumption relies on regenerative farming.

Factory farms, like all forms of industrial agriculture, are inherently destructive.

Take some of the most common problems.

Tillage of fields, for example, is one of the leading causes of soil erosion and “desertification” around the world.

Then there’s the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers that end up poisoning flora and fauna in surrounding areas.

It’s also estimated that some seven billion small animals like rabbits, birds, rodents, and insects die every year due to industrial agriculture.

Producing food doesn’t have to wreak havoc on the environment, however.

The alternative is regenerative agriculture, a science-based approach that aims to produce high-quality, nutrient-rich food while restoring damaged ecosystems.

Regenerative agricultural practices reduce chemical inputs and tillage, helping establish soils that trap carbon and retain gallons of water per cultivated acre.

Fewer pesticides, as well as the establishment of wild hedgerows, bring back pollinators like bees and bugs that suck methane out of the air.

Animals on regenerative farms are also better off.

They’re given more space and time in natural meadows and fed an improved diet which, in the case of cows, even includes seaweed – a foodstuff that reduces their methane emissions.

According to the UN, converting two-fifths of all damaged agricultural lands to regenerative farming globally would halt climate change for two decades, at a cost of around $300 billion – less than the United States spends on treating diabetes every year.

Seen from this angle, it looks like there are good ethical arguments for including certain kinds of meat in our diets.

High-quality, ethically raised meat has proven health benefits.

What about the health impacts, though?

Let’s find out.

Not all varieties of a particular food are the same.

Take tomatoes.

On the one hand, there’s the flavorless variety that turns up on supermarket shelves in winter.

Origin?

Most likely, a pesticide-soaked greenhouse on the other side of the world.

Then there’s the organic heirloom tomato you can pluck from a vine in the middle of August.

They’re both tomatoes, but the differences in taste and nutrient density couldn’t be greater.

Which brings us to meat.

Healthful or harmful?

Well, it depends.

Just like tomatoes, there are different kinds of meat.

Some are beneficial and nutritious.

Others are more toxic than tasty.

Here’s the key message: High-quality, ethically raised meat has proven health benefits.

When it comes to the health impacts of meat consumption, there’s a pretty clear scientific consensus that the kind of meat you’re eating is key.

New research shows that grass-fed meat from animals raised on regenerative farms contains an array of health-promoting phytochemicals and nutrients.

A cow that’s allowed to graze in a natural meadow consumes dozens of plant species loaded with these health-boosting chemical compounds, which are passed on to us when we eat part of that cow.

This discovery builds on earlier research showing that grass-fed meat contains better fatty acid and omega-3 profiles as well as a greater presence of Conjugated Linoleic Acid, an anti-cancer, metabolism-boosting fat also known as CLA.

The same principle applies to animals raised in factory farms, incidentally.

Eat a steak from a cow that’s been given nothing but corn, antibiotics, and growth hormones in an industrial feedlot, and that’s also what you’ll be eating.

Contrary to the popular saying, you aren’t what you eat – you’re whatever what you’re eating has eaten!

There’s another factor, too: what you’re eating with meat.

Search the National Library of Medicine database for articles about the health impacts of eating meat, for example, and you’ll find over 100,000 studies.

The range of conclusions is as vast as the difference between our two tomatoes.

Lots of researchers regard meat as a superfood.

Just as many conclude that it’s poison.

What accounts for this divergence?

Well, nutritional research is hard – there are so many confounding factors.

To name just one, people who eat meat as part of a carb and sugar-heavy diet will have worse health outcomes than people who incorporate the same amount of meat into a vegetable and legume-heavy whole foods diet.

When it comes to meat, in other words, context is king.

Fat has a bad reputation.

Some fats are deadly, but others are an essential part of a healthy diet.

For over 40 years, governments and health experts have said that fat is a killer.

Not only does it have twice as many calories per gram as protein and carbohydrates, it’s also a heart-attack-inducing artery clogger.

Their advice has been that we should avoid fat entirely, and for nearly half a century, people have followed it.

Yet in the United States, obesity rates have skyrocketed from five to 42 percent – an 800 percent increase.

Diabetes has followed a similar trajectory.

These shocking figures indicate that something was wrong with the expert advice.

But does that mean you can throw caution to the wind and eat as many fats and as much fatty food as you like?

Not quite.

The truth is, fats are complicated.

The key message is this: Some fats are deadly, but others are an essential part of a healthy diet.

People need fats to live.

Every cell, nerve covering, and hormone in the human body is made of fat.

Even the brain is mostly fat.

And fats help us absorb vitamins from plant foods.

Some have even been shown to reduce our risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Fats, in other words, are a key building block of life.

Yet we can’t produce them ourselves.

If we didn’t eat things like oily fish, nuts, seeds, and avocados, we couldn’t get polyunsaturated fats like omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, or monounsaturated fats.

Without those, we wouldn’t be able to function.

Even saturated fat, one of the most commonly vilified members of the fat family due to its link with coronary disease, is healthy in moderation.

In fact, extra virgin olive oil, a cornerstone of the famously heart-healthy “Mediterranean diet,” is 20 percent saturated fat.

Like meat, fats are context-dependent: how you eat them makes a massive difference.

Butter-drenched pasta or cookies aren’t great for your health, especially in large quantities, but a little grass-fed butter on vegetables can even be good for you.

There are two takeaways here.

First, avoid fats combined with starch and sugar – that dangerous cocktail is associated with inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and even dementia.

Second, eat the right fats and steer clear of the wrong ones.

Which is which?

In general, avoid processed vegetable oils like soybean, canola, corn, and sunflower oil.

Instead, use cold-pressed oils from whole foods – think extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, or walnut, almond, macadamia, sesame, flax, and hemp oils.

Sugar is like alcohol – fine in moderation but dangerous in excess.

While fat was subject to a decades-long vilification campaign, a true killer went undetected – sugar.

Sugar works like lots of poisons.

In small amounts, it’s pretty harmless.

Increase the dose, though, and it’s fatal.

Unfortunately, it’s as delicious – and addictive – as it is deadly.

Today, the average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar each year.

Needless to say, just under half a pound per day doesn’t fall into the harmless category – and this is underscored by the fact that one in two American adults is now prediabetic or has type 2 diabetes.

The point of these statistics isn’t to scare you into never touching sugar again, though – it’s to remind you to treat it with caution.

The key message here is: Sugar is like alcohol – fine in moderation but dangerous in excess.

First, the science.

Why exactly are sugary foods so tasty?

Blame it on our biology.

Humans are programmed to crave and seek out sugar – a pure source of calories and thus energy.

The more sugar our ancestors consumed and converted into fat, the more likely they were to survive winters when food was scarce.

This is the reason you might have eaten an entire pack of cookies in one sitting but have probably never binged on arugula.

This programming plays out differently in an age of cheap and abundant sugar-rich foods.

The thing we’re wired to desire is everywhere, so we consume far too much of it.

Fortunately, we aren’t slaves to this ancestral makeup.

The key is to build a healthy relationship with sugar.

Treat it like a recreational drug – for example, as you would alcohol.

A glass or two of your favorite tipple is an enjoyable treat, but you don’t do it every day, or drink tequila first thing in the morning.

Sugar is exactly the same – it’s a “once-in-a-while” food.

A square of dark chocolate after dinner each day, or an occasional richer dessert, isn’t a problem; a tub of ice cream every day is.

Remember, too, that equally dangerous sugar alternatives can sneak up on you.

The most common culprit is high-fructose corn syrup – an industrial sweetener extracted from corn stalks that’s added to all kinds of processed foods and sauces.

How do you avoid it?

Through due diligence – check labels before you buy unfamiliar products.

Cooking vegetables properly will change your life.

It’s time to talk about cooking.

Cooking can feel like a chore, but there’s no getting around it.

If you want to eat healthily, you have to know what’s in the food on your plate.

That means making it yourself.

There’s another, related issue: you might not have a lot of experience preparing the food at the heart of the Pegan diet – vegetables.

Often, vegetables are treated as an accompaniment to the star of the show, the protein.

Veggies just don’t shine when you treat them as an afterthought, though.

At best, they’re simply there – a token gesture toward a balanced diet.

At worst, they’re tasteless mush.

That’s why it’s so important to start giving them their due.

Here’s the key message: Cooking vegetables properly will change your life.

Every vegetable – yes, even the ones you think you hate – can be a star.

The trick?

A light touch.

There are countless ways of preparing vegetables, of course, but we can get the ball rolling by looking at two of the most versatile techniques.

First off, sautéing.

Trim and cut the vegetables into the desired shape, making sure that your pieces are even and small enough to cook relatively quickly.

For reference, a whole asparagus stem takes three to four minutes to sauté, while medium-sized cauliflower florets take five to seven minutes.

Next, place a large frying pan over a medium-high flame and coat the bottom with your chosen fat.

Grass-fed ghee is an excellent choice, as is avocado oil.

When the ghee or oil starts shimmering, add your vegetables and season with salt, pepper, minced garlic, and/or ginger.

Keep the vegetables moving in the hot pan until “al dente” – yielding, but still firm.

If they look like they might burn and stick to the pan, add a splash of water or mirin – a Japanese rice wine that compliments the natural flavor of just about any vegetable.

Steaming is even easier.

Rub a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and freshly-pressed garlic into your cut up vegetables, place them in a steamer basket, cover with the lid, and steam over boiling water until crisp-tender – about two to five minutes.

These two techniques might seem simple, but they’re guaranteed to make your vegetables shine.

And that’s a great recipe for healthy and tasty meals.

Final summary

The key message in these blinks: Plant foods are the heart of the Pegan approach, which recommends eating some fruits and vegetables from each color group every day and making non-starchy veggies the centerpiece of every meal.

Refined carbs are a no-go, but ethically sourced meat can be used to complement vegetables.

You don’t need to be afraid of fats, either – you just need to choose the right ones.

Sugar, however, is a real source of danger, so treat it with caution.

Actionable advice: Use the “master five” principle to keep costs down  There’s no two ways about it: switching to an organic whole-foods diet supplemented by ethically sourced meats and high-quality fats can drive your food costs up.

There are ways of eating healthier without breaking the bank, however.

The key?

Master five easy meals you can revisit when you’re busy or money gets tight.

Keep the ingredients simple but wholesome, and make sure to always have them on hand – think canned sardines with a quick tomato sauce, for example.

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