Healthy Food Choices Made Simple: Tips from Dr. David Eisenberg
There is expansive and widely available literature on what you can do to maintain and improve your health—sometimes so much so that it feels hard to know where to start.
But Dr. David Eisenberg, Director of Culinary Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, makes it easy by boiling it all down to five simple lifestyle changes, which can reduce the risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease by 75%:
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Watch your blood pressure
- Eat a reasonable diet
- Don’t smoke
- Get daily exercise
Learn about the US Dietary GuidelinesYou’ll notice that most of these five recommendations, which are the consensus among scientists and health experts, involve food choices—an area of personal and professional specialty for Dr. Eisenberg, who comes from three generations of bakers and cooks. “I learned to cook before I could ride a bicycle,” he says.
In medical school, Dr. Eisenberg was fascinated to learn that none of his medical colleagues knew much about cooking or the power of nutrition to improve and maintain health. Now, as a physician, researcher, and teacher at Harvard University, Dr. Eisenberg has made it his life’s work to increase awareness of the power of nutrition for both his patients and future generations of medical professionals.
Driven by his belief that food, like medicine, can either help or harm, Eisenberg has spent the last 15 years trying to be a bridge between the food community and the medical community to learn, as he puts it, “what those two enormous and very talented groups of people could do together as a united front.”
Check out the videos below, in which Dr. Eisenberg offers basic tips and advice for incorporating healthier food choices into your life.
Videos with Dr. David Eisenberg
Simple food rules
Nutrition advice from experts is sometimes hard to navigate. Dr. Eisenberg breaks it down into simple rules to follow.
Food and behavior change
Dr. David Eisenberg describes two ways to make healthier choices when it comes to food.
What is a "reasonable diet"?
Medical professionals always recommend following a "reasonable diet" for optimum health, but what does that actually mean? Dr. Eisenberg explains.
The "dessert flip"
Dr. Eisenberg says you can have your cake and eat it too: the "dessert flip" lets you enjoy sweets in a healthy way.
Dr. Eisenberg's perfect meal
Dr. Eisenberg describes his perfect meal: what he eats and with whom he shares the meal.
