“Many of my patients choose to fast on Monday, after overindulging on calories and sodium over the weekend,” says Dr. Quentin Green. [Photo: Gregg Matthews]

Dr. Quentin Green, an Orlando gynecologist, has counseled his patients on healthy eating for nearly half a century. Still practicing at 85, Green continues to promote a basic, balanced, common sense diet, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts and complex carbohydrates such as whole grain breads and cereals. He frowns on foods like white bread, white rice, white sugar and anything artificial.

His diet has a twist, however: He suggests one day a week of consuming nothing but liquids and fresh fruit.

“Many of my patients choose to fast on Monday, after overindulging on calories and sodium over the weekend,” Green says. “It’s a day that clears the decks for them and prevents them from getting on a roll of eating all these high-calorie foods. It’s like a break for your body. I even have some patients looking forward to Monday.”

Green, who calls his program The Orlando Diet, says the semi-fasting component works in conjunction with his diet but can be incorporated into other diets, too. “Even if you’re not on a diet, it helps you maintain your weight,” he says. “I’ve done it since the 1960s, and I’m able to keep my weight within a healthy range.”

While Green prefers the balanced, natural route to eating, he’s not totally against fad diets, even those like the high-fat Atkins Diet. He just doesn’t recommend them to his patients. “I think many of the other diets have merit, so I don’t turn my thumbs down on them,” he says. “But I do feel that some of what’s touted is more of a way to sell a book.”

Detox Day The Orlando Diet calls for one day a week of consuming nothing but: » Unlimited fresh fruit » Unsweetened fruit juice » Water [Photo: Gregg Matthews]

Links: For more on Dr. Quentin Green’s Orlando Diet, click here.
For more articles this month with extra links, go to the Links page.

Juiced Up

OJ with omega-3 fatty acids

Increasingly, juice makers are adding vitamins and supplements to their offerings. Tropicana, for example, produces a series of specialty orange juices that contain added calcium, fiber, vitamin E, vitamin D and selenium. It recently introduced a “healthy heart” orange juice featuring omega-3 fatty acids derived from tilapia, sardines and anchovies.

“The overall strategy behind adding omega-3s to Tropicana Healthy Heart was to hit the Baby Boomer trifecta of convenience, taste and meaningful nutrition,” says Mark Andon, Tropicana’s director of nutrition.

The company is hoping to tap into a vast market. Andon says that “fewer than 25%” of Americans consume the recommended daily amount of 160 milligrams of omega-3, but that nearly half of Baby Boomers say they want to eat more omega-3. An 8-ounce serving of the specialty juice — which he says tastes just as good as the company’s regular juice — contains 50 milligrams of omega-3.

RESEARCH

» Adolescent girls who diet to lose weight double the odds that they’ll also start smoking, according to University of Florida researchers. The UF study focused on the dieting and smoking habits of 7,795 teens in grades 7, 8 and 9. The study didn’t find the same diet-smoking link in boys.

» A Florida State clinical study is under way to determine if eating up to 10 prunes each day will help reverse bone loss among postmenopausal women who have osteoporosis or osteoarthritis.