Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

The answer, it turns out, is yes. Sort of. But not yet.

Right now I’m still comforting myself with my holy trinity of chocolate, coffee, and booze—three of the rare foods that are both tasty and healthy.

At least somewhat healthy. The more I research, the more I realize the situation is complicated. Consider chocolate. What’s really healthy is the 100 percent cacao chocolate. No sugar, no butter.

I click onto rawcacao.com and order a bag. The mouthwatering write-up says it’s “certified organic, raw, low fermentation, nonfumigated, fair traded, strict farming standards, training and equipment provided, fair wages, profit reinvestment plan, purity testing.”

My bag of certified-organic-raw-low-fermentation-etc. chocolate arrives three days later. I take a pinch of the sprinkle-size nibs and pop it in my mouth. I can taste the chocolate I know from Hershey’s Kisses, but it’s faint and muffled, like a clock radio stuffed under a heap of pillows. Mostly I taste the bitterness.

“What’s that?” Julie asks, walking into the kitchen for a snack.

“Natural chocolate,” I say.

Reflexively, I offer her the bag. She takes a handful and puts it in her mouth.

I probably should have mentioned the tastes-like-detergent part, but, well, it happened so fast. Also I was curious to see her reaction.

A second. Two seconds. There it is: the same face she made when our friend showed us an Internet video of two women violating several cultural and hygienic taboos.

Taming the Portion

In my quest for healthy eating, I know I’ll have to do better than my Vice Diet. But I still haven’t committed to veganism or Atkins yet. I’m still too overwhelmed by choices.

I do, however, notice that there’s one thing almost every nutritionist agrees on: We eat too much damn food.

We have a size problem. You can see it in the puberty-like growth spurt of portion sizes. In 1916, a bottle of Coca-Cola was 6.5 ounces. Today, it’s 20 ounces. A hamburger used to be about 300 calories. Now you can enjoy Hardees’ Monster Thickburger with 1,420 calories, not counting fries. (The average man should eat about 2,500 calories a day.)

So I’ve decided to split up my food reforms. First, I’ll deal with quantity. Then I’ll take on quality.

How to eat less? One idea is to suppress my appetite. I’ve read reputable studies saying a glass of water before a meal reduces the average number of calories people consume. Same goes for cayenne peppers. And an apple. And a handful of walnuts. So that’s my breakfast this morning: cayenne peppers, water, an apple, and walnuts.

I won’t be hungry for days! Or at least until 10 a.m. when I get the urge to snack again.

I’m going to need some professional help. Which is why, on a Sunday afternoon, Julie and I drive to a house in secluded hilltop Westchester.

I’m here to meet the leaders of the Calorie Restriction movement. You might have heard of CR, as it’s called. It’s the most extreme diet you can find that isn’t technically a psychological disorder or human rights violation.

The idea is that if you live on the edge of starvation, you will increase your life span. If you can survive on 30 percent fewer calories a day—say 1,750 instead of the usual 2,500 for an adult male—you’ll slow down your metabolism and be free of disease. You can easily break the century mark, maybe even the 120 mark or more.

It’s not an insane notion. Actually, there’s a good amount of scientific data behind it, going back to a Cornell University study in 1934. Researchers were able to double the life span of mice when they fed them extremely low-calorie diets. Similar results have been found for worms, spiders, and monkeys.

Scientists still aren’t 100 percent certain why calorie restriction lengthens animal life spans. One theory is that the famished animals produce fewer cell-damaging free radicals. Another says that their bodies sense starvation and switch into a defensive state, slowing their metabolism.

Does it work on humans? Studies are under way, but it’s too soon to tell. The prospect, though, has attracted thousands of Calorie Restrictors, folks who weigh their food on digital scales, plot precious calories on spreadsheets, eat two meals a day, and treat their mouths like an exclusive SoHo VIP club where only the most deserving morsels can enter.

The house is perched on a steep hill atop a series of perilous turns that leave Julie frazzled. “If they want to live forever, they might want to move to a safer street,” she says. Julie drops me off, and drives away to visit some friends nearby. She says I can fill her in later.

A man answers the door. He’s Paul McGlothin, the director of research for the nonprofit Calorie Restriction Society, and coauthor of the how-to book The CR Way.

He’s skinny, but not the POW skinny I was expecting. More like lead-singer-of-an-emo-band skinny.

“Welcome,” he says. “Would you like some tea?”

I agree to some naturally low-calorie dandelion tea. We’re in a room with minimal decorations and a huge window overlooking a forest of oaks. An event organizer by day, Paul is slope-shouldered but sprightly for a man of sixty-four years. He’s got piercing green eyes, a deep voice with a little twang from his native Tennessee, and is partial to wearing tracksuits.

We sit at the table with his wife and coauthor, Meredith Averill, sipping our tea.

“The goal of calorie restriction is not to lose weight. It’s to be as mentally and physically healthy as possible. But you will lose weight.” Paul went from 163 pounds to 136.

Paul eats a big breakfast (e.g., salmon, barley, lots of vegetable soup), a smaller lunch (e.g., veggie smoothie, veggie spread, and sprouted grain bread)—and no dinner.

I have to restrain myself from making the same joke I know they’ve heard a thousand times. Yes, maybe you’ll live longer, but without lasagna and waffles, who the hell wants to? (Or the alternate: You may not live longer, but you’ll sure feel like you’ve lived a century and a half.)

Paul shuts down