Our 4Leaf Survey was created in April of 2012--as a simple tool to help people assess their food choices compared to the "optimal" diet for humans, as defined here by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Cornell University:
"The closer we get to eating a diet of whole, plant-based foods, the better off we will be."
The 4Leaf Survey consists of 12 multiple choice questions and can be completed in less than two minutes.
One's answers to those 12 questions generates a numerical score that correlates to each person's "estimated" 4Leaf level of eating. Let's take a look at those levels.
We set the top bar at 80%--meaning that if folks derive over 80% of
their
daily calories from whole, plant-based foods, then they are eating at the 4Leaf level. Over 60% is 3Leaf, over 40% is 2Leaf and over 20% is 1Leaf.
It turns out that over 90% of Americans (and other consumers of the typical western diet) are eating far below the 1Leaf level, deriving a very small percentage of their daily calories from "whole, plant-based foods." We divided the diet-styles of this huge group into two levels of eating:
- Unhealthful Diet (UD): Deriving less than 10% of daily calories from whole plants
- Better Than Most (BTM): Deriving between 10% and 20% of daily calories from whole plants
Our survey does an excellent job of helping those average Americans understand where they now stand against the optimal diet for humans and, more importantly, exactly where they lost points--identifying many opportunities for improvement.
Since 2012, the 4Leaf Survey has been translated into eight languages, adopted by eCornell and the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, and utilized by hundreds of the world's most-enlightened MDs--in helping their patients reverse chronic disease by improving their food choices.
Since its inception, this simple survey has helped hundreds of thousands of people understand exactly what comprises an optimal diet and what simple steps they can take to move in that direction.
For much more information about the 4Leaf Survey, check out these 12 helpful links:
The Bottom Line. Our 4Leaf Survey does a great job of identifying the 90% of the Western population that needs a lot of help in understanding what comprises an optimal diet for humans--one that is effective at truly promoting health.
And the 4Leaf advice to those billions of people is always the same, "Work on replacing most (if not all) of your animal-based and highly processed meals with whole, plant-based foods."
A global dietary shift in that direction will revolutionize the "disease management" industry known as healthcare, while simultaneously doing some wonderful things for our ecosystem that supports all life on planet Earth.
Finally,
our policy regarding 4Leaf intellectual property.
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