We ask a lot of questions about our diet.

What's the right way to treat a chronic illness,

fight off a virus, lose weight?

The problem is we get a lot of different answers.

Well, I'm here to help.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today I start with my traffic light system for ranking the relative healthfulness of green light

versus yellow light versus red light foods.

Whenever I'm asked at a lecture whether some food is healthy or not, my reply is, compared to what?

For example, are eggs healthy?

Compared to some breakfast sausage next to it?

Yes.

But compared to oatmeal, not even close.

Think of it as having $2,000 in your daily calorie bank.

How do you want to spend it?

For the same number of calories, you can eat one big Mac,

50 strawberries, or a half a wheelbarrow full of salad greens.

Now, they don't exactly fill the same culinary niche.

If you want a burger, you want a burger, and I don't expect quarts of strawberries

to make it onto the dollar menu anytime soon.

But it's an illustration of how mountainous a nutrition bang you can get for the same caloric buck.

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