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Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food
Deep Nutrition illustrates how our ancestors used nourishment to sculpt their anatomy, engineering bodies of extraordinary health and beauty. The length of our limbs, the shape of our eyes, and the proper function of our organs are all gifts of our ancestor's collective culinary wisdom. Citing the foods of traditional cultures from the Ancient Egyptians and the Maasai to the Japanese and the French, the Shanahans identify four food categories all the world's healthiest diets have in common, the Four Pillars of World Cuisine.
Using the latest research in physiology and genetics, Dr. Shanahan explains why your family's health depends on eating these foods. In a world of competing nutritional ideologies, Deep Nutrition gives us the full picture, empowering us to take control of our destiny in ways we might never have imagined.
Using the latest research in physiology and genetics, Dr. Shanahan explains why your family's health depends on eating these foods. In a world of competing nutritional ideologies, Deep Nutrition gives us the full picture, empowering us to take control of our destiny in ways we might never have imagined.
322 pages, Paperback
First published November 14, 2008
About the author
Catherine Shanahan
7 books94 followersCatherine Shanahan is a board-certified family physician specializing in the promotion of health and reversal of disease using traditional food as a first line of treatment. She has studied biochemistry and genetics at Cornell University and ethnobotany at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii.
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February 27, 2012
I almost gave this 5 stars but decided that the disagreements I had with it were just big enough to justify the demotion. I was about ready to put it up there with Nutritional and Physical Degeneration and Nourishing Traditions.
The books starts with great information on genetics and how diets turns genes off and on with epigenetic tags. I wished more of the book stuck with this line of information, as that is what I was expecting from the subtitle.
Next the author talks about beauty, mathematics and phi; how when an organism has all the nutrition it needs, genes and mathematics control development. Fascinating, loved it. Then she discusses the Marquardt Mask and the relationship with diet. I googled the BBC program mentioned and was disappointed to learn it was only the author that connected beauty to diet. The BBC program about Marquardt's mathematical beauty was interesting nonetheless.
This is where I have a huge disagreement. Marquardt insists that his mask crosses all cultures and fits on every beautiful face. Shanahan asserts that this is directly related to a traditional diet. I fully agree to a point, poor diets make for undeveloped features, recessed chins, narrow faces, crooked teeth etc... but looking at Dr Weston A Price's photos of all the people he studied, one cannot conclude that they were all undiscovered supermodels. Yes, they all had well formed beautiful faces and superb physique, but I CANNOT imagine some of them as supermodel movie stars. I can think of one culture that is just plain unattractive. The theory doesn't hold water,or broth, as the case may be. I looked up many of the actors/royalty/stars mentioned in the book and others I saw on the internet that have the mask over their face. Most of them had braces!!!! Um... that is the whole message of Weston A Price, having enough nutrition to have optimal body development. It isn't optimal development to need braces and glasses.
The book then goes on to discuss the Four Pillars of World Cuisine. At first I thought I could just skim through it as I have already heard it all on an introductory level. I was pleasantly surprised by her different perspective, insights and additional information. I appreciated her efforts to convince the reader of the seriousness of poor diets like processed foods, bad fats and refined carbs. I LOVED the deeper understanding of lipoproteins and collagen. If possible, I am even more committed to avoid refined carbs and bad fats.
I loved(?) hearing the "rest of the story" of Ancel Keys, the father of the saturated fat-heart theory. His legacy deserves to be drawn and quartered. It is a story of corruption that has resulted in injured lives, suffering and possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. Her experience with how corrupt the health care system is is just another reminder of the need to tear down and start over. The new foundation should be a healthy dose of education about tradtional diets. The need for non-emergency health care will be almost non-existent.
Ya, this book had the same ol' tired references to manmade global warming, overpopulation and evolution, but those are easy to ignore. Not a problem if you believe in those theories.
She wasn't consistent every time she mentioned soy. It is vital that it is only consumed in fermented form and she only noted fermented soy once. She also promoted raw nuts without neutralizing the phytic acid. If nuts aren't soaked in water and dehydrated (at low temps) the phytic acid stays intact and blocks the absorption of vitamins and minerals. She also doesn't know that there is a vital difference in the molecules of fructose from high fructose corn syrup and the fructose from fruit.
The author makes a HUUUUUUGE mistake in the epilogue, which speaks volumes about her professional education without a classical education. She condemns the "entrepreneurial" mentality as the reason healthcare in the US is in such a sorry mess. There is corruption in healthcare because of CAPITALISM, not because of the entrepreneurial free market. Knowing the difference between capitalism and the free market is the difference between servitude and freedom.
On the whole, I recommend it, just remember the shortcomings and don't beat yourself up if your children aren't supermodels or superstars.
The books starts with great information on genetics and how diets turns genes off and on with epigenetic tags. I wished more of the book stuck with this line of information, as that is what I was expecting from the subtitle.
Next the author talks about beauty, mathematics and phi; how when an organism has all the nutrition it needs, genes and mathematics control development. Fascinating, loved it. Then she discusses the Marquardt Mask and the relationship with diet. I googled the BBC program mentioned and was disappointed to learn it was only the author that connected beauty to diet. The BBC program about Marquardt's mathematical beauty was interesting nonetheless.
This is where I have a huge disagreement. Marquardt insists that his mask crosses all cultures and fits on every beautiful face. Shanahan asserts that this is directly related to a traditional diet. I fully agree to a point, poor diets make for undeveloped features, recessed chins, narrow faces, crooked teeth etc... but looking at Dr Weston A Price's photos of all the people he studied, one cannot conclude that they were all undiscovered supermodels. Yes, they all had well formed beautiful faces and superb physique, but I CANNOT imagine some of them as supermodel movie stars. I can think of one culture that is just plain unattractive. The theory doesn't hold water,or broth, as the case may be. I looked up many of the actors/royalty/stars mentioned in the book and others I saw on the internet that have the mask over their face. Most of them had braces!!!! Um... that is the whole message of Weston A Price, having enough nutrition to have optimal body development. It isn't optimal development to need braces and glasses.
The book then goes on to discuss the Four Pillars of World Cuisine. At first I thought I could just skim through it as I have already heard it all on an introductory level. I was pleasantly surprised by her different perspective, insights and additional information. I appreciated her efforts to convince the reader of the seriousness of poor diets like processed foods, bad fats and refined carbs. I LOVED the deeper understanding of lipoproteins and collagen. If possible, I am even more committed to avoid refined carbs and bad fats.
I loved(?) hearing the "rest of the story" of Ancel Keys, the father of the saturated fat-heart theory. His legacy deserves to be drawn and quartered. It is a story of corruption that has resulted in injured lives, suffering and possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. Her experience with how corrupt the health care system is is just another reminder of the need to tear down and start over. The new foundation should be a healthy dose of education about tradtional diets. The need for non-emergency health care will be almost non-existent.
Ya, this book had the same ol' tired references to manmade global warming, overpopulation and evolution, but those are easy to ignore. Not a problem if you believe in those theories.
She wasn't consistent every time she mentioned soy. It is vital that it is only consumed in fermented form and she only noted fermented soy once. She also promoted raw nuts without neutralizing the phytic acid. If nuts aren't soaked in water and dehydrated (at low temps) the phytic acid stays intact and blocks the absorption of vitamins and minerals. She also doesn't know that there is a vital difference in the molecules of fructose from high fructose corn syrup and the fructose from fruit.
The author makes a HUUUUUUGE mistake in the epilogue, which speaks volumes about her professional education without a classical education. She condemns the "entrepreneurial" mentality as the reason healthcare in the US is in such a sorry mess. There is corruption in healthcare because of CAPITALISM, not because of the entrepreneurial free market. Knowing the difference between capitalism and the free market is the difference between servitude and freedom.
On the whole, I recommend it, just remember the shortcomings and don't beat yourself up if your children aren't supermodels or superstars.
February 6, 2013
Another entry in my ongoing quest to find out why I feel like crap 80% of the time and why my hormones are all over the place. This is a good book - meticulously researched and totally eye-opening. I've been trying to add foods from the Four Pillars to my diet since I read this - it's not that hard, though I find fermented foods a bit of a challenge (not much of a fan of sour or sharp tasting foods). Bubbie's Sauerkraut is pretty good. I think I'll have to go back and read this again soon, because there was so much information in it, and I never remember stuff I read on my Kindle as well as print-on-paper.
Deep Nutrition is worth reading for the chapter on vegetable oils alone. I have to admit that this one was news to me. After all, vegetable oils are marketed as health foods. But they're not, at least not in the form that we eat them. Vegetable oils cause inflammation and destroy the enzymatic processes that allow your body to function normally. They're also loaded with Omega 6 fatty acids, which disrupt the balance of Omega 3s to Omega 6s in the body. I switched from margarine to butter about a year ago because I'd heard that butter is better for you (it is) rather than because vegetable oils are bad for you (they are). I'm not talking about olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, or peanut oil - they're mainly saturated and monounsaturated fat and good for you, but polyunsaturated fats like canola, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, and corn oils. These are the foods of the devil and if we saw them in the factory, we'd know that they look and smell like it too - they're gray and foul smelling before color and deodorizers are added. Vegetable oils become oxidized when heated (they are all heated during processing, so it doesn't matter if you eat them cold) and develop trans fats that destroy your arteries. That's why fried foods are so bad - the fat used in frying is unstable and is damaged by high heat and repeated use (apparently restaurants change their fry oil about once a week, so if you eat your fries on Friday or Saturday you're likely getting what Shanahan calls Megatrans fats - doubly bad for you).
And sugar - I guess most of us know how terrible it is for us, but this just hammered home the message to me. Sugar not only rots your teeth, it also leeches nutrients from your bones and tissues, because it's so poisonous, your body will do anything to get it out of circulation. It interferes with hormone signalling, and Shanahan posits that this is why so many young couples have trouble conceiving - they're sugar addicts (and they're also nutrient deprived because they don't eat enough good fats, such as grass-fed meat fat, milk, butter, and coconut oil). According to Shanahan, sugar causes so much hormonal static that it triggers most migraines. I've found that I have fewer headaches since giving up carbs and sugar (well, except for that period when I was severely anemic - headache every day).
This is actually an excellent book for anyone thinking about getting pregnant, too, though I didn't read it for that reason. I had never considered that I would be starving my unborn child of nutrients if I didn't start eating traditional foods before I got pregnant. I thought you just got pregnant and took a prenatal vitamin, and you'd be grand (no! get healthy first by eating foods from the Four Pillars, and take a vitamin for at least six months before pregnancy, and you'll avoid all sorts of health problems in your kids later). And child spacing - never even crossed my mind. Apparently in many cultures mothers spaced their children three to four years apart at minimum, so that their bodies could regain the nutrients they'd lost during pregnancy. The older women made couples sleep apart to enforce this rule. (Many cultures achieved child spacing through polygamy - men would move onto another wife when the previous one had a child). Apparently, improper spacing leads to second child syndrome, where second (and often third) children in Western societies have more health problems such as asthma, allergies, ear infections, crowded teeth, learning disabilities, and fragile bones, than their older siblings (although many Western women are so nutrient deficient that all their children may be born this way).
And soy - I can't believe it's sold as a health food. It's an endocrine disruptor and an estrogen mimic, and it's terrible for women. Throw that tofu away and eat some real cheese and some pasture raised chicken - they're so much better for you. I know that the Japanese eat soy and are generally healthy, but they eat soy in small amounts, they don't pretend it's cheese and put it on chili or blend it into dips or eat huge deep fried hunks of it. And who knew that pasteurization so fundamentally destroyed the goodness of milk? I'm still a teensy bit hazy on the science, but pasteurized milk actually has saponins in it - that's what causes the lather in soap. No wonder it plays havoc with my gut! Raw milk is the way to go - but make sure the dairy you get it from is clean and closed-herd, and the cows or goats are primarily pasture-fed. If you must eat pasteurized dairy, go for cultured products such as full fat, low sugar yoghurt, kefir, cultured buttermilk, and sour cream. Culturing repairs some of the damage done to milk during pasteurization.
Oh, I wanted to reproduce these tables too, because I think they're so important:
Factors that Make You Build Fat
Omega-6 Fatty Acids: Converted into arachidonic acid (AA) which makes fat cells divide. Stress, sleep deprivation, and obesity generate more AA.
Insulin: Increases fat cell numbers. Signs that you may have abnormal levels of insulin are dark patches of skin in creases and under your arms, and central obesity - fat that collects around the waist and under the chin. Irregular periods may also indicate abnormal insulin levels.
Sugars: Increase insulin levels and triglyceride production in the liver. Trigger fat cells to wake up and start making fat from sugar in the blood stream.
Unnatural Fats (Megatrans)Promote free radical formation, cell membrane damage, and inflammation - all of which lead to the deposition of omental and submandibular fat while intercepting healthy cell building signals.
Glucocorticoids
Stimulate fat cell division. the body makes glucocorticoids all the time, but levels rise during stress and sleep deprivation.
Thiazolidinediones (A common types of diabetes medication)
Stimulates fat cell division and increases fat storage. Originally thought to be weight loss pills based on a ridiculously optimistic analysis of their effects on cell metabolism. Now we realize they exacerbate insulin resistance in the long term and have been association with a higher risk of heart attacks.
Factors that Eliminate Fat
Exercise: Reduces insulin and corticosteroid levels as well as many other less well-known pro-inflammatory and fat-promoting chemicals.
Sleep: Reduces corticosteroid levels, increases levels of immune system chemicals that reduce inflammation and fat cell number.
Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA): Reduces fat cell numbers. Only source of CLA is milkfat. Pastured cows produce up to 10 times the CLA of cows fed grain.
Retinoids: Reduces fat cell number, reduces appetite,. Retinoids include vitamin A from animal fat and organ meats and vitamin A precursors (called carotenoids) from vegetables.
Leptin: Reduces fat cell number.
Cholesterol: Reduces appetite. Though nobody can get funding to study this aspect of cholesterol, studies have show that plant sterols and stanols effectively reduce appetite - these are the cholesterols that plants make. Bile acids also contain cholesterol. When secreted into the small intestine after a meal, they signal the body that you've had enough to eat.
The only disagreement I have with Shanahan is what she says about the sun. I think we can all agree that we need sunlight for vitamin D and general mental health, but stating that sunburn is a result of being nutrient deficient is kind of ridiculous, honestly, for those of us who are from the southern hemisphere. The burn time in New Zealand in the summer is generally somewhere between 6-12 minutes (I know this because they have it on the news. Every night during the summer. Yeah). I don't care how many nutrients you eat, when the hole in the ozone layer is that close (thanks, northern hemisphere for that), you're going to get burned if you don't put on sunscreen and stay out of the sun when you can.
Deep Nutrition is worth reading for the chapter on vegetable oils alone. I have to admit that this one was news to me. After all, vegetable oils are marketed as health foods. But they're not, at least not in the form that we eat them. Vegetable oils cause inflammation and destroy the enzymatic processes that allow your body to function normally. They're also loaded with Omega 6 fatty acids, which disrupt the balance of Omega 3s to Omega 6s in the body. I switched from margarine to butter about a year ago because I'd heard that butter is better for you (it is) rather than because vegetable oils are bad for you (they are). I'm not talking about olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, or peanut oil - they're mainly saturated and monounsaturated fat and good for you, but polyunsaturated fats like canola, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, and corn oils. These are the foods of the devil and if we saw them in the factory, we'd know that they look and smell like it too - they're gray and foul smelling before color and deodorizers are added. Vegetable oils become oxidized when heated (they are all heated during processing, so it doesn't matter if you eat them cold) and develop trans fats that destroy your arteries. That's why fried foods are so bad - the fat used in frying is unstable and is damaged by high heat and repeated use (apparently restaurants change their fry oil about once a week, so if you eat your fries on Friday or Saturday you're likely getting what Shanahan calls Megatrans fats - doubly bad for you).
And sugar - I guess most of us know how terrible it is for us, but this just hammered home the message to me. Sugar not only rots your teeth, it also leeches nutrients from your bones and tissues, because it's so poisonous, your body will do anything to get it out of circulation. It interferes with hormone signalling, and Shanahan posits that this is why so many young couples have trouble conceiving - they're sugar addicts (and they're also nutrient deprived because they don't eat enough good fats, such as grass-fed meat fat, milk, butter, and coconut oil). According to Shanahan, sugar causes so much hormonal static that it triggers most migraines. I've found that I have fewer headaches since giving up carbs and sugar (well, except for that period when I was severely anemic - headache every day).
This is actually an excellent book for anyone thinking about getting pregnant, too, though I didn't read it for that reason. I had never considered that I would be starving my unborn child of nutrients if I didn't start eating traditional foods before I got pregnant. I thought you just got pregnant and took a prenatal vitamin, and you'd be grand (no! get healthy first by eating foods from the Four Pillars, and take a vitamin for at least six months before pregnancy, and you'll avoid all sorts of health problems in your kids later). And child spacing - never even crossed my mind. Apparently in many cultures mothers spaced their children three to four years apart at minimum, so that their bodies could regain the nutrients they'd lost during pregnancy. The older women made couples sleep apart to enforce this rule. (Many cultures achieved child spacing through polygamy - men would move onto another wife when the previous one had a child). Apparently, improper spacing leads to second child syndrome, where second (and often third) children in Western societies have more health problems such as asthma, allergies, ear infections, crowded teeth, learning disabilities, and fragile bones, than their older siblings (although many Western women are so nutrient deficient that all their children may be born this way).
And soy - I can't believe it's sold as a health food. It's an endocrine disruptor and an estrogen mimic, and it's terrible for women. Throw that tofu away and eat some real cheese and some pasture raised chicken - they're so much better for you. I know that the Japanese eat soy and are generally healthy, but they eat soy in small amounts, they don't pretend it's cheese and put it on chili or blend it into dips or eat huge deep fried hunks of it. And who knew that pasteurization so fundamentally destroyed the goodness of milk? I'm still a teensy bit hazy on the science, but pasteurized milk actually has saponins in it - that's what causes the lather in soap. No wonder it plays havoc with my gut! Raw milk is the way to go - but make sure the dairy you get it from is clean and closed-herd, and the cows or goats are primarily pasture-fed. If you must eat pasteurized dairy, go for cultured products such as full fat, low sugar yoghurt, kefir, cultured buttermilk, and sour cream. Culturing repairs some of the damage done to milk during pasteurization.
Oh, I wanted to reproduce these tables too, because I think they're so important:
Factors that Make You Build Fat
Omega-6 Fatty Acids: Converted into arachidonic acid (AA) which makes fat cells divide. Stress, sleep deprivation, and obesity generate more AA.
Insulin: Increases fat cell numbers. Signs that you may have abnormal levels of insulin are dark patches of skin in creases and under your arms, and central obesity - fat that collects around the waist and under the chin. Irregular periods may also indicate abnormal insulin levels.
Sugars: Increase insulin levels and triglyceride production in the liver. Trigger fat cells to wake up and start making fat from sugar in the blood stream.
Unnatural Fats (Megatrans)Promote free radical formation, cell membrane damage, and inflammation - all of which lead to the deposition of omental and submandibular fat while intercepting healthy cell building signals.
Glucocorticoids
Stimulate fat cell division. the body makes glucocorticoids all the time, but levels rise during stress and sleep deprivation.
Thiazolidinediones (A common types of diabetes medication)
Stimulates fat cell division and increases fat storage. Originally thought to be weight loss pills based on a ridiculously optimistic analysis of their effects on cell metabolism. Now we realize they exacerbate insulin resistance in the long term and have been association with a higher risk of heart attacks.
Factors that Eliminate Fat
Exercise: Reduces insulin and corticosteroid levels as well as many other less well-known pro-inflammatory and fat-promoting chemicals.
Sleep: Reduces corticosteroid levels, increases levels of immune system chemicals that reduce inflammation and fat cell number.
Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA): Reduces fat cell numbers. Only source of CLA is milkfat. Pastured cows produce up to 10 times the CLA of cows fed grain.
Retinoids: Reduces fat cell number, reduces appetite,. Retinoids include vitamin A from animal fat and organ meats and vitamin A precursors (called carotenoids) from vegetables.
Leptin: Reduces fat cell number.
Cholesterol: Reduces appetite. Though nobody can get funding to study this aspect of cholesterol, studies have show that plant sterols and stanols effectively reduce appetite - these are the cholesterols that plants make. Bile acids also contain cholesterol. When secreted into the small intestine after a meal, they signal the body that you've had enough to eat.
The only disagreement I have with Shanahan is what she says about the sun. I think we can all agree that we need sunlight for vitamin D and general mental health, but stating that sunburn is a result of being nutrient deficient is kind of ridiculous, honestly, for those of us who are from the southern hemisphere. The burn time in New Zealand in the summer is generally somewhere between 6-12 minutes (I know this because they have it on the news. Every night during the summer. Yeah). I don't care how many nutrients you eat, when the hole in the ozone layer is that close (thanks, northern hemisphere for that), you're going to get burned if you don't put on sunscreen and stay out of the sun when you can.
June 2, 2017
The overarching themes (no vegetable oil and no sugar) were interesting and helpful take aways. However, the rest of my opinion is, unfortunately, not positive. The author consistently uses scare tactics, dramatization and anecdotal evidence to lay claim to her recommendations. They were so prevalent that I checked the book out (was listening on audiobook) to check references but ditched that effort and moved on another diet/food author. I would have taken her more seriously if she cut the fluff out and stuck to the facts.
March 1, 2012
Easily the most important book I've ever read, and as a UC Berkeley English major, former bookseller & former vegan - that's saying a lot. I wanted to run out and buy this for everyone I know. My boyfriend (a personal trainer) began eating according to the Four Pillars and his seasonal allergies DISAPPEARED. We couldn't believe it. This book kindly (and gently) showed me that everything I'd studied about nutrition and weight loss was wrong. Dead wrong (pun intended). As a health writer, I take that pretty seriously. A must-read for anyone with a body!
April 10, 2012
This book is an amazing read on nutrition, genetics, anthropology, history, medicine, metabolism, and traditional food preparation.
It explains why what you eat changes your gene expression and that most diseases are caused by faulty gene expression, NOT permanent genetic changes and that what you eat (or don't eat) can affect your family's genes for generations.
The basic food advice is the same as on the Weston. A Price website mostly, for anyone that can't afford the book. But this book offers so much more food for thought than just providing a simple list of good and bad foods. There is so much research and information here that I hadn't read before, even though I'm a big fan of reading books on nutrition lately. This book discusses some concepts which are not usually included in Paleo type books, and goes into so much more depth on more commonly discussed topics too.
This book really changed the way I thought about a few things. It was one of the those books that after I finished reading it I had that sudden bizarre urge to buy another copy of it, just in case, that happens sometimes with books that make me really see the world in a different way. (Yes, I know that urge is bizarre! I didn't buy another copy though just thought about it a bit, so that makes me only a slightly weird bibliophile I hope.)
This book condenses a massive amount of research into one small book.
In short, eat real old-fashioned food. Eat good quality meats (not grain fed) and don't take the fat off, eat good fats like olive oil, butter, animal fats, palm oil and coconut oil, eat the usual meats but also organ meats, eat bone broths (chicken stock etc.), eat fermented and sprouted foods, eat lots of fresh vegetables and go easy on the fruit. Avoid at all costs sugar in all its forms as well as unnatural fats; trans fats.
This book explains that:
* The genetic lottery is not random and our genes are not set in stone. They are exquisitely sensitive to how we treat them. Genes make what seem to be intelligent decisions guided in part by chemical information in the food we eat.
* The idea that modern diseases are caused by traditional foods is just nonsense, and, "The merging of business and science into one corporate body means that medical science can no longer countenance advice incompatible with the interests of commerce."
* Beauty and health are linked. Voluptuous curves are a sign of health.
* When a women is pregnant and not properly nourished, this not only affects the baby's development but can mean that nutrients are taken from her own body and given to the baby. With some fatty acids for example, this can leave the pregnant woman with a smaller brain post-pregnancy!
* Many foods today are not as nutrient dense as they once were (e.g. Produce is picked before it is ripe).
* Eyes being set too close together, crowded teeth in a smaller jaw, and a short nose are signs of poor nutrition. Often children will show more of these features the higher they are in the birth order.
This book explains about diet that:
* The four pillars of authentic cuisine that should be eaten daily are 1. Meat cooked on the bone, 2. Organ meats and offal, 3. Fresh fruits and vegetables and 4. Fermented and sprouted foods.
* It is not true that today's animals are fatter than they used to be and we need to eat lots of fat to be healthy - as our ancestors did.
* Meats should be slow cooked on the bone and not overcooked. Meats should be eaten with some meat fat. Organic pasture-raised beef is worth the price.
* Bone broths are a very healthy addition to the diet. The wonderful complex flavour in sauces and soups made with stock is also a sign that they are highly nutritious.
* Saturated fats are needed by the body and have many health benefits.
* Raw dairy foods have many benefits, particularly traditionally made/homemade yogurts.
* The most important foods to avoid are sugar, processed foods and vegetable oils/trans fats. Even small amounts of trans fats have serious effects on the body and how well it can function and resist disease.
* Only small amounts of traditionally cultured soy products should be eaten and all commercial soy products should be avoided. Protein powders and milk powders should be avoided.
* Whether you eat sugar or starch from grains or legumes etc. your body winds up absorbing sugar. Advice to cut down sugar but to eat lots of grains makes no sense.
* If you have insulin problems or are overweight, cut daily carbs to 100 grams or less.
* Drink only fresh vegetable juices if you drink juices, never tinned or bottled.
* If you are ill, avoid junk food completely. You just can't afford to give new 'ammunition' to the enemy.
There were a few parts of the book that I disagreed with.
1. Most notably the authors comments about vitamin C and other supplements were terrible and showed a real lack of basic research in this area. This book is wonderful about diet but should not at all be used for information on supplements.The authors are not experts on this topic.
2. I would also have appreciated it being said more strongly that for many of us, and particularly many of us that are ill, we will do far better avoiding all dairy foods and grains (as the Primal Body book does) - and not just minimising grain intake. Even raw dairy foods and sprouted grains are not for everyone. This book omits almost entirely the hugely important subject of food allergies and intolerances, which is a real shame.
3. Raw nuts and seeds as the author recommends are not ideal for some of us and we do better when these foods are soaked and dried or sprouted. Even if eating raw nuts doesn't hurt your stomach and affect your digestion, soaking and drying them neutralises the phytic acid in them which blocks the absorption of minerals.
4. Marquardt insists that his mask crosses all cultures and fits on every beautiful face, but I am not at all as convinced of this as the author was. I think this is a questionable claim and that beauty can in fact be much more varied. All the pictures in the book of siblings and how their faces varied were fascinating nonetheless though I did feel a little sorry for some of them being discussed and evaluated genetically in such a way in a public forum.
Those small issues aside, the authors advice and views tally very well with my own and with my reading. I have a severe neurological disease with some similarities to MS and I have found that I have felt so much better staying around the 50 - 75 gram mark and eating the foods she suggests. This lower-carb diet also greatly helps my hypoglycaemia symptoms, makes me feel more satisfied after meals (and not starving hungry right after each meal due to blood sugar surges) and has treated my PCOS as well. I also do far better avoiding grains, legumes and dairy products too. I am using this style of diet, along with other supplemental nutrients and detoxification methods, to slowly improve my severe neurological disease - which had been slowly worsening for more than a decade. This advice works and lots of the food is very tasty as well (with the exception of organ meats!).
This book is so much more than just another Paleo diet book. Even with its imperfections it is still a 5 star book. I couldn't decide at first whether or not to get this book or the also highly regarded Primal Body Primal Mind book by Nora Gedgaudes. I'm so glad I splashed out and bought both. While the advice on diet given in both is very similar, they each cover quite different ground in discussing the harm modern foods can cause and why traditional foods are so important. If at all possible I would really recommended reading these two books together. Together they are more than the sum of their parts and cover just about everything you could need to know about diet, with little duplication between the two as well.
Both of these books are genuine masterpieces, in my opinion. Jaw dropping, paradigm shifting reads that were so dense with fascinating facts that I took pages of notes on each as I read.
Both are in my top 10 health books list - along with Detoxify or Die plus The Safe, Effective Way to Prevent and Heal Chronic Gastrointestinal Disorders by Dr Sherry Rogers, Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins by Dr Levy, The GAPS Diet book, books on orthomolecular medicine by Abram Hoffer, and others. Good Calories, Bad Calories was also very good although the final conclusions and advice on reducing sugars etc. are covered by this book, mostly.
The Primal Body Primal Mind book by Nora Gedgaudes would be the book I'd choose if I had to pick between that book and Deep Nutrition, because of the great information on considering avoiding grains and dairy, food allergies and the good basic information on supplements and detoxification, but I do really recommended not making such a choice and buying both. It is a small price to pay for such valuable and life changing health information.
This book is so important for everyone to read, but especially those that are ill or are thinking of becoming pregnant (or have children already, to a slightly lesser extent). It explains how positive or negative genetic changes can happen over generations based on the food we eat and how vitally important it is to eat well before becoming pregnant. This book talks about how what we eat changes the next generation in a powerful way that I have not seen replicated in any other book.
This book also focuses very much on disease prevention, a topic mostly ignored by mainsteam media and medicine today. Prevention is of course always far easier than cure! The book is also very put together and written in an engaging and even witty way. Thank you to the author for all the work shown here. I hope this book and its practical-advice-based summary 'Food Rules' are very successful.
If you're ill you may also want to read all the books I just listed above, all of which add something essential to the puzzle of how to start healing the disease you have. Diet alone is not enough if you are already very ill, but it is the VITAL first step, always, along with improving your gut health.
(I'm using a dairy and grain free version of this diet to slowly heal a severe neurological disease that I have had for over a decade, along with additional nutritional and detoxification supports, etc. I just wish so much I had found this real nutrition advice earlier, along with information on real healing vs just symptom suppression. The earlier you begin treatment the more effective it will be and the less permanent/irreversible damage there will be. Treating the actual causes of illness just makes so much sense. Those of us that are ill are not as powerless about improving our conditions as we have often been led to believe. We have more power than we think.)
Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E. (HFME)
It explains why what you eat changes your gene expression and that most diseases are caused by faulty gene expression, NOT permanent genetic changes and that what you eat (or don't eat) can affect your family's genes for generations.
The basic food advice is the same as on the Weston. A Price website mostly, for anyone that can't afford the book. But this book offers so much more food for thought than just providing a simple list of good and bad foods. There is so much research and information here that I hadn't read before, even though I'm a big fan of reading books on nutrition lately. This book discusses some concepts which are not usually included in Paleo type books, and goes into so much more depth on more commonly discussed topics too.
This book really changed the way I thought about a few things. It was one of the those books that after I finished reading it I had that sudden bizarre urge to buy another copy of it, just in case, that happens sometimes with books that make me really see the world in a different way. (Yes, I know that urge is bizarre! I didn't buy another copy though just thought about it a bit, so that makes me only a slightly weird bibliophile I hope.)
This book condenses a massive amount of research into one small book.
In short, eat real old-fashioned food. Eat good quality meats (not grain fed) and don't take the fat off, eat good fats like olive oil, butter, animal fats, palm oil and coconut oil, eat the usual meats but also organ meats, eat bone broths (chicken stock etc.), eat fermented and sprouted foods, eat lots of fresh vegetables and go easy on the fruit. Avoid at all costs sugar in all its forms as well as unnatural fats; trans fats.
This book explains that:
* The genetic lottery is not random and our genes are not set in stone. They are exquisitely sensitive to how we treat them. Genes make what seem to be intelligent decisions guided in part by chemical information in the food we eat.
* The idea that modern diseases are caused by traditional foods is just nonsense, and, "The merging of business and science into one corporate body means that medical science can no longer countenance advice incompatible with the interests of commerce."
* Beauty and health are linked. Voluptuous curves are a sign of health.
* When a women is pregnant and not properly nourished, this not only affects the baby's development but can mean that nutrients are taken from her own body and given to the baby. With some fatty acids for example, this can leave the pregnant woman with a smaller brain post-pregnancy!
* Many foods today are not as nutrient dense as they once were (e.g. Produce is picked before it is ripe).
* Eyes being set too close together, crowded teeth in a smaller jaw, and a short nose are signs of poor nutrition. Often children will show more of these features the higher they are in the birth order.
This book explains about diet that:
* The four pillars of authentic cuisine that should be eaten daily are 1. Meat cooked on the bone, 2. Organ meats and offal, 3. Fresh fruits and vegetables and 4. Fermented and sprouted foods.
* It is not true that today's animals are fatter than they used to be and we need to eat lots of fat to be healthy - as our ancestors did.
* Meats should be slow cooked on the bone and not overcooked. Meats should be eaten with some meat fat. Organic pasture-raised beef is worth the price.
* Bone broths are a very healthy addition to the diet. The wonderful complex flavour in sauces and soups made with stock is also a sign that they are highly nutritious.
* Saturated fats are needed by the body and have many health benefits.
* Raw dairy foods have many benefits, particularly traditionally made/homemade yogurts.
* The most important foods to avoid are sugar, processed foods and vegetable oils/trans fats. Even small amounts of trans fats have serious effects on the body and how well it can function and resist disease.
* Only small amounts of traditionally cultured soy products should be eaten and all commercial soy products should be avoided. Protein powders and milk powders should be avoided.
* Whether you eat sugar or starch from grains or legumes etc. your body winds up absorbing sugar. Advice to cut down sugar but to eat lots of grains makes no sense.
* If you have insulin problems or are overweight, cut daily carbs to 100 grams or less.
* Drink only fresh vegetable juices if you drink juices, never tinned or bottled.
* If you are ill, avoid junk food completely. You just can't afford to give new 'ammunition' to the enemy.
There were a few parts of the book that I disagreed with.
1. Most notably the authors comments about vitamin C and other supplements were terrible and showed a real lack of basic research in this area. This book is wonderful about diet but should not at all be used for information on supplements.The authors are not experts on this topic.
2. I would also have appreciated it being said more strongly that for many of us, and particularly many of us that are ill, we will do far better avoiding all dairy foods and grains (as the Primal Body book does) - and not just minimising grain intake. Even raw dairy foods and sprouted grains are not for everyone. This book omits almost entirely the hugely important subject of food allergies and intolerances, which is a real shame.
3. Raw nuts and seeds as the author recommends are not ideal for some of us and we do better when these foods are soaked and dried or sprouted. Even if eating raw nuts doesn't hurt your stomach and affect your digestion, soaking and drying them neutralises the phytic acid in them which blocks the absorption of minerals.
4. Marquardt insists that his mask crosses all cultures and fits on every beautiful face, but I am not at all as convinced of this as the author was. I think this is a questionable claim and that beauty can in fact be much more varied. All the pictures in the book of siblings and how their faces varied were fascinating nonetheless though I did feel a little sorry for some of them being discussed and evaluated genetically in such a way in a public forum.
Those small issues aside, the authors advice and views tally very well with my own and with my reading. I have a severe neurological disease with some similarities to MS and I have found that I have felt so much better staying around the 50 - 75 gram mark and eating the foods she suggests. This lower-carb diet also greatly helps my hypoglycaemia symptoms, makes me feel more satisfied after meals (and not starving hungry right after each meal due to blood sugar surges) and has treated my PCOS as well. I also do far better avoiding grains, legumes and dairy products too. I am using this style of diet, along with other supplemental nutrients and detoxification methods, to slowly improve my severe neurological disease - which had been slowly worsening for more than a decade. This advice works and lots of the food is very tasty as well (with the exception of organ meats!).
This book is so much more than just another Paleo diet book. Even with its imperfections it is still a 5 star book. I couldn't decide at first whether or not to get this book or the also highly regarded Primal Body Primal Mind book by Nora Gedgaudes. I'm so glad I splashed out and bought both. While the advice on diet given in both is very similar, they each cover quite different ground in discussing the harm modern foods can cause and why traditional foods are so important. If at all possible I would really recommended reading these two books together. Together they are more than the sum of their parts and cover just about everything you could need to know about diet, with little duplication between the two as well.
Both of these books are genuine masterpieces, in my opinion. Jaw dropping, paradigm shifting reads that were so dense with fascinating facts that I took pages of notes on each as I read.
Both are in my top 10 health books list - along with Detoxify or Die plus The Safe, Effective Way to Prevent and Heal Chronic Gastrointestinal Disorders by Dr Sherry Rogers, Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins by Dr Levy, The GAPS Diet book, books on orthomolecular medicine by Abram Hoffer, and others. Good Calories, Bad Calories was also very good although the final conclusions and advice on reducing sugars etc. are covered by this book, mostly.
The Primal Body Primal Mind book by Nora Gedgaudes would be the book I'd choose if I had to pick between that book and Deep Nutrition, because of the great information on considering avoiding grains and dairy, food allergies and the good basic information on supplements and detoxification, but I do really recommended not making such a choice and buying both. It is a small price to pay for such valuable and life changing health information.
This book is so important for everyone to read, but especially those that are ill or are thinking of becoming pregnant (or have children already, to a slightly lesser extent). It explains how positive or negative genetic changes can happen over generations based on the food we eat and how vitally important it is to eat well before becoming pregnant. This book talks about how what we eat changes the next generation in a powerful way that I have not seen replicated in any other book.
This book also focuses very much on disease prevention, a topic mostly ignored by mainsteam media and medicine today. Prevention is of course always far easier than cure! The book is also very put together and written in an engaging and even witty way. Thank you to the author for all the work shown here. I hope this book and its practical-advice-based summary 'Food Rules' are very successful.
If you're ill you may also want to read all the books I just listed above, all of which add something essential to the puzzle of how to start healing the disease you have. Diet alone is not enough if you are already very ill, but it is the VITAL first step, always, along with improving your gut health.
(I'm using a dairy and grain free version of this diet to slowly heal a severe neurological disease that I have had for over a decade, along with additional nutritional and detoxification supports, etc. I just wish so much I had found this real nutrition advice earlier, along with information on real healing vs just symptom suppression. The earlier you begin treatment the more effective it will be and the less permanent/irreversible damage there will be. Treating the actual causes of illness just makes so much sense. Those of us that are ill are not as powerless about improving our conditions as we have often been led to believe. We have more power than we think.)
Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E. (HFME)
April 7, 2018
Nutrition has enough confounders that books like this can exist. There is enough in this book that sounds like a good idea to follow for a healthy lifestyle (i.e. eat fermented foods found in many cultures around the world - sure, go for it, especially if you like it) mixed in with the author's own personal beliefs and offensive suggestions (i.e. your baby is ugly because you didn't eat enough bone broth while pregnant - are you kidding me?) that should have died out with the racist eugenics projects.
The author's "scientific" evidence comes from dubious studies (some where she is the study author), and many are personal anecdotes. Way too many of the recommendations of this book claim to be made based on scientific evidence and may be "scientific sounding" to a casual reader, but are the author's personal opinions. Many of the points the author makes sound understandable but actually don't make sense when you think critically, sort of like "Since I wear my seatbelt every time I drive, and I've never gotten into a car accident, my seatbelt must be making me a better driver/protecting me with a magical forcefield from getting into an accident". This is the logic of this book. Of course it's a good idea to wear a seatbelt when driving and it is not likely to hurt you to wear a seatbelt in most cases. However a seatbelt isn't magic and won't make your teeth whiter.
I could write a lot more in response to this highly-biased book, but I'll save us all some time and say stay away from the snake oil and cultish beliefs this book is trying to sell you.
The author's "scientific" evidence comes from dubious studies (some where she is the study author), and many are personal anecdotes. Way too many of the recommendations of this book claim to be made based on scientific evidence and may be "scientific sounding" to a casual reader, but are the author's personal opinions. Many of the points the author makes sound understandable but actually don't make sense when you think critically, sort of like "Since I wear my seatbelt every time I drive, and I've never gotten into a car accident, my seatbelt must be making me a better driver/protecting me with a magical forcefield from getting into an accident". This is the logic of this book. Of course it's a good idea to wear a seatbelt when driving and it is not likely to hurt you to wear a seatbelt in most cases. However a seatbelt isn't magic and won't make your teeth whiter.
I could write a lot more in response to this highly-biased book, but I'll save us all some time and say stay away from the snake oil and cultish beliefs this book is trying to sell you.
January 18, 2017
Abandoned this book. This should be titled "Deep EFFECTS of nutrition (the specifics of which won't be discussed)". So far she's just spent half the book rambling about facial symmetry, aesthetics, baby development in the womb, etc. and argues how these can all be affected by poor nutrition (no shit...). Zero information about what constitutes good/bad nutrition has been provided aside from generic tidbits like "avoid vegetable oils" and "avoid processed sugars" (again, no shit...).
She might get around to discussing nutrition eventually but I'm not going to waste my time with this book any longer when there are other authors discussing this topic in a more concise fashion.
She might get around to discussing nutrition eventually but I'm not going to waste my time with this book any longer when there are other authors discussing this topic in a more concise fashion.
August 8, 2012
I actually didn't finish the book. I gave up out of frustration and annoyance. While some of the information in this book is good most of what I read is anecdotal or based on the highly questioned and disputed research of others. The author was also very obsessed with beauty and I was much more interested in the health benefits of traditional diets rather than whether or not eating like a Maori would have made my skin perfect and my teeth come in straight.
February 17, 2016
If you're looking for a good excuse to eat fatty foods, try this. But be warned that the trade-off is NOT eating sugar -- and that means all sugar, honey, most fruits etc. -- and vegetable oils, especially canola.
So there's some good information in this and a lot of medical nonsense. I suggest reading with a touch of skepticism. Look out for when the author is blaming diseases and lack of beauty (no, not kidding) on forbidden foods eaten in even small amounts or failure to eat the full-fat version of something. That's not science, that's someone bending the light rays through a prism, showing you only a portion of the visible spectrum, and telling you all light is blue and violet.
The author's premise that we'd all be gorgeous if we just ate traditional foods is just insulting.
Other than that, I hated many of the illustrations. I wouldn't tell anybody not to read the book because of them but I just thought I'd mention it.
So there's some good information in this and a lot of medical nonsense. I suggest reading with a touch of skepticism. Look out for when the author is blaming diseases and lack of beauty (no, not kidding) on forbidden foods eaten in even small amounts or failure to eat the full-fat version of something. That's not science, that's someone bending the light rays through a prism, showing you only a portion of the visible spectrum, and telling you all light is blue and violet.
The author's premise that we'd all be gorgeous if we just ate traditional foods is just insulting.
Other than that, I hated many of the illustrations. I wouldn't tell anybody not to read the book because of them but I just thought I'd mention it.
August 8, 2014
As I'm finding with many of these books promoting particular eating plans (Atkins, Paleo, Good Carbs/Bad Carbs, etc.), the authors interpret research to support the theory they are discussing, with a few too many anecdotal and/or personal stories to illustrate the point. For example, I don't buy the fact that one of the authors' bad diets led to a chronic knee infection, which would not have happened if she had received better food as a child. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it is all supposition from her vantage point as an adult. And the chapters discussing how good nutrition leads to better, smarter, more beautiful babies...well, I'm sure it helps, but don't the sperm and eggs have something to do with it? And aren't their characteristics fixed at the birth of the parents?
Anyway, leaving those quibbles aside, there is a great deal of important information in the book. The specifics almost don't matter, it's the general idea of eating food as close to the source as possible, with the plants grown in healthy soil, and the animals raised with non-processed food. Makes intuitive sense to me, and supports many other natural eating books on the market. Of course, finding meat and plant foods produced in the above manner is not cheap, unless one lives on a farm. But the advantages seem overwhelming, and the authors make a good case for weaning ourselves off all processed foods, and eating the freshest, healthiest, most naturally nutritious food we can obtain. Recommended for those looking to change their way of eating.
Anyway, leaving those quibbles aside, there is a great deal of important information in the book. The specifics almost don't matter, it's the general idea of eating food as close to the source as possible, with the plants grown in healthy soil, and the animals raised with non-processed food. Makes intuitive sense to me, and supports many other natural eating books on the market. Of course, finding meat and plant foods produced in the above manner is not cheap, unless one lives on a farm. But the advantages seem overwhelming, and the authors make a good case for weaning ourselves off all processed foods, and eating the freshest, healthiest, most naturally nutritious food we can obtain. Recommended for those looking to change their way of eating.
July 15, 2013
reads like a eugenics handbook. lots of the typical victim blaming and very poorly drawn conclusions.
October 14, 2009
Thoughtful, thought-provoking and approachable, Deep Nutrition presents a universe of ideas that possess the rarest of qualities: obvious and eye-opening at the same time. Cate and Luke delve into concepts of food as information for our genes, the relationship between the health and beauty of our bodies and the health and beauty of the environment in which they function, disease and nutrition, and the collective wisdom (which they term the Four Pillars) contained in traditional cuisines to deliver a compelling read. I came away from this book motivated in a way I never have before to change my diet. And by "change" I don't mean merely to think about changing it, but to actually change it. They shine a sorely-needed spotlight on vegetable oils and sugars, and explain in accessible terms why these twin poisons are so harmful and so ubiquitous. For a long time, my reaction to books proposing eating in a slower, wiser and healthier way was "yeah, that's a great idea, but it takes time I don't have." I have come to realize that that's the whole point -- things that are important should take time. Moreover, as with any change in habits, a new way of thinking becomes automatic over time. This book makes sense. It resonates. After reading this book, you'll never view a trip to the supermarket the same again...
May 3, 2019
Thos book has a some interesting points to make about sugar and vegetable oil that I found illuminating. However, the author lets herself and the reader down by making grand statements that are totally unsupported by peer reviewed research. The reference list is 80% books (therefore not peer reviewed) and a lot of it was old and outdated anyway. The authors husband is also randomly mentioned through out and is noted as an author too- despite having no health professional or academic credentials. The parts I struggled with most was “sibling symmetry shift”, and also the authors dangerous on vaccines and autism:
“Can vaccines cause autism? Researchers have long since dismissed the idea that vaccines are the root cause of autism. However, there is an uncommon form of the disorder, associated with loss of acquired skills, called regressive autism—in contrast to other forms of autism—that can often be diagnosed between the ages of eighteen and thirty months. While it can occur in unvaccinated children, there is some possibility that the immune system stress of vaccines (or infections, or new foods being introduced) plays a contributing, but not primary, role in the disorder.”
Considering the prevalence of preventable diseases such as measles in the world and the anti-vacc movement, I find this comment particularly unethical and unfounded.
“Can vaccines cause autism? Researchers have long since dismissed the idea that vaccines are the root cause of autism. However, there is an uncommon form of the disorder, associated with loss of acquired skills, called regressive autism—in contrast to other forms of autism—that can often be diagnosed between the ages of eighteen and thirty months. While it can occur in unvaccinated children, there is some possibility that the immune system stress of vaccines (or infections, or new foods being introduced) plays a contributing, but not primary, role in the disorder.”
Considering the prevalence of preventable diseases such as measles in the world and the anti-vacc movement, I find this comment particularly unethical and unfounded.
November 29, 2020
I can definitely say this book has easily changed my life. I cannot overstate the importance of the information within this book. I knew some of what is in this book before reading it, but I wasn't aware how damaging and important it was.
What you need to know:
1. Avoid consuming PUFAs (Polyunsaturated Fats)
Oils that qualify as PUFAs are:
- Vegetable Oil
- Walnuts Oil
- Canola oil
- Cottonseed Oil
- Grapeseed Oil
- Sesame Oil
- Corn Oil
- Peanut Oil
- Soybean Oil
- Margarine
- Flaxseed Oil
Why? - PUFAs are manmade cooking oils which are extremely unstable at low temperatures compared to healthy saturated fats. This means they are prone to oxidisation. All fats have a temperature with which they oxidize (i.e. become unstable, become toxic). For PUFAs that temperature is very low. An easy way to remember this is that UNsaturated fats are UNstable and Saturated fats are Stable. Unstable fats are prone to oxidation. Oxidation lead to free radicals. Free radicals lead to cellular damage in your body that can manifest both internally in the form of damaged organs/glands and externally in the form of rapidly aging skin.
2. Avoid Processed Food
Why? – It’s not real food. They contain preservatives, sugar, artificial sweeteners and PUFAs. Processed ingredients and preservatives like trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), monosodium glutamate (MSG), artificial colours and flavours, nitrates/nitrites and BHT to name a few, which should not be in our food supply. Their only purpose is to either extend the shelf life of foods by preventing the growth of bacteria and mould, or by preventing certain fats from becoming rancid. Additionally, artificial Sweeteners are proven to kill beneficial stomach bacteria.
3. Sugar
Why? - The 21st century has seen the grip of sugar has become a bigger hindrance on health than tobacco, or even alcohol. Sugar is not only abundant; it is a major portion of the calorific content of modern foods. The obesity epidemic along with related diseases including cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes – has spread across every nation where sugar-based carbohydrates have come to dominate to the food economy.
The brain uses more energy than any other organ in the human body and glucose is its primary source of fuel, but when the brain is exposed to a diet abnormally high in sugars then the brain becomes inflamed and in turn impairs cognitive function. Sugar is addictive because it’s such an easy energy source for the brain to convert and it creates a drug like reward for the brain. The behavioural and neurobiochemical characteristics of substance abuse and overeating are quite similar, so ensuring you have a healthy relationship with food and sugar in particular is very important to your physical and mental health. Negative effects of a high sugar diet:
- Inflammation
- Mood swings
- Causes overeating and unhealthy weight gain
- Uncontrollable food and drink cravings containing sugar
- Damage to cognitive functions
- Risk of Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer
Eating a diet that will stabilise your blood sugar is key to maintaining a healthy cognitive attitude. This means avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates. This can be difficult because sugar is addictive and is present in most of our food and drink in supermarket shelves.
Sugar also drives the brain towards overeating, so another benefit or removing sugar from your diet is healthy weight loss.
So, remove PUFAs, processed foods and sugar, easy right? No, it’s not easy, everything in moderation, but if you can remove them totally then instead enjoy:
- Clean, organic, wild, non-GMO or otherwise foods and ingredients
- Eat very wide variety of multi-coloured plants, herbs, and spices
- Eat locally grown foods that are available on a seasonal basis
Since reading this book, I've cut out sugar, processed foods and PUFAs. I 've noticed that if I cheat and eat carbs or sugar, my whole attitude changes and I start to feel sluggish, grumpy and get aches and pains.
There is a lot more information in this book aside from what not to eat, but those are the most important things to remember.
This book has given me the push I needed to make healthy changes to my life.
What you need to know:
1. Avoid consuming PUFAs (Polyunsaturated Fats)
Oils that qualify as PUFAs are:
- Vegetable Oil
- Walnuts Oil
- Canola oil
- Cottonseed Oil
- Grapeseed Oil
- Sesame Oil
- Corn Oil
- Peanut Oil
- Soybean Oil
- Margarine
- Flaxseed Oil
Why? - PUFAs are manmade cooking oils which are extremely unstable at low temperatures compared to healthy saturated fats. This means they are prone to oxidisation. All fats have a temperature with which they oxidize (i.e. become unstable, become toxic). For PUFAs that temperature is very low. An easy way to remember this is that UNsaturated fats are UNstable and Saturated fats are Stable. Unstable fats are prone to oxidation. Oxidation lead to free radicals. Free radicals lead to cellular damage in your body that can manifest both internally in the form of damaged organs/glands and externally in the form of rapidly aging skin.
2. Avoid Processed Food
Why? – It’s not real food. They contain preservatives, sugar, artificial sweeteners and PUFAs. Processed ingredients and preservatives like trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), monosodium glutamate (MSG), artificial colours and flavours, nitrates/nitrites and BHT to name a few, which should not be in our food supply. Their only purpose is to either extend the shelf life of foods by preventing the growth of bacteria and mould, or by preventing certain fats from becoming rancid. Additionally, artificial Sweeteners are proven to kill beneficial stomach bacteria.
3. Sugar
Why? - The 21st century has seen the grip of sugar has become a bigger hindrance on health than tobacco, or even alcohol. Sugar is not only abundant; it is a major portion of the calorific content of modern foods. The obesity epidemic along with related diseases including cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes – has spread across every nation where sugar-based carbohydrates have come to dominate to the food economy.
The brain uses more energy than any other organ in the human body and glucose is its primary source of fuel, but when the brain is exposed to a diet abnormally high in sugars then the brain becomes inflamed and in turn impairs cognitive function. Sugar is addictive because it’s such an easy energy source for the brain to convert and it creates a drug like reward for the brain. The behavioural and neurobiochemical characteristics of substance abuse and overeating are quite similar, so ensuring you have a healthy relationship with food and sugar in particular is very important to your physical and mental health. Negative effects of a high sugar diet:
- Inflammation
- Mood swings
- Causes overeating and unhealthy weight gain
- Uncontrollable food and drink cravings containing sugar
- Damage to cognitive functions
- Risk of Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer
Eating a diet that will stabilise your blood sugar is key to maintaining a healthy cognitive attitude. This means avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates. This can be difficult because sugar is addictive and is present in most of our food and drink in supermarket shelves.
Sugar also drives the brain towards overeating, so another benefit or removing sugar from your diet is healthy weight loss.
So, remove PUFAs, processed foods and sugar, easy right? No, it’s not easy, everything in moderation, but if you can remove them totally then instead enjoy:
- Clean, organic, wild, non-GMO or otherwise foods and ingredients
- Eat very wide variety of multi-coloured plants, herbs, and spices
- Eat locally grown foods that are available on a seasonal basis
Since reading this book, I've cut out sugar, processed foods and PUFAs. I 've noticed that if I cheat and eat carbs or sugar, my whole attitude changes and I start to feel sluggish, grumpy and get aches and pains.
There is a lot more information in this book aside from what not to eat, but those are the most important things to remember.
This book has given me the push I needed to make healthy changes to my life.
January 9, 2012
This is one of the most common-sense books about nutrition and how to eat for health that I've read. She cites studies, explains how certain cells work, and then includes real-life examples of patients she's worked with.
It's also one of the more compelling reasons to not be vegetarian, and it offers a solution to why many (including me) became vegetarian in the first place. I wanted to be healthy, and I knew that something was terribly wrong with the "meat" offered at so many meals and restaurants. According to Shanahan, there's little nutrition in that meat -- but pasture-raised, "happy" animals have all the great minerals and vitamins that their natural food provides, while feed-corn doesn't. And she makes the compelling argument than we're missing vital nutrients by eating only the best cuts of meat, as so much nourishment is gained from making bone broth for soup, for example, or eating organs such as liver.
Her arguments against processed food (something I've long believed in, given the drastic change in cravings and healthy I've had when I've been able to cut HFCS from my diet) makes a ton of sense, but she also takes it a step farther to target natural sugar and carbs.
How to even categorize the kind of eater she's describing? (Traditional, she says, but that's almost not enough in today's culture.) Let me try...
Naturally raised, pasture-fed, antibiotic-free, organic meat eater and wild-caught fish eater, who eats head-to-tail; who otherwise is a vegetarian that concentrates on fresh and organic vegetables and whole-fat, organic, pasture-raised dairy products. Oh, and they shun any processed food and sugar, and eat only a handful of natural carbs each day (sprouted-grain bread, potatoes, rice).
It's also one of the more compelling reasons to not be vegetarian, and it offers a solution to why many (including me) became vegetarian in the first place. I wanted to be healthy, and I knew that something was terribly wrong with the "meat" offered at so many meals and restaurants. According to Shanahan, there's little nutrition in that meat -- but pasture-raised, "happy" animals have all the great minerals and vitamins that their natural food provides, while feed-corn doesn't. And she makes the compelling argument than we're missing vital nutrients by eating only the best cuts of meat, as so much nourishment is gained from making bone broth for soup, for example, or eating organs such as liver.
Her arguments against processed food (something I've long believed in, given the drastic change in cravings and healthy I've had when I've been able to cut HFCS from my diet) makes a ton of sense, but she also takes it a step farther to target natural sugar and carbs.
How to even categorize the kind of eater she's describing? (Traditional, she says, but that's almost not enough in today's culture.) Let me try...
Naturally raised, pasture-fed, antibiotic-free, organic meat eater and wild-caught fish eater, who eats head-to-tail; who otherwise is a vegetarian that concentrates on fresh and organic vegetables and whole-fat, organic, pasture-raised dairy products. Oh, and they shun any processed food and sugar, and eat only a handful of natural carbs each day (sprouted-grain bread, potatoes, rice).
June 13, 2022
Ok here's the thing. I didn't actually finish this book. But I got tired of it about halfway through. Here's the things I liked and didn't like about it. I'm marking it as read through because I want to write a review. Don't worry, all those extra pages are just making up for all the books that I DNF.
TLDR: I learned a lot, but wouldn't necessarily recommend you spend your time reading this brick :)
Thumbs up:
-Very thorough discussion of PUFA's (poly unsaturated fats), how they came about, why they're promoted (hint, they're extremely lucrative), why their incredibly damaging to our muscles, heart, brain, fertility, genetics, basically everything.
- Summary of Weston Price's phenomenal work and seeing the superior health of indigenous cultures.
- Excellent explanation of epigenetic and why it's so important to eat right for your children and grandchildren's sake.
-points to ways to alleviate common American issues like Autism, cancer, heart disease, etc.
- section of French cuisine (yum! I may just have to pay a bunch of money to eat some)
Thumbs down:
- The author's prideful, snobbish tone.
-Evolution not design
-Complete put down of any type of sugar or carb.She leaves out the fact that the reason things like fruit can cause blood sugar imbalances is because of not having enough protein.... which brings me to
- Her ignoring the importance of protein. She says the around 50 g/day is enough, whether it's plant or animal.
- extremely high fat, low carb diet (even though she praises the French cuisine...)
TLDR: I learned a lot, but wouldn't necessarily recommend you spend your time reading this brick :)
Thumbs up:
-Very thorough discussion of PUFA's (poly unsaturated fats), how they came about, why they're promoted (hint, they're extremely lucrative), why their incredibly damaging to our muscles, heart, brain, fertility, genetics, basically everything.
- Summary of Weston Price's phenomenal work and seeing the superior health of indigenous cultures.
- Excellent explanation of epigenetic and why it's so important to eat right for your children and grandchildren's sake.
-points to ways to alleviate common American issues like Autism, cancer, heart disease, etc.
- section of French cuisine (yum! I may just have to pay a bunch of money to eat some)
Thumbs down:
- The author's prideful, snobbish tone.
-Evolution not design
-Complete put down of any type of sugar or carb.She leaves out the fact that the reason things like fruit can cause blood sugar imbalances is because of not having enough protein.... which brings me to
- Her ignoring the importance of protein. She says the around 50 g/day is enough, whether it's plant or animal.
- extremely high fat, low carb diet (even though she praises the French cuisine...)
May 2, 2023
There was a lot of really good and interesting information in this book. It’s not all backed up by science and she explains why (research is funded and no one wants to find something that isn’t going to make them more money). She has a lot of antidotal stories and she really REALLY hates vegetable oils. Overall I think it’s definitely worth reading but I also think certain personalities could totally stress themselves out trying to control every aspect of their diet, their environment, the things they wear, breath, etc. It should be a balance between taking care of our bodies and having peace in God’s sovereignty.
May 31, 2019
Dr. Catherine Shanahan is a woman on a mission. She writes with a proselytizing zeal that dances on the edge of, but never quite falls into being, off-putting. When I picked it up in the bookstore and started flipping through it, I came within a hair's breadth of putting it down more than once. But, I was fortunately in the sort of mood where I thought it a good idea to read something that is a bit challenging to my beliefs. I have been a vegetarian for over three decades now, and Shanahan is very much in favor of meat-eating (although that's not what she is most zealous about).
Shanahan is an advocate for what she calls the "Four Pillars" of the "Human Diet":
1) Meat on the bone
2) Fermented and sprouted foods
3) Organs and other "nasty bits"
4) Fresh, unadulterated plant and animal products
The number one Villain in Shanahan's books is "Vegetable Oil". By this, she explicitly does not mean all oil derived from vegetables. In particular, she likes olive oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, and a few others. What she does not like is canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, or pretty much any other oil that might appear in some packaged or canned food labelled as "vegetable oil" (because if it were olive oil, they would be bragging about that specifically). Her number two villain is sugar, and carbohydrates generally. There are lots of details and caveats to all of this, of course, and she takes a few hundred pages to go over them. She is not just preaching, here; she is going over the biochemistry of food and digestion, in some detail.
I did something while reading this book that I have to admit, I do not normally do: I checked the references. She has over 600 technical and academic references, mostly publications of the results of one study or another, and I'm not going to pretend that I checked them all. However, about a dozen times or perhaps a bit more, I decided more or less at random to look up one of the studies she had a reference to, and see if it really said what she said it did (and if the source seemed reputable). They always did. Now 12-15 random samples is not enough to prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it did give me a little more confidence that I was not in the presence of a wingnut.
Because, Shanahan does come off occasionally as a bit of a monomaniac. She seems to believe in the ancient Greek idea of beauty, that it is a reflection of virtue, although not so much of you personally as of your diet, and that of your mother when you were gestating inside her. She has taken the recent science of epigenetics and gone all the way with it, such that she says things like that your diet changes your DNA, and you hand that DNA (improved or degraded) on to the next generation. Now there is more than a seed of truth in that, as the Hunger Winter in the Netherlands has demonstrated, but it is a rather strong way of putting it, perhaps too strong. She sounds unconvinced that gluten intolerance is really a problem with gluten, and thinks instead it is a reaction to our over-processed foods. She has the same opinion about several other medical conditions that are on the upsurge recently. And there we come back to her main, probably valid, point.
The differences between the diet she advocates and the one most Americans eat are many, but they all come down to one thing in the end: processed foods. Our diet got the way it is because we want to eat food without having to prepare it (except maybe to heat it up), and we also don't want to have to pay anyone else to prepare it. Fermenting tofu, for example, takes longer than treating it chemically in a way that you hope will make it taste the same, but fermented foods are nutritionally different. The only way you get food produced quickly and cheaply, that can then sit on a shelf or in a package for long enough to get from the factory to you, is to do some things with it that make it not much resemble (chemically or biologically) the food your ancestors ate. The only way to get food that is actually good for you, is to either prepare it yourself from raw materials, or pay someone to do it for you, on the spot.
At one point, she lists the menu on a dinner served at the White House during the Obama Administration, and uses that to make the point that the people in charge of the country, do not eat the way the masses do. They have the money to pay someone to actually prepare real food, and in many ways it more resembles the food of our ancestors, than that which they expect us to eat. Most of us don't have the money to be able to pay for a personal cook. But, we can (if we cut down on the TV and internet time) prepare our own food, from raw materials, and make sure they are ones that came from a plant or animal, not a factory.
But, I'm still not eating meat, nasty bits or otherwise. Gross.
Shanahan is an advocate for what she calls the "Four Pillars" of the "Human Diet":
1) Meat on the bone
2) Fermented and sprouted foods
3) Organs and other "nasty bits"
4) Fresh, unadulterated plant and animal products
The number one Villain in Shanahan's books is "Vegetable Oil". By this, she explicitly does not mean all oil derived from vegetables. In particular, she likes olive oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, and a few others. What she does not like is canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, or pretty much any other oil that might appear in some packaged or canned food labelled as "vegetable oil" (because if it were olive oil, they would be bragging about that specifically). Her number two villain is sugar, and carbohydrates generally. There are lots of details and caveats to all of this, of course, and she takes a few hundred pages to go over them. She is not just preaching, here; she is going over the biochemistry of food and digestion, in some detail.
I did something while reading this book that I have to admit, I do not normally do: I checked the references. She has over 600 technical and academic references, mostly publications of the results of one study or another, and I'm not going to pretend that I checked them all. However, about a dozen times or perhaps a bit more, I decided more or less at random to look up one of the studies she had a reference to, and see if it really said what she said it did (and if the source seemed reputable). They always did. Now 12-15 random samples is not enough to prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it did give me a little more confidence that I was not in the presence of a wingnut.
Because, Shanahan does come off occasionally as a bit of a monomaniac. She seems to believe in the ancient Greek idea of beauty, that it is a reflection of virtue, although not so much of you personally as of your diet, and that of your mother when you were gestating inside her. She has taken the recent science of epigenetics and gone all the way with it, such that she says things like that your diet changes your DNA, and you hand that DNA (improved or degraded) on to the next generation. Now there is more than a seed of truth in that, as the Hunger Winter in the Netherlands has demonstrated, but it is a rather strong way of putting it, perhaps too strong. She sounds unconvinced that gluten intolerance is really a problem with gluten, and thinks instead it is a reaction to our over-processed foods. She has the same opinion about several other medical conditions that are on the upsurge recently. And there we come back to her main, probably valid, point.
The differences between the diet she advocates and the one most Americans eat are many, but they all come down to one thing in the end: processed foods. Our diet got the way it is because we want to eat food without having to prepare it (except maybe to heat it up), and we also don't want to have to pay anyone else to prepare it. Fermenting tofu, for example, takes longer than treating it chemically in a way that you hope will make it taste the same, but fermented foods are nutritionally different. The only way you get food produced quickly and cheaply, that can then sit on a shelf or in a package for long enough to get from the factory to you, is to do some things with it that make it not much resemble (chemically or biologically) the food your ancestors ate. The only way to get food that is actually good for you, is to either prepare it yourself from raw materials, or pay someone to do it for you, on the spot.
At one point, she lists the menu on a dinner served at the White House during the Obama Administration, and uses that to make the point that the people in charge of the country, do not eat the way the masses do. They have the money to pay someone to actually prepare real food, and in many ways it more resembles the food of our ancestors, than that which they expect us to eat. Most of us don't have the money to be able to pay for a personal cook. But, we can (if we cut down on the TV and internet time) prepare our own food, from raw materials, and make sure they are ones that came from a plant or animal, not a factory.
But, I'm still not eating meat, nasty bits or otherwise. Gross.
June 9, 2021
Oh, how I struggled with this book! It's super lengthy and full of irrelevant stories and silly/ childish comparisons of "how it works". But I always try to persevere and eventually finish the books because I believe that authors must have something interesting to say if they took the effort to write so many pages .. although they don't know how to put it in words properly .. But in this case, it was only getting worse and worse :( Not only was it full of rambling but the research information was getting more scarce as the pages progressed and final recommendations were not following logically the previously laid out knowledge or sounded totally one-sided and disconnected from the previous principles (e.g. "let's not count calories and talk about food as protein/carb/fat" in principles but "here is how many calories and split between protein/carb/fat you should have" in recommendations). Recommending eggs, bacon and dairy twice a day, every day and calling it traditional and healthy totally blew me off. Very innerving and disappointing read.
October 14, 2021
A big disappointment. The book has "genes" in the title only as a buzz word, for marketing reasons. In fact, this is just another personal opinion based diet backed up by carefully selected (unlikely peer reviewed) research data and personal anecdotal evidence.
In summary, author describes how terrible vegetable oil is for health (ok, agreed), how bad sugar is for your health (ok, sure), how even complex carbohydrates are bad for you, how fruits are bad for you because of sugar (uh... how much fruit do you need to eat?), etc., etc.
I wanted to like this book, but while reading it, I kept going from "this makes sense, very useful" (can't agree more on benefits of home-made bone broth) to "this is a complete bulls**t" and back and over again. And that whole chapter on "Hollywood actor" standards of beauty as a genetic "ideal" - just cringe worthy.
Overall, too much drama, sensationalism and biased research data. Do not recommend, there are better books on this topic.
In summary, author describes how terrible vegetable oil is for health (ok, agreed), how bad sugar is for your health (ok, sure), how even complex carbohydrates are bad for you, how fruits are bad for you because of sugar (uh... how much fruit do you need to eat?), etc., etc.
I wanted to like this book, but while reading it, I kept going from "this makes sense, very useful" (can't agree more on benefits of home-made bone broth) to "this is a complete bulls**t" and back and over again. And that whole chapter on "Hollywood actor" standards of beauty as a genetic "ideal" - just cringe worthy.
Overall, too much drama, sensationalism and biased research data. Do not recommend, there are better books on this topic.
March 31, 2023
“Medicine is a different from other sciences because, more than being a science, it is first and foremost a business”
So, as a medical doctor, I’m very interested in learning about diet and health. We have not learnt anything about prevention, or nutrition in medical school so most of my learning has been from books and podcasts. BUT WHAT MEDICAL SCHOOL HAS TAUGHT ME IS THAT FREE RADICALS CAUSE INFLAMMATION & MOST CHRONIC DISEASES HAVE A PATHOLOGY THAT CAN BE TRACED TO INFLAMMATION.
As an ex-endometriosis patient who is symptom-free from eliminating refined vegetable oils, I am always eager to learn more about the dangers of refined oils. I honestly had no clue, and for most of my life, I believed saturated fats were unhealthy, avoiding traditional delicious oils like ghee and coconut for years. Now I will tell everyone about it. I had all the endometriosis symptoms AND fibrocystic breasts, for which I did scans and tests and the doctors said it was normal. Now I thrive, my focus, energy, and libido are great, and my breasts are soft and tender unlike before. No more chronic pelvic pain, or dysmenorrhea that made me cry and faint. My energy levels are crazy, and I barely gain weight even if I want to. BUT I AM VERY ANGRY AT THE FOOD INDUSTRY!!!!! I was suffering for years due to the LIES that the food industry (&doctors) have perpetrated and thousands of people are dying 'cause of it!!!
This book is very information-dense, and I have learned the history of the saturated fat-heart hypothesis, which possibly led to millions of fatalities through the promotion of refined oil consumption. THE STUDY WAS ABOUT MARGARINE, NOT NATURALLY OCCURRING SATURATED FATS. [look up French Paradox & Israeli Paradox]. Sad thing is that 95% of foods you get in the supermarket are a combination of refined oils/their hydrogenated counter parts, refined flour & sugar - a recipe for disaster. If vegetable oils were banned, people would be a lot more healthy. In the UK, rapeseed oil is literally put in everything. If cold-pressed & used as salad dressing it’s understandable, but the refined versions are present in literally EVERY SNACK IN THE SUPERMARKET. My boyfriend makes a sad face whenever we go shopping and he wants a snack & looks at the ingredients. And this is costing the NHS thousands of pounds. HEART ATTACK RISK IS CALCULATED WITH HDL& TOTAL CHOLESTEROL YET STATINS ACT TO REDUCE LDL. I also recently learnt that statins increase risk of type 2 diabetes - which is a much bigger risk for heart attacks than high cholesterol.
Patients in India are now getting heart attacks in their 30s and 40s - while pouring cups of refined vegetable oil into their curries. This has replaced tastier and healthier alternatives of the past such as ghee, coconut oil, peanut oil, sesame oil & mustard oil. I asked my mum about heart attacks in the past- it was unheard of, even cancer rates were not so common. My great grandparents ate fresh local food with tons of coconut oil & lived till their 90s without a single disease. I know of great grandparents in England who often ate chips fried in Beef Dripping, and lived till their 90s. Of course sedentary lifestyle also has a lot to do with it, but the public has been cheated by the American food industry’s influence. It makes me really really sad.
I love how the author has gone into an in-depth detail of the study, and it’s methodology and why it’s so misleading. She also goes on to explain just how dangerous rancid vegetable oils can be. They’re highly unstable, and generate a lot of free radicals & mega trans fats which clog arteries and wreak havoc in your body. I looked at a higher level biochemistry text book which explains this the biochemical pathway by which the body processes these oils - it does, indeed get converted into trans-fats by an enzyme Enoyl-CoA isomerase. I don’t need anymore convincing. I HAVE LEARNT ENOUGH PATHOLOGY TO KNOW THAT FREE RADICALS & OXIDIZED FATS ARE NOT SOMETHING I WANT IN MY BODY. It’s not LDL that’s the problem - it’s oxLDL and glyLDL (free radicals & sugar that stick on to LDL, turning it into artery clogging “bad cholesterol”)
However I don’t completely agree with the way the books written - it’s a bit snobbish and preachy and repetitive after a while. Also, I don’t think sugar is all that bad, if in moderation, and if balanced with protein & fats. Of course vegetables should be eaten more than fruit, but seasonal fruit is rich in fibre & polyphenols, and part of a healthy diet. And also, the author is obsessed with beauty which is a bit annoying - but yea symmetry, beauty and health is relatable. That is an undeniable fact.
But the basic takeaway is:
- avoid refined vegetable oils & excess sugar
- flavourful real food means nutrition for the body. Spices, herbs, and seasonings are rich in antioxidants.
- eat fermented foods daily to improve and feed your gut microbiome
- raw dairy is more digestible than what we get in the supermarket nowadays. Fermented is also good. So yogurts and cheeses are more digestible than pasteurized milk. We have literally ruined all the nutrition in milk through pasteurization & homogenisation, turning it into pro-inflammatory gunk.
- eat plenty of plant-based foods, incl raw veg, herbs & spices
- eat whole foods and traditionally prepared grains (eg soaked, sprouted & fermented)
- eat nose to tail (not just muscle meat, but also organs, bone marrow & broth, etc), and source meat from free-range, organic farmers
I’d also like to add my own point about eating local food. For the environment, the best thing you can possibly do is eat food that is grown on the land you live in. Free-range, grass-fed and organic meat and poultry are neither bad for health nor the environment. From fishing to factory farming of animals, to refined vegetable oils & pesticide-laden mono-crops, the current state of the food industry is just pathetic - I have no words. I think humans and the planet will be much more healthy if we break up with the food industry, pharmaceutical industry & connect with the land we live in. & with the current vegan craze, with millions of dollars being pumped into vegan meat alternatives, more factories will be producing these “food products” which is rich in pesticide-laden monocrops (wheat& soy) with plenty of refined oils to the mix. The vegan health-conscious community eats imported avocados and coconut yogurt while living in England. While these are healthy, what about the ethical issues associated with avocado consumption? Do you even know what farmers grow on the land you live in?
Animals are being treated TERRIBLY, and we are suffering the consequences of it. Putting them in cages increases risk of infections (think pandemic-causing viruses for example). But eating pesticide-laden wheat with vegetable oil in it is not the solution. Regenerative agriculture is, Anti-consumerism is. Connecting with nature is. Fast food, and fast fashion, it’s all part of the problem. We’re all doomed, alas. QUIT ALL THE FADS! EAT LOCAL, ORGANIC & SEASONAL FOOD!
So, as a medical doctor, I’m very interested in learning about diet and health. We have not learnt anything about prevention, or nutrition in medical school so most of my learning has been from books and podcasts. BUT WHAT MEDICAL SCHOOL HAS TAUGHT ME IS THAT FREE RADICALS CAUSE INFLAMMATION & MOST CHRONIC DISEASES HAVE A PATHOLOGY THAT CAN BE TRACED TO INFLAMMATION.
As an ex-endometriosis patient who is symptom-free from eliminating refined vegetable oils, I am always eager to learn more about the dangers of refined oils. I honestly had no clue, and for most of my life, I believed saturated fats were unhealthy, avoiding traditional delicious oils like ghee and coconut for years. Now I will tell everyone about it. I had all the endometriosis symptoms AND fibrocystic breasts, for which I did scans and tests and the doctors said it was normal. Now I thrive, my focus, energy, and libido are great, and my breasts are soft and tender unlike before. No more chronic pelvic pain, or dysmenorrhea that made me cry and faint. My energy levels are crazy, and I barely gain weight even if I want to. BUT I AM VERY ANGRY AT THE FOOD INDUSTRY!!!!! I was suffering for years due to the LIES that the food industry (&doctors) have perpetrated and thousands of people are dying 'cause of it!!!
This book is very information-dense, and I have learned the history of the saturated fat-heart hypothesis, which possibly led to millions of fatalities through the promotion of refined oil consumption. THE STUDY WAS ABOUT MARGARINE, NOT NATURALLY OCCURRING SATURATED FATS. [look up French Paradox & Israeli Paradox]. Sad thing is that 95% of foods you get in the supermarket are a combination of refined oils/their hydrogenated counter parts, refined flour & sugar - a recipe for disaster. If vegetable oils were banned, people would be a lot more healthy. In the UK, rapeseed oil is literally put in everything. If cold-pressed & used as salad dressing it’s understandable, but the refined versions are present in literally EVERY SNACK IN THE SUPERMARKET. My boyfriend makes a sad face whenever we go shopping and he wants a snack & looks at the ingredients. And this is costing the NHS thousands of pounds. HEART ATTACK RISK IS CALCULATED WITH HDL& TOTAL CHOLESTEROL YET STATINS ACT TO REDUCE LDL. I also recently learnt that statins increase risk of type 2 diabetes - which is a much bigger risk for heart attacks than high cholesterol.
Patients in India are now getting heart attacks in their 30s and 40s - while pouring cups of refined vegetable oil into their curries. This has replaced tastier and healthier alternatives of the past such as ghee, coconut oil, peanut oil, sesame oil & mustard oil. I asked my mum about heart attacks in the past- it was unheard of, even cancer rates were not so common. My great grandparents ate fresh local food with tons of coconut oil & lived till their 90s without a single disease. I know of great grandparents in England who often ate chips fried in Beef Dripping, and lived till their 90s. Of course sedentary lifestyle also has a lot to do with it, but the public has been cheated by the American food industry’s influence. It makes me really really sad.
I love how the author has gone into an in-depth detail of the study, and it’s methodology and why it’s so misleading. She also goes on to explain just how dangerous rancid vegetable oils can be. They’re highly unstable, and generate a lot of free radicals & mega trans fats which clog arteries and wreak havoc in your body. I looked at a higher level biochemistry text book which explains this the biochemical pathway by which the body processes these oils - it does, indeed get converted into trans-fats by an enzyme Enoyl-CoA isomerase. I don’t need anymore convincing. I HAVE LEARNT ENOUGH PATHOLOGY TO KNOW THAT FREE RADICALS & OXIDIZED FATS ARE NOT SOMETHING I WANT IN MY BODY. It’s not LDL that’s the problem - it’s oxLDL and glyLDL (free radicals & sugar that stick on to LDL, turning it into artery clogging “bad cholesterol”)
However I don’t completely agree with the way the books written - it’s a bit snobbish and preachy and repetitive after a while. Also, I don’t think sugar is all that bad, if in moderation, and if balanced with protein & fats. Of course vegetables should be eaten more than fruit, but seasonal fruit is rich in fibre & polyphenols, and part of a healthy diet. And also, the author is obsessed with beauty which is a bit annoying - but yea symmetry, beauty and health is relatable. That is an undeniable fact.
But the basic takeaway is:
- avoid refined vegetable oils & excess sugar
- flavourful real food means nutrition for the body. Spices, herbs, and seasonings are rich in antioxidants.
- eat fermented foods daily to improve and feed your gut microbiome
- raw dairy is more digestible than what we get in the supermarket nowadays. Fermented is also good. So yogurts and cheeses are more digestible than pasteurized milk. We have literally ruined all the nutrition in milk through pasteurization & homogenisation, turning it into pro-inflammatory gunk.
- eat plenty of plant-based foods, incl raw veg, herbs & spices
- eat whole foods and traditionally prepared grains (eg soaked, sprouted & fermented)
- eat nose to tail (not just muscle meat, but also organs, bone marrow & broth, etc), and source meat from free-range, organic farmers
I’d also like to add my own point about eating local food. For the environment, the best thing you can possibly do is eat food that is grown on the land you live in. Free-range, grass-fed and organic meat and poultry are neither bad for health nor the environment. From fishing to factory farming of animals, to refined vegetable oils & pesticide-laden mono-crops, the current state of the food industry is just pathetic - I have no words. I think humans and the planet will be much more healthy if we break up with the food industry, pharmaceutical industry & connect with the land we live in. & with the current vegan craze, with millions of dollars being pumped into vegan meat alternatives, more factories will be producing these “food products” which is rich in pesticide-laden monocrops (wheat& soy) with plenty of refined oils to the mix. The vegan health-conscious community eats imported avocados and coconut yogurt while living in England. While these are healthy, what about the ethical issues associated with avocado consumption? Do you even know what farmers grow on the land you live in?
Animals are being treated TERRIBLY, and we are suffering the consequences of it. Putting them in cages increases risk of infections (think pandemic-causing viruses for example). But eating pesticide-laden wheat with vegetable oil in it is not the solution. Regenerative agriculture is, Anti-consumerism is. Connecting with nature is. Fast food, and fast fashion, it’s all part of the problem. We’re all doomed, alas. QUIT ALL THE FADS! EAT LOCAL, ORGANIC & SEASONAL FOOD!
January 17, 2022
Kasta allt med vegetabiliska oljor åt helvete.
Börjar intressant med bakgrund innehållandes epigenetik och levnadsvanor hos våra förfäder. Kopplar till dagens många sjukdomar som inte existerade förr, sen brakar allt lös med välgrundat hat för vegetabiliska oljor. Även socker får sig en smäll. Kritiserar också exempelvis felaktiga tron på att kolesterol och mättat fett är dåligt med historia om vem och vad som ligger bakom det.
Största kritiken jag har är att det inte tas upp det positiva med kolhydrater, samt problemet antinutrienter i många grönsaker. Sedan är måltidsplanerna på slutet ganska värdelösa, men har man läst allt fram till dess borde man kunna lista ut själv vad man kan och inte kan äta.
Läs om du vill må bra och få vackra barn.
Börjar intressant med bakgrund innehållandes epigenetik och levnadsvanor hos våra förfäder. Kopplar till dagens många sjukdomar som inte existerade förr, sen brakar allt lös med välgrundat hat för vegetabiliska oljor. Även socker får sig en smäll. Kritiserar också exempelvis felaktiga tron på att kolesterol och mättat fett är dåligt med historia om vem och vad som ligger bakom det.
Största kritiken jag har är att det inte tas upp det positiva med kolhydrater, samt problemet antinutrienter i många grönsaker. Sedan är måltidsplanerna på slutet ganska värdelösa, men har man läst allt fram till dess borde man kunna lista ut själv vad man kan och inte kan äta.
Läs om du vill må bra och få vackra barn.
July 20, 2020
A cute doctor's lengthy exposition about how eating actual food will make you healthy and cute.
Well, maybe not cute, she clears that up in the beginning of the book when she talks about how she was a lanky teenage distance runner who subsisted entirely on spaghetti. It worked well enough to keep her crossing finish lines, right up until it didn't, and her leg fell apart. Bedridden and busted-ass, she started tweaking her diet and noticed the more real food she ate - meat, vegetables, cheeses, the good stuff - and the less refined sugar and Demon Wheat she allowed into the gangly, crooked temple of her body, the faster her recovery.
Doc Cate threw herself full force into studying the effects of nutrition on the body and, by extension, genetics, and came up with some beautifully problematic conclusions that I will outline with great relish.
The human body was designed to eat a specific kind of diet, and that kind of diet, along with regular exercise and adequate sleep, allows it to grow tall, strong, and hardy, all of which it's supposed to be. Failing to get the nutrition required by the human blueprint results in errors in genotype and more readily visible phenotype programming.
In utero, these errors can cause catastrophic physical deformity like limbs not working or babies born without eyes or whatever. Shanahan also suggests a causal factor between poor prenatal nutrition and functional/neurological disorders, like ADHD and autism. She justifies this with a quick crash course in genetics.
I'm not smart enough to know real genetics. A psychology degree gives you roughly the same credibility in pure scientific fields as having a Top Member badge on the I Fucking Love Science! facebook, so I was thankful Doc Shanahan laid it out in a way that slack-jawed layfolk like myself could understand.
Coded into your genetic schematics, you have the potential for genes that do virtually everything, and interact with each other to increase or decrease likelihood of things like red hair, height, a full and luscious beard, tig ol' biddies, et cetera. The coding is there no matter what, but whether or not a particular trait is activated is dependent on environmental factors. She likens it to toggling a switch on and off.
So our genome is full of these on/off switches for things like green eyes, clubfeet, proneness to addiction, or heart disease. Depending on what we eat, how much we move, what kind of movement we do, how much we rest, and how we manage our stress, some of these switches get turned on and some of them get turned off.
In an ideal situation, which is always a hunter gatherer society in this type of books, assuming ready access to a dependable animal protein supply, the toggles for "tall, strong, and hot" are going to be switched on. Most of the toggles for most cancer and heart disease are going to be switched off, and the toggles for diseases like diabetes and arthritis are going to be virtually nonexistent.
Horrifying, right? She goes on about physical attractiveness for most of the book, arguing that it remains one of the most reliable markers for physical and genetic health. Wrongthink in the extreme. You can't just say uggos are more likely to suffer physical and mental illnesses, rate themselves as less happy, and wind up in jail, no matter what kind of research you've got supporting it. It's 2020, dude. We're all equally beautiful at any size/shape/mineral deficit.
And for the rest of the book, she issues a throaty, sustained Valkyrie war cry leveled against shills like that vegan doctor (Dornish, I think his name is), the vegetable oil industry, Big Agriculture, and that son of a bitch Ancel Keys.
She's pretty mad about sugar and grain, which is normal for these kind of books, but she is absolutely livid about vegetable oil. She talks about the effects the trans-fats have on the arterial walls, resembling proteins that we use but functionally serving as trojan horses for compounds we can't (deadass, it's just poison), then sticking that along our cell membranes and functionally "deep frying us" from the inside out. And then that gets blamed on healthy foods like butter and meat, because our entire country runs on corn subsidization.
I was going to give it four stars, but I bumped it up to five. She just got so angry about vegetable oil. It was incredible. Damn, queen, you look adequately nourished when you're mad.
Well, maybe not cute, she clears that up in the beginning of the book when she talks about how she was a lanky teenage distance runner who subsisted entirely on spaghetti. It worked well enough to keep her crossing finish lines, right up until it didn't, and her leg fell apart. Bedridden and busted-ass, she started tweaking her diet and noticed the more real food she ate - meat, vegetables, cheeses, the good stuff - and the less refined sugar and Demon Wheat she allowed into the gangly, crooked temple of her body, the faster her recovery.
Doc Cate threw herself full force into studying the effects of nutrition on the body and, by extension, genetics, and came up with some beautifully problematic conclusions that I will outline with great relish.
The human body was designed to eat a specific kind of diet, and that kind of diet, along with regular exercise and adequate sleep, allows it to grow tall, strong, and hardy, all of which it's supposed to be. Failing to get the nutrition required by the human blueprint results in errors in genotype and more readily visible phenotype programming.
In utero, these errors can cause catastrophic physical deformity like limbs not working or babies born without eyes or whatever. Shanahan also suggests a causal factor between poor prenatal nutrition and functional/neurological disorders, like ADHD and autism. She justifies this with a quick crash course in genetics.
I'm not smart enough to know real genetics. A psychology degree gives you roughly the same credibility in pure scientific fields as having a Top Member badge on the I Fucking Love Science! facebook, so I was thankful Doc Shanahan laid it out in a way that slack-jawed layfolk like myself could understand.
Coded into your genetic schematics, you have the potential for genes that do virtually everything, and interact with each other to increase or decrease likelihood of things like red hair, height, a full and luscious beard, tig ol' biddies, et cetera. The coding is there no matter what, but whether or not a particular trait is activated is dependent on environmental factors. She likens it to toggling a switch on and off.
So our genome is full of these on/off switches for things like green eyes, clubfeet, proneness to addiction, or heart disease. Depending on what we eat, how much we move, what kind of movement we do, how much we rest, and how we manage our stress, some of these switches get turned on and some of them get turned off.
In an ideal situation, which is always a hunter gatherer society in this type of books, assuming ready access to a dependable animal protein supply, the toggles for "tall, strong, and hot" are going to be switched on. Most of the toggles for most cancer and heart disease are going to be switched off, and the toggles for diseases like diabetes and arthritis are going to be virtually nonexistent.
Horrifying, right? She goes on about physical attractiveness for most of the book, arguing that it remains one of the most reliable markers for physical and genetic health. Wrongthink in the extreme. You can't just say uggos are more likely to suffer physical and mental illnesses, rate themselves as less happy, and wind up in jail, no matter what kind of research you've got supporting it. It's 2020, dude. We're all equally beautiful at any size/shape/mineral deficit.
And for the rest of the book, she issues a throaty, sustained Valkyrie war cry leveled against shills like that vegan doctor (Dornish, I think his name is), the vegetable oil industry, Big Agriculture, and that son of a bitch Ancel Keys.
She's pretty mad about sugar and grain, which is normal for these kind of books, but she is absolutely livid about vegetable oil. She talks about the effects the trans-fats have on the arterial walls, resembling proteins that we use but functionally serving as trojan horses for compounds we can't (deadass, it's just poison), then sticking that along our cell membranes and functionally "deep frying us" from the inside out. And then that gets blamed on healthy foods like butter and meat, because our entire country runs on corn subsidization.
I was going to give it four stars, but I bumped it up to five. She just got so angry about vegetable oil. It was incredible. Damn, queen, you look adequately nourished when you're mad.
July 31, 2019
Tai knyga, kuri gulės ant mano naktinio staliuko prie lovos. Ne! Tai knyga, kuri visą laiką bus šalia manęs mano Ipade! Tai knyga, kuri privertė mane patikėti, kad nuo to, ką ir kaip mes valgome 95% priklauso kaip mes jaučiamės ir kokia yra mūsų sveikata. Buvusi bėgikė, gydytoja, atsakinga už LA Lakers krepšinio komandos sportininkų mitybą savo knygoje labai paprastai, o svarbiausia suprantamai, paaiškino kodėl mūsų valgomas maistas gali keisti genus, kokie procesai vyksta organizme pavalgius, kaip jie įtakoja mūsų savijautą, ką ir kaip valgyti, kad būtume sveiki, bei turėtume sveikus ir gražius vaikus. Labai norėčiau, kad šią knygą perskaitytų kuo daugiau žmonių, o ypač tų, kurie turi sveikatos problemų: nutukimas, viršsvoris, širdies ir kraujagyslių ligos, alergijos ir net... dažnos bėgikų traumos.
February 28, 2019
Very good read for those truly wanting to make a dietary lifestyle change and want more than a simple step by step guide. Cate Shanahan gets way into the science—sometimes too far for me to follow— of health and why we are genetically wired to eat a certain way. For those looking to get on a Keto or paleo diet this would be a good place to learn the science behind it.
February 11, 2023
Great in some chapters and meh, in some others. Good information but also a bit redundant. The author covers topics such as the importance of consuming nutrient-dense foods, the dangers of industrial seed oils and artificial sweeteners, and the benefits of fermented foods and traditional cooking methods.
It focuses on the 4 pillars of nutrition:
Meat - on the bone
Organs and Awful
Fresh raw animal and plant products
Fermented and sprouted foods
Overall a very good book.
It focuses on the 4 pillars of nutrition:
Meat - on the bone
Organs and Awful
Fresh raw animal and plant products
Fermented and sprouted foods
Overall a very good book.
August 8, 2023
Although I was super excited about this book and it was interesting at times, it was impossible to get through. A bit too scientific for me so I ended up skimming the last 100 pages to skip to “recently asked questions”. I feel like I could’ve just read the last third of the book and left with the same takeaway.
August 6, 2020
Puiki knyga, įnešusi nemažai aiškumo mitybos klausimais. Keliauja į gold collection lentyną.
November 2, 2017
Dr. Cate Shanahan is not only an author but also a board certified family physician who received her BS in biology from Rutgers University and trained in biochemistry and genetics at Cornell University graduate school. Shanahan attended Robert Wood Johnson School medical school before practicing in Hawaii for 10 years, where she studied ethnobotany. Shanahan used her learning experiences and applied it to her book Deep Nutrition: Why your genes need traditional food?. Multiple media outlets such as ESPN, VOGUE, Daily Mail, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Good Morning America have featured Shanahan’s work. Currently, Cate Shanahan consults for the Los Angeles Lakers. Lakers player Kobe Bryant says, “[W]e trust Dr. Cate implicitly. I’ve seen great results from it (Pro Nutrition Program) from when I started doing it last year”. Contributing to Cate’s book, her husband Luke Shanahan has an MFA studying in enology and culinary arts. Cate’s background in biochemistry and Luke’s background in the culinary field come together in their book Deep Nutrition: Why your genes need traditional food? Their backgrounds go hand in hand, complimenting each other making their book as informative for the audience as much as possible.
Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food? emphasizes “deep Whole Foods” that our bodies need to flourish. The book is divided into four pillars; meat on the bone, fermented and sprouted foods, organs, and raw plant and animal products. With those four pillars, Dr. Cate Shanahan delves into the world of health from talking about “second child syndrome” to the benefits of eating raw meat along with providing a lot of scientific evidence. The author herself, has suffered from chronic joint, muscle, and bone problems and uses her experience to relate to us and how we could avoid those problems. Shanahan goes beyond the meaning of “beauty” physically and how eating whole foods potentially can affect the looks of what we reproduce. The author studied ancient primitive populations to explain lifelong health and beauty that is rare in modern society nowadays. Shanahan also explores the study of epigenetics, which is essentially the study of how existing genes can be turned on or off by lifestyle factors like diet. Through the interesting and important information given, readers will reconsider the food choices they make everyday.
The author of Deep Nutrition narrates the book in 1st person. This helps the book by making the story more informative and personal. The tone of this book is informative but also inspirational. All the health information given persuades the audience to try living a healthier lifestyle. For example, the author shares facts about how our ancestors lived longer and stronger than people nowadays. What I found most intriguing was how the author includes how what we put in our bodies can affect the outcome of the future generation physically, mentally, and emotionally. I never really knew that poor food choices can affect our looks. I think that further research was done with this book more than any other health book out there. The author’s purpose of the book is to make us aware of how food really affects not only us, but our future generation (reproduction). I like how throughout the book the author compares our ancestor’s health to our own. Throughout the book the author focuses on four pillars of our health.
Deep Nutrition in my opinion isn’t your typical “health” book that you can pick up anywhere. It provides information you wouldn’t even consider or think of. Overall I think that book was well written, although I wouldn’t mind if the author did further research into how plant based diets work. Aside from that, I think the author should have made the chapters shorter in length and got down to the main point right away. Of course with all the research done, I can understand that it would be hard to simplify all the facts given. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who’s open to learning more about the subject of health and is comfortable reading the biochemistry language she uses. I noticed that Shanahan failed to talk about autoimmune diseases, specifically the common autoimmune disease that causes gluten intolerance. If I’m saying that I like the book and would recommend it to others, that’s a lot coming from me, a vegan. I say that because this book doesn’t really support veganism. In fact it talks about what kind of meat we should be consuming and how it should be cooked. One of the main ideas in this book is “meat on the bone”. I personally like to explore and learn all about different health related ideas; so it didn’t really bother me to read about meat. With that being said, if you are passionate about veganism I would recommend not touching this book as a whole. You can maybe pick at it and read a few chapters at the most.
Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food? emphasizes “deep Whole Foods” that our bodies need to flourish. The book is divided into four pillars; meat on the bone, fermented and sprouted foods, organs, and raw plant and animal products. With those four pillars, Dr. Cate Shanahan delves into the world of health from talking about “second child syndrome” to the benefits of eating raw meat along with providing a lot of scientific evidence. The author herself, has suffered from chronic joint, muscle, and bone problems and uses her experience to relate to us and how we could avoid those problems. Shanahan goes beyond the meaning of “beauty” physically and how eating whole foods potentially can affect the looks of what we reproduce. The author studied ancient primitive populations to explain lifelong health and beauty that is rare in modern society nowadays. Shanahan also explores the study of epigenetics, which is essentially the study of how existing genes can be turned on or off by lifestyle factors like diet. Through the interesting and important information given, readers will reconsider the food choices they make everyday.
The author of Deep Nutrition narrates the book in 1st person. This helps the book by making the story more informative and personal. The tone of this book is informative but also inspirational. All the health information given persuades the audience to try living a healthier lifestyle. For example, the author shares facts about how our ancestors lived longer and stronger than people nowadays. What I found most intriguing was how the author includes how what we put in our bodies can affect the outcome of the future generation physically, mentally, and emotionally. I never really knew that poor food choices can affect our looks. I think that further research was done with this book more than any other health book out there. The author’s purpose of the book is to make us aware of how food really affects not only us, but our future generation (reproduction). I like how throughout the book the author compares our ancestor’s health to our own. Throughout the book the author focuses on four pillars of our health.
Deep Nutrition in my opinion isn’t your typical “health” book that you can pick up anywhere. It provides information you wouldn’t even consider or think of. Overall I think that book was well written, although I wouldn’t mind if the author did further research into how plant based diets work. Aside from that, I think the author should have made the chapters shorter in length and got down to the main point right away. Of course with all the research done, I can understand that it would be hard to simplify all the facts given. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who’s open to learning more about the subject of health and is comfortable reading the biochemistry language she uses. I noticed that Shanahan failed to talk about autoimmune diseases, specifically the common autoimmune disease that causes gluten intolerance. If I’m saying that I like the book and would recommend it to others, that’s a lot coming from me, a vegan. I say that because this book doesn’t really support veganism. In fact it talks about what kind of meat we should be consuming and how it should be cooked. One of the main ideas in this book is “meat on the bone”. I personally like to explore and learn all about different health related ideas; so it didn’t really bother me to read about meat. With that being said, if you are passionate about veganism I would recommend not touching this book as a whole. You can maybe pick at it and read a few chapters at the most.
November 17, 2023
DNF @ ~15%. There’s so much that’s problematic about this book, and I only got through the author’s note, introduction, and like 2 chapters. Let me start with what I liked. Dr Cate makes valid points about how beholden American society is to the medical industry. medical industrial complex would like to prescribe pills to offset the shakes to offset the pills to solve our health problems and keep us financially entangled , while a simpler solution of exercising regularly and eating in moderation would be a good preventative solution for most issues that ail our population. But that’s where the good ends.
Starting with Dr Cate’s railing against traditional medicine, her stance sells short the advances in medicine that cures, prevents, and mitigates diseases that have absolutely nothing to do with the Four Pillars of bone-in meat, organs, fermented/sprouted food, and fresh food. In the book, she says “we don’t screen for brain problems using objective testing,” without mentioning MRI, CSF, EEF, and EMG, which I’m sure she knows about as a M.D., but it’s a claim that undercuts her message. She also posed a false dichotomy about who was right, the medical board that teaches our doctors, or John Fire Lame Deer, about the benefits of eating organ meat. Despite the dunking Dr Cate was doing on American culture, there was a suspicious absence of ham hocks, chitterlings, and chicken livers from the American south. To fetishize mystical foreign cultures with secret superfoods and omit African American culture is only the start of the classist and substantially racist perspective this book takes.
Dr Cate’s fixation on beautiful children and bodily symmetry seems creepy at best and has whispers of eugenics at worst. With this logic that poor nutrition leads to poor quality human beings, you have to conclude that poorer people, typically minorities in food deserts, are lower quality human beings. That’s kind of messed up. It reinforces “pretty privilege” that is pervasive in our society and that our self-worth is based off of our weight, our skin complexion, our skin quality, or the shape our face or body. To some extent, this coopting of organ meats and foods of the peasants of the past just feels like the next step in the gentrification of cuisine and health, where even if someone in an American food desert could get access to beef liver, if this book had its way, that beef liver would be marked at a premium to only be truly accessible for the health-conscious upper-middle class. Also, her casual ignoring of diseases that won’t get fixed by nutrition (or saying that eating healthier will solve the problem in your kids) is irresponsible, as a medical professional.
This is getting long, so a rapid fire round of bad things: calling vegetable oils “toxic” and undercuts the message and is just a scare tactic; water is toxic if you have too much. There are so many scare tactics and flimsy claims in this book, for example, “Any disease that damages your brain threatens your very identity. There’s nothing more devastating than that.” She doesn’t define things very well, like “fake foods are bad for us”. What defines fake? “Cutting sugar will starve cancer.” This has been proven false. Cancer does consume more sugar than other parts of the body, which is good for screening, cancerous cells like to use fat a lot. Also, she treats cancer as a monolith, as opposed to a class of disease that comes in many shapes and sizes. Colon cancer is different than bone marrow cancer. She lays out that the two toxic things we’re putting in our bodies are “vegetable oils and sugar”. Doesn’t even try to stipulate simple, refined, added sugars. Just sugar. So that includes complex carbohydrates in vegetables. Congrats, you just played yourself. But for real, being scared of these two foods and then putting organ meats and fermented foods on a pedestal is just reinforcing the unhealthy mindset that most Americans want to hear, which is “if I cut out X and/or eat more of Y, I’ll be healthy” when in reality it’s actually hard work and consistency that will lead to better health. She calls DNA an “ancient and powerful molecule” which just feels condescending and mean at this point. She said medical school doesn’t teach the root of the problem, but how to treat the problem, which feels fundamentally like a lie.
And that was for 15% of the book! I can only imagine how much longer this would be if I read the whole thing. NOT GOOD/5.
Starting with Dr Cate’s railing against traditional medicine, her stance sells short the advances in medicine that cures, prevents, and mitigates diseases that have absolutely nothing to do with the Four Pillars of bone-in meat, organs, fermented/sprouted food, and fresh food. In the book, she says “we don’t screen for brain problems using objective testing,” without mentioning MRI, CSF, EEF, and EMG, which I’m sure she knows about as a M.D., but it’s a claim that undercuts her message. She also posed a false dichotomy about who was right, the medical board that teaches our doctors, or John Fire Lame Deer, about the benefits of eating organ meat. Despite the dunking Dr Cate was doing on American culture, there was a suspicious absence of ham hocks, chitterlings, and chicken livers from the American south. To fetishize mystical foreign cultures with secret superfoods and omit African American culture is only the start of the classist and substantially racist perspective this book takes.
Dr Cate’s fixation on beautiful children and bodily symmetry seems creepy at best and has whispers of eugenics at worst. With this logic that poor nutrition leads to poor quality human beings, you have to conclude that poorer people, typically minorities in food deserts, are lower quality human beings. That’s kind of messed up. It reinforces “pretty privilege” that is pervasive in our society and that our self-worth is based off of our weight, our skin complexion, our skin quality, or the shape our face or body. To some extent, this coopting of organ meats and foods of the peasants of the past just feels like the next step in the gentrification of cuisine and health, where even if someone in an American food desert could get access to beef liver, if this book had its way, that beef liver would be marked at a premium to only be truly accessible for the health-conscious upper-middle class. Also, her casual ignoring of diseases that won’t get fixed by nutrition (or saying that eating healthier will solve the problem in your kids) is irresponsible, as a medical professional.
This is getting long, so a rapid fire round of bad things: calling vegetable oils “toxic” and undercuts the message and is just a scare tactic; water is toxic if you have too much. There are so many scare tactics and flimsy claims in this book, for example, “Any disease that damages your brain threatens your very identity. There’s nothing more devastating than that.” She doesn’t define things very well, like “fake foods are bad for us”. What defines fake? “Cutting sugar will starve cancer.” This has been proven false. Cancer does consume more sugar than other parts of the body, which is good for screening, cancerous cells like to use fat a lot. Also, she treats cancer as a monolith, as opposed to a class of disease that comes in many shapes and sizes. Colon cancer is different than bone marrow cancer. She lays out that the two toxic things we’re putting in our bodies are “vegetable oils and sugar”. Doesn’t even try to stipulate simple, refined, added sugars. Just sugar. So that includes complex carbohydrates in vegetables. Congrats, you just played yourself. But for real, being scared of these two foods and then putting organ meats and fermented foods on a pedestal is just reinforcing the unhealthy mindset that most Americans want to hear, which is “if I cut out X and/or eat more of Y, I’ll be healthy” when in reality it’s actually hard work and consistency that will lead to better health. She calls DNA an “ancient and powerful molecule” which just feels condescending and mean at this point. She said medical school doesn’t teach the root of the problem, but how to treat the problem, which feels fundamentally like a lie.
And that was for 15% of the book! I can only imagine how much longer this would be if I read the whole thing. NOT GOOD/5.
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