Reading: The Cheapest Health Insurance
Our family used to approach food much like any other family with the idea of trying to eat a balanced diet. I think it is reasonable to assume that any person can agree that food is one of their favorite yet incredibly frustrating aspects of life, because they oscillate between "being good" and sticking to a healthy diet or "binging" by eating high amounts of junk food and candy. Our personal food revolution occurred in 2008 after reading a book called The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. This book fundamentally changed the way we viewed the products available in the grocery store as processed, "perfect," and containing a fraction of the original nutrition. So, without further ado, here is our recommended book list to encourage your "food revolution":
1. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Micheal Pollan
Summary: Pollan explores the different ways we as omnivores approach eating a meal. He highlights the difference in the approach pre and post-industrialization and how we have fundamentally changed the availability of food with modern preservation and transportation technologies. He then follows different food chains that sustain us (organic, foraged, industrial) in a commentary and critique on the American way of eating.
Buy it here.
2. Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
Summary: Taubes argues that the past decades of dietary advice emphasizing low-fat diets are consistently incorrect. Taubes takes the position that carbohydrates, specifically white flour, sugar, and starches, are contributing to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.
Buy it here.
3. Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It by Gary Taubes
Summary: Taubes elaborates on Good Calories Bad Calories to provide another look into the danger of refined carbohydrates, as well as direct applications of how people can change their diets.
Buy it here.
4. Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss
Summary: Moss exposes how big food corporations have distorted the American diet in favor of formulating food products that keep people eating far more than they did in the mid-1900s. He examines how the food industry has capitalized the chemical signals in the brain's reward center to keep Americans addicted to highly concentrated sugar, salt, and fatty substances.
Buy it here.
5. It Starts With Food by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig
Summary: It Starts With Food outlines a clear, balanced, and sustainable plan to change the way you eat food. The Hartwigs' provide their research and the science behind their program Whole 30.
Buy it here.
6. Whole 30 by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig
Summary: The Whole 30 is the practical application of the Hartwigs' research in It Starts With Food. There are timelines, recipes, meal plans, and more to help you with your Whole 30 journey.
Buy it here.
7. Wheat Belly by William Davis
Summary: Davis highlights how pervasive wheat, and therefore gluten, has become in the traditional American diet. Modern wheat is entirely different from what our ancestors would have used, which is one of the reasons he identifies it as the cause of serious health issues. He provides diet recommendations and applications based on his clinical trials and results from his own patients.
Buy it here.
8. Grain Brain by David Perlmutter
Summary: Perlmutter describes the link between grains and their negative effect on the brain, so much so that he attributes inflammation from grains to almost every modern neurologic malady. He takes you through the research and proposes a new perspective on brain health: one that is entirely dependent on the foods you are eating.
Buy it here.
Needless to say, our appetite has only grown for more information about food and its relationship to our health. Reading books continues to help us modify and define our family's health plan- starting in the kitchen. We hope you can take advantage of our experience beginning with this reading list. We know that time is very valuable, but make the choice to invest in yourself and become informed. Happy reading!
