Recommended Reads
These are books I highly recommend. They will educate about health and nutrition, provide thousands or recipes and explain in a lot of detail why eating nutrient dense wholefoods is essential.
‘Nutrition and Physical Degeneration’, Weston A Price, Price Pottenger Nutrition; 8th edition, 2008
Originally published in 1939 this masterwork showcases Price’s unique insights into anthropology and nutrition. Dr Price was a dentist who travelled the world in the 1930s and documented the diets and health of numerous native peoples, such as Eskimos, isolated Swiss, Australian Aborigines, African and N. and S. American tribes, etc. What he found was that their nutrition which consisted of local nutrient dense foods was THE KEY influence on their dental health as well as their overall health. He found that the groups that were trading with Westerners exhibited: rampant tooth decay, infectious diseases, long and painful labour and degenerative conditions…….This occurred within 1 GENERATION of ‘westernisation’ of their diet. Nutrition has a DIRECT impact on our health, as evidenced by numerous photos of natives following traditional diets and their westernised counterparts. This is truly an eye-opening work – you will be able to actually see nutritional impacts on these people’s faces. A must read.
‘Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats’, Sally Fallon and Dr Mary Enig, Newtrends Publishing, 1999
My nutritional ‘bible’. Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A Price foundation in the US and is a passionate advocate of nutrient dense wholefoods diet. Mary Enig is her co-author with a PhD in Chemistry and was the first voice in the US against hydrogenated fats decades before the authorities woke up to their dangers.
This book provides detailed and highly informative nutritional information as well as thousands of recipes, both traditional and modern all of which are wholefood meals, snacks and drinks. A must have!
‘The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby & Child Care’, Sally Fallon Morell, Dr Thomas S. Cowan
The new book from Sally Fallon, this one is more specific to pre-conception, birth, babies/toddlers and kids. Everything you will ever need to know about feeding your children and looking after them without unnecessary drugs and using nutrient dense foods.
‘Practical Paleo’, Diane Sanfillipo, Victory Belt Publishing; 2012
Super easy to follow and understand with many tear out sheets on different foods to keep/stick on fridge. Sanfillipo makes following the Paleo lifestyle easy and provides numerous recipes. Includes great diagrams, including a ‘poo’ chart to help you navigate your digestive health.
‘Good calories, bad calories’, Gary Taubes, Anchor, 2008
The definitive work on the ‘diet-heart’ hypothesis from the science writer of 2001 New York Times Magazine article, ‘What if It’s All a Big Fat Lie?’. Taubes charts the history of what came to be the common dietary belief of the last 50 years, that of cholesterol causing hearth disease. Taubes comprehensively deconstructs this myth and explains (with references to thousands of scientific studies) the real culprits behind heart disease, which have nothing to do with dietary cholesterol but a lot to do with refined carbohydrates and sugars. A must read for anyone with a family history of cardiovascular disorders.
‘Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet’, Elaine Gloria Gottschall, The Kirkton Press; Revised edition, 1994
The original specific carbohydrate diet for those suffering various digestive disorders such as IBS, chron’s disease, ulcerative colitis as well as autism. Highly recommended.
‘French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters’, Karen Le Billon, William Morrow, 2012
A great read if you’ve ever faced the ‘fussy eater’ dilemma. Le Billon shares her family’s successful experiment in overcoming fussy eating in a 3 and a 7 year old. Whilst I don’t agree with some recommendations from a nutritional point of view (eg: baguette with melted chocolate for afternoon snack!), this is a great book that describes the appreciation and importance placed on food in the French culture and the importance of teaching kids from a young age to understand and value a diverse menu of foods without turning up their noses to any dish.
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