Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture
Marvin Harris - 1985
He explains the diversity of the world's gastronomic customs, demonstrating that what appear at first glance to be irrational food tastes turn out really to have been shaped by practical, or economic, or political necessity. In addition, his smart and spirited treatment sheds wisdom on such topics as why there has been an explosion in fast food, why history indicates that it's "bad" to eat people but "good" to kill them, and why children universally reject spinach. Good to Eat is more than an intellectual adventure in food for thought. It is a highly readable, scientifically accurate, and fascinating work that demystifies the causes of myriad human cultural differences.
The Secret Life of Fat: The Science Behind the Body's Least Understood Organ and What It Means for You
Sylvia Tara - 2016
In fact, your body is actually endowed with many self-defense measures to hold on to fat. For example, fat can use stem cells to regenerate; increase our appetite if it feels threatened; and use bacteria, genetics, and viruses to expand itself. The secret to losing twenty pounds? You have to work with your fat, not against it. Tara explains how your fat influences your appetite and willpower, how it defends itself when attacked, and why it grows back so quickly. The Secret Life of Fat brings cutting-edge research together with historical perspectives to reveal fat’s true identity: an endocrine organ that, in the right amount, is critical to our health. Fat triggers puberty, enables our reproductive and immune systems, and even affects brain size.Although we spend $60 billion annually fighting fat, our efforts are often misinformed and misdirected. Tara expertly illustrates the complex role that genetics, hormones, diet, exercise, and history play in our weight, and The Secret Life of Fat sets you on the path to beat the bulge once and for all.
Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley's Mission to Change What We Eat
Larissa Zimberoff - 2021
If you, like me, suspect they’re selling the sizzle more than the steak, read Technically Food for the real story.” —Dan Barber, the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns Eating a veggie burger used to mean consuming a mushy, flavorless patty that you would never confuse with a beef burger. But now products from companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Eat Just, and others that were once fringe players in the food space are dominating the media, menus in restaurants, and the refrigerated sections of our grocery stores. With the help of scientists working in futuristic labs––making milk without cows and eggs without chickens––start-ups are creating wholly new food categories. Real food is being replaced by high-tech. Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat by investigative reporter Larissa Zimberoff is the first comprehensive survey of the food companies at the forefront of this booming business. Zimberoff pokes holes in the mania behind today’s changing food landscape to uncover the origins of these mysterious foods and demystify them. These sometimes ultraprocessed and secretly produced foods are cheered by consumers and investors because many are plant-based—often vegan—and help address societal issues like climate change, animal rights, and our planet’s dwindling natural resources. But are these products good for our personal health? Through news-breaking revelations, Technically Food examines the trade-offs of replacing real food with technology-driven approximations. Chapters go into detail about algae, fungi, pea protein, cultured milk and eggs, upcycled foods, plant-based burgers, vertical farms, cultured meat, and marketing methods. In the final chapter Zimberoff talks to industry voices––including Dan Barber, Mark Cuban, Marion Nestle, and Paul Shapiro––to learn where they see food in 20 years. As our food system leaps ahead to a sterilized lab of the future, we think we know more about our food than we ever did. But because so much is happening so rapidly, we actually know less about the food we are eating. Until now.
The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Astonishing Dialogue Taking Place in Our Bodies Impacts Health, Weight, and Mood
Emeran Mayer - 2015
While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the microbiome—the microorganisms that live inside us—communicate with one another. In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:• heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet• balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting, and cutting out sugar and processed foods• promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption• boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s andAlzheimer’s• generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and depression• prevent and heal GI disorders such as leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and allergies, and IBS, as well as digestive discomfort such as heartburn and bloating• and much more.
The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss
Jason Fung - 2016
Weight gain and obesity are driven by hormones—in everyone—and only by understanding the effects of insulin and insulin resistance can we achieve lasting weight loss.In this highly readable and provocative book, Dr. Jason Fung sets out an original, robust theory of obesity that provides startling insights into proper nutrition. In addition to his five basic steps, a set of lifelong habits that will improve your health and control your insulin levels, Dr. Fung explains how to use intermittent fasting to break the cycle of insulin resistance and reach a healthy weight—for good.
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
Evelyn Tribole - 1995
But the problem is not you, it's that dieting, with its emphasis on rules and regulations, has stopped you from listening to your body. Written by two prominent nutritionists, "Intuitive Eating" focuses on nurturing your body rather than starving it, encourages natural weight loss, and helps you find the weight you were meant to be. Learn: *How to reject diet mentality forever*How our three Eating Personalities define our eating difficulties*How to feel your feelings without using food*How to honor hunger and feel fullness*How to follow the ten principles of Intuitive Eating, step-by-step*How to achieve a new and safe relationship with food and, ultimately, your body With much more compassionate, thoughtful advice on satisfying, healthy living, this newly revised edition also includes a chapter on how the Intuitive Eating philosophy can be a safe and effective model on the path to recovery from an eating disorder.
Metabolic Autophagy: Practice Intermittent Fasting and Resistance Training to Build Muscle and Promote Longevity (Metabolic Autophagy Diet Book 1)
Siim Land - 2019
One of the few known ways of increasing lifespan in almost all species is caloric restriction and energy deprivation. This triggers many metabolic pathways and processes that make the organism more adaptable to environmental stressors and thus live longer. The metabolism has two sub-categories or sub-processes called anabolism and catabolism. * Anabolism, meaning ‘upward’ in Greek, describes the synthesis of biological molecules to build up new physical matter in the body. * Catabolism, meaning ‘downward’ in Greek, describes the breaking down of biological molecules to release energy. This can apply to the breakdown of bodily tissue as well as the digestion of food that then gets assimilated into the body through anabolic processes. In addition to ’Metabolic’, you can also find another word in the title - ’Autophagy’, which translates from Ancient Greek into ’self-devouring’ or ’eating of self’. This is central to the main practice of this book. By maintaining a balance between anabolism and catabolism, you can effectively extend your lifespan. The process of autophagy entails your healthy cells devouring the old, worn-out, weak ones and converting them back into energy. It’s literally your body eating itself and using that to maintain homeostasis. There are many longevity-boosting benefits to this as illustrated in virtually all other species. This book is a collection of guidelines about the principles of the anabolic-catabolic cycles in regards to nutrition and exercise. It’s definitely not a panacea – a solution or remedy for all conditions and circumstances. Instead, it’s a very specific protocol that’s not supposed to apply for all situations. Metabolic Autophagy will teach you: * What increases lifespan in humans and other species * Why there's so much disease and obesity in society * How to promote health and longevity with intermittent fasting * What is Autophagy and how it works * How to age slower and be vigorous throughout your life * Which foods make you live longer and build muscle * How the nutrient regulators of mTOR, AMPK, sirtuins, FOXO proteins, hormesis and others affect longevity * What are circadian rhythms and how they affect your health * Metabolic Autophagy Foods list and their anabolic-catabolic score * Supplements that support muscle growth and longevity * Many extras and bonuses in regards to food and exercise Siim Land is a best-selling author, anthropologist, entrepreneur, high-performance coach and a biohacker who writes about optimizing health and human performance. This book incorporates daily lifestyle and dietary practices that help to cross the chasm between longevity and high performance.
Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere - Alive
Les Stroud - 2008
Readers will learn:How to make a survival shelter and why a lean-to is largely a waste of time.Why survival kits are important, and why you should make your own.Where to find water and why drinking contaminated water is sometimes warranted.How to locate and trap small animals and why the notion of tracking and hunting large game is largely a pipe dream.Whether seasoned in the outdoor arts or new to adventuring, all readers will learn something from Survive!. Stroud's many colorful anecdotes and cut-to-the-chase philosophy not only make for an entertaining read, but also enhance anyone's ability to focus on the main goal when everything else has gone wrong—survival.
The Fiber35 Diet: Nature's Weight Loss Secret
Brenda Watson - 1955
Now you can do the same "The Fiber35 Diet" will show you how to lose weight and improve your health by taking advantage of the extraordinary health benefits of fiber.In recent decades, a change has taken place in America. In contrast to the fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains once prevalent in our diet, we now consume an overwhelming number and amount of processed foods filled with refined sugars and harmful trans fats. As a result, we have almost completely stripped our diet of what is quite possibly the most beneficial nutrient on the planet.In addition to helping prevent many of the major diseases of our time -- including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer -- fiber helps to increase satiety, reduce hunger, and actually decrease caloric intake."The Fiber35 Diet" will show you how getting 35 grams of fiber every day is the key to losing weight and staying healthy for life. Unlike many of the low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets that currently saturate the market, the Fiber35 Diet is based on scientifically verified techniques clinically proven to help you lose weight. Most important, this diet corrects one of the most dangerous falsehoods of our time: that carbohydrates are bad. "The Fiber 35 Diet" teaches you a lifetime eating system that helps you shed pounds safely and effectively.This book includes: Straightforward, easy-to-understand concepts that have been researched in detail and clinically proven. A personalized weight loss formula based on how many pounds you want to lose. Recommendations about dietary supplements and nutritious food choices. Healthful and fiber-rich recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. A comprehensive strength and cardio training program designed to help you maintain your ideal body weight.Twenty years ago, author Brenda Watson was overweight, chronically tired, and battling constant health problems. Today she inspires hundreds of thousands of people just like you with her story of personal transformation. By starting the Fiber35 Diet, you are taking the first step on your own journey.
The Longevity Diet: Discover the New Science Behind Stem Cell Activation and Regeneration to Slow Aging, Fight Disease, and Optimize Weight
Valter Longo - 2016
The culmination of 25 years of research on aging, nutrition, and disease across the globe, this unique program lays out a simple solution to living to a healthy old age through nutrition. The key is combining the healthy everyday eating plan the book outlines, with the scientifically engineered fasting-mimicking diet, or FMD; the FMD, done just 3-4 times a year, does away with the misery and starvation most of us experience while fasting, allowing you to reap all the beneficial health effects of a restrictive diet, while avoiding negative stressors, like low energy and sleeplessness. Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at USC and the Program on Longevity and Cancer at IFOM in Milan, designed the FMD after making a series of remarkable discoveries in mice, then in humans, indicating that specific diets can activate stem cells and promote regeneration and rejuvenation in multiple organs to significantly reduce risk for diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.
Brain Food: The Surprising Science of Eating for Cognitive Power
Lisa Mosconi - 2018
And in this eye-opening book from an author who is both a neuroscientist and a certified integrative nutritionist, we learn what should be on our menu.Dr. Lisa Mosconi, whose research spans an extraordinary range of specialties including brain science, the microbiome, and nutritional genomics, notes that the dietary needs of the brain are substantially different from those of the other organs, yet few of us have any idea what they might be. Her innovative approach to cognitive health incorporates concepts that most doctors have yet to learn. Busting through advice based on pseudoscience, Dr. Mosconi provides recommendations for a complete food plan, while calling out noteworthy surprises, including why that paleo diet you are following may not be ideal, why avoiding gluten may be a terrible mistake, and how simply getting enough water can dramatically improve alertness.Including comprehensive lists of what to eat and what to avoid, a detailed quiz that will tell you where you are on the brain health spectrum, and 24 mouth-watering brain-boosting recipes that grow out of Dr. Mosconi's own childhood in Italy, Brain Food gives us the ultimate plan for a healthy brain. Brain Food will appeal to anyone looking to improve memory, prevent cognitive decline, eliminate brain fog, lift depression, or just sharpen their edge.
Power Foods for the Brain: An Effective 3-Step Plan to Protect Your Mind and Strengthen Your Memory
Neal D. Barnard - 2013
Neal Barnard’s simple 3-step plan to protecting your brain with your diet.Could your breakfast or lunch be harming your memory?Are you missing out on the foods that could prevent Alzheimer's disease?Everyone knows good nutrition supports your overall health, but few realize that certain foods-power foods-can protect your brain and optimize its function, and even dramatically reduce your risk of Alzheimer's Disease. Now, New York Times bestselling author, clinical researcher and health advocate Dr. Neal Barnard has gathered the most up-to-date research and created a groundbreaking program that can strengthen your memory and protect your brain's health.In this effective 3-step plan Dr. Barnard reveals which foods to increase in your diet and which to avoid, and shows you specific exercises and supplements that can make a difference. It will not only help boost brain health, but it can also reduce your risk of Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and other less serious malfunctions such as low energy, poor sleep patterns, irritability, and lack of focus. You'll discover: The best foods to increase cognitive functionDairy products and meats-the dangers they may pose to your memoryThe surprising roles alcohol and caffeine play in Alzheimer's riskThe latest research on toxic metals, like aluminum found in cookware, soda cans, and common antacids.Plus a detailed menu plan, recipes and time-saving kitchen tips
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
Gary Taubes - 2010
The result of thorough research, keen insight, and unassailable common sense, Good Calories, Bad Calories immediately stirred controversy and acclaim among academics, journalists, and writers alike. Michael Pollan heralded it as “a vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food.” Building upon this critical work in Good Calories, Bad Calories and presenting fresh evidence for his claim, Taubes now revisits the urgent question of what’s making us fat—and how we can change—in this exciting new book. Persuasive, straightforward, and practical, Why We Get Fat makes Taubes’s crucial argument newly accessible to a wider audience.Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the “calories-in, calories-out” model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulin’s regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid? Packed with essential information and concluding with an easy-to-follow diet, Why We Get Fat is an invaluable key in our understanding of an international epidemic and a guide to what each of us can do about it.
The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics
Vandana Shiva - 1991
Vandana Shiva examined the impact of the first Green Revolution on the breadbasket of India. In a cogent empirical argument, she shows how the 'quick fix' promise of large gains in output pushed aside serious pursuit of an alternative agricultural strategy grounded in respect for the environmental wisdom of peasant systems and building an egalitarian, needs-prientated agriculture consistent with the village-based, endogenous political traditions of Gandhism. Dr Shiva documents the destruction of genetic diversity and soil fertility that resulted and in highly original fashion shows how the Green Revolution also contributed to the acute social and political conflicts now tearing the Punjab apart. Set in the context of a sophisticated critique of the privileged epistemological position achieved by modern science, whereby it both aspires to provide technological solutions for social and political problems while at the same time disclaiming responsibility for the new problems which it creates in its wake, the author looks to the future in an analysis of a new project to apply the latest Gene Revolution technology to India and warns of the further environmental and social damage which will ensue.