Here
are a few books I read, that are worth reading. I will elaborate more
as you read on. Keep in mind, that the order I write them in is
important, so read the whole thing like it’s a review of a collection of
works. It seems like each book came to me at the right moment, step by
step developing a broad story. In the end of this book reviews, you will
find a link to an additional article that takes the knowledge you can
derive from reading these books and makes sense out of it all in the
hopes to explain a high enlightening notion of mechanisms of health by
natural design.
- Omnivore's Dilemma - by Micheal Pollan
- Gut and Psychology Syndrome - by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
- Full Moon Feast - by Jessica Prentice
- Earthing - by Clinton Ober, Dr. Stephan Sinatra and Micheal Zuker
Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Omnivore's
Dilemma is an extensive investigation by journalist Micheal Pollan, who
describes western society's close relationship with corn. How corn
depends on human hands to survive, and how our industry today is based
upon corn's overabundant farming to supposedly feed the nation. Micheal
goes on a journey to track down the simple fast food staple found in a
Burger at MacDonald, by going to see the farms that drove the animals
off the land in order to supply an excessive amount of corn, that ends
up largely consumed by the animals that were driven off the land and
placed instead in a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO).
In
his meticulous investigations, Micheal describes the huge change in US
policies that propels farms to lose their farming security and convert
their operations into supplying excessive amounts of corn. This change
in policy dragged many farmers into a mode of survival from season to
season. There is a hunting description of the sites where the corn is
gathered and the operations that hold thousands of livestock in
conditions far from humane.
Nutrition
isn't the concern in this book, but rather the history, advancement in
technology and the practicing policies of the western civilization. The
book moves on to another section, devoted to Michael's personal
involvement in helping a grass farmer named Joel Salatin in his
extraordinary farming design based on mimicking patterns in nature. Joel
Salatin describes it as Beyond Organic, as a practice of maintaining a
rhythm and cycle of growing grass as the main focus and administering
livestock and poultry at the right time. Michael describes a week long
adventure on Polyface farm in Virginia, and has the opportunity to
supply juicy quotes from Joel Salatin and the intimate interaction with
the meat that comes out of that farm.
In
the Third and last section, Michael goes on an adventure of intimate
explorations of a hunter and gatherer, as far as he could experience in
the Bay Area and California wilderness. He debates the issue of hunting
and gathering, supplying a wealth of quotes from poets and renowned
writers on the subject. He makes friends with people knowledgeable in
hunting and gathering, and makes his personal hunt come true and an
unforgettable foraging adventure after wild and exotic mushrooms. In the
end he cooks up a full meal in recognition for his efforts and
gratitude for the chance to explore and share with the readers in his
book.
After
reading his book, the Omnivore's Dilemma, I developed a huge
appreciation for his work. Micheal Pollan describes and debates an
Omnivore's dilemma in western civilization. Without his work, one cannot
fathom how brutal western policies are and how it has driven the
healthy image of a farm far far from what it traditionally was and is
pictured in most of our imaginations. Thanks to him, one can gather real
information on the options a human being faces, whether to drive
animals off the land and conform to a brutal governmental policy, or
become a land orchestrator, with the heart and knowledge of mimicking
nature as to supply a more harmonious rhythm to meat production, or take
it a huge step backward in human evolution and instead just hunt for
meat and gather mushrooms.
The
bottom line is, you have many options to choose from, and they are
equally accessible. It might only be a matter of personal education and
at the disposal of those who own the skills that essentially make a way
of life approachable.
Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
Her
first edition published in 1988, the book I read was the 7th edition,
and somewhat up-to-date on the science relating to nutritional
knowledge. The book has a clear and undeniable connection between the
health of the digestive tract and chronic illnesses, specifically
psychological ones. The main focus of the book is understanding
digestion processes, the overwhelming connection between poor diet and
the development of an imbalance in gut bacterial populations, and the
best part is the in-depth guide into a protocol the doctor has
developed, that has successfully sealed and healed the gut of many
Autistic, Schizophrenic and Psychotic children and adults and improved
their lives greatly.
The
book is as simple as a guide designed to restore digestive health by
eliminating carbohydrate rich food, and implementing a more traditional
diet based upon meat and vegetable stocks, fermented food (primarily
sauerkraut, but also yogurt and sourdough) and much more. Because the
gut is home to thousands of different bacterial species and sub-species,
the undeniable truth that “food controls the population” gets a deeper
meaning, largely related to our personal responsibility to the state of
our health. Though, due to growing psychological disorders in children,
the parents are liable to the child’s health resulting from the toxic
environment that their bodies are exposed to on a meal to meal basis
while growing up in western civilization.
Dr.
Natasha exposes you to the effect of sugar consumption. Due to sugar
being an easy source of food for opportunistic bacteria (those who tend
to develop a pathogenic expression), those grow in numbers and outnumber
the probiotic bacteria (symbiotic and life giving bacteria). Consuming
sugar, from sweets and processed foods (like bread and pasta), causes
these bad bacteria to secrete toxins, that damage the gut wall and
severely impair digestion of proteins and fats. She introduces the
opiate-derivatives from gluten (gliadorphin) and milk
(beta-casomorphin-7), as being an issue of improper digestion by
intestinal enzymes due to damage done by bad bacteria to the cells that
secrete them. The combination of a damaged gut wall (leaky gut) and
opiate-derivatives due to incomplete digestion leads to exposure of the
brain to toxins, that leave the child’s immune system impaired and
cognitive growth is disrupted.
She
essentially leads the reader into an understanding that digestion can
be improved by adhering to beneficial food sources and specifically the
introduction of probiotic food. Those good bacteria improve in
population on the diet she guides you into adopting, which rewards you
with a healthier gut and complete digestion. The idea is to replace the
dominating populations that are not beneficial for you, with populations
that are beneficial for the cells environment. This is a protocol that
lasts from a year to two years, and starts with eliminating a lot of
food choices from your meals and gradually adding more choices over time
in a process that verifies your bodies tolerance to these foods.
I
was impressed by the wealth of knowledge she shares, and in particular
the depth in guiding the reader into practicing a diet for themselves or
for another, as a therapy. She strongly suggests those who are planning
on having a baby, to start the process by amending their own personal
diet, as the baby inherits the bacterial population from the mother at
birth and through the parents eating habits. With proper nutritional
habits implemented prior to the baby’s conception you can assure a
smooth pregnancy and a healthy delivery. With proper probiotic balance,
the child will develop a strong immune system and will have a smooth
transition into solid food. She describes many cases of Autistic
children that were suffering language and school setbacks to have
regained learning capabilities and in many of these cases these children
were able to reverse the symptoms of these syndromes to undetectable
levels.
Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice
Stumbling
on this book is a blessing, as the author of this collection of
traditional wisdom's imparts on the reader a comprehension of health from
a traditional perspective on nutrition, as simple as a yearly lunar
cycle.
Jessica
Prentice loves food and her personal journey of illnesses drove her to
deal with health and nutrition from an early age. Her cooking skills are
evident between each chapter that follows an in-depth conversation on a
particular lunar cycle. You will find after each chapter an
accompanying collection of recipes associated with that particular cycle
of the moon. What makes sense in this book is the abstractness of a
lunar cycle and its connection to our traditional lifestyle following
the changes in seasonal availability of major staple foods. She begins
with the Hunger Moon, which is devoted to the time of year that scarcity
is everywhere and accepted, in the spirit of celebrating and
appreciating the lack of abundance before nature restores its resources.
Scarcity exists and the awareness and endeavor through such a moon
period imparts a deeper connection of spirit to the forces of nature and
it’s governance over life and its cycles.
What
follows are moons devoted to significant abundances throughout the
year. Like the Sap Moon, that discusses syrup production from maple
trees and many other trees, and the traditional process of cooking the
sap down into sugar. Every chapter you will find the author quoting
texts from traditional sources, like stories from indigenous tribes that
practices a similar activity around that time and how they found
nourishment from nature by following this intimate rhythm. Other moon
cycles worth mentioning are the Egg Moon, that discusses the correlation
between different cultures and their celebration of a moon full of egg
production, like Easter. Or the moon of producing fat, since livestock
is kept traditionally and helped cultures survive with its many gifts,
you find that cultures would cherish fat as a storage food for time of
scarcity.
The
main drive of the book is to restore your connection to food, because
the author found health and healing from connecting with food. In a
world where fast food and processed food is convenient, many suffer
digestion problems and lack the knowledge of preparing their own meals
let alone comprehend their seasonal availability and importance. Real
food heals those that intimately interact with it, which form a personal
bond of spirit to spirit. As all food is alive, the ultimate
understanding of “Living takes life”, whether a life of a plant or a
life of an animal, a connection to the cycles of life and death is
discussed. Not in order to convert plant-base eaters into omnivores, but
in order to look at the sacredness of life as it goes past our lives
and truly nourishes us.
I
greatly cherish this collection of insightful descriptions of
traditional wisdom and forgotten practices. To fathom the notion that
Honeymoon originates as a moon cycle, when newlyweds would consume only
raw honey in order to increase their fertility, pulls you back into
wondering how honey was once understood as truly nourishing. Real honey,
which is unprocessed, meaning not heated and not filtered, can supply
all the amino acids the body requires as well as many nutrients,
vitamins and antioxidants. It’s only when you process it that you lose
the nourishing effect of honey, and all you are left with is sugar.
I
highly recommend reading Full Moon Feast, as it really is dedicated for
health by learning about the traditional way of life prior to the
industrial age. Most of us have not inherited good eating habits and
cooking skills due to the fast pace of western civilization, and thus we
suffer from digestive problems due to processed foods found abundantly
around us year in and year out. Scarcity is not any issue anymore, so it
becomes convenient to order online a hamburger, which we have no idea
where it came from, how many animals are in that one burger and how far
it had to travel.
Earthing by Clinton Ober, Dr. Stephan Sinatra and Martin Zucker
Is
this the most important health discovery ever? After reading this book I
understood our connection to nature on a whole different scale.
Earthing, called also Grounding, is the simple act of exposing your bare
feet to the earth’s soil. This helps discharge the static buildup in
your body, that harms internal hardware (like the mitochondria), and
allows the flooding of all your tissues and organs body-wide with simple
antioxidants – namely, electrons.
This
book was written as a simple introduction into the science of
antioxidant replenishment through discovering your true connection,
physiologically speaking, with the planet you are living on. It delves
into the main issue of illnesses, as it is reflected by scientific
journals, called inflammation, and how half an hour of exposure to these
ground currents turns all inflammation body-wide just like water to
fire.
The
book begins with Clinton Ober telling his personal life story of
discovering the healing effects and his personal desire to share it with
anyone in his path. He didn’t have much of a scientific background, but
that didn’t stop him from conducting the first studies that clearly
demonstrate an improvement in people who connected to this stream of
free electrons. He later got involved with Dr. Sinatra, a cardiologist
who clinically understood the hearts electrical nature, and had
conducted many more studies that improve the literature on the subject
of Earthing.
Personally,
I had been grounding for a while prior to reading the book because of
learning about the benefits of Earthing from investigating it online.
Though, I found that I have a personal account on the efficacy of
Earthing. I had found it gave me a lot of energy and my abilities to
sleep were smooth. At some point I started neglecting to ground myself,
and I noticed digestion problems, sleep problems, muscle stiffness and
fatigue throughout my day. Even eating a full meal, that once gave me
lots of energy to keep on working, had me feeling unable to tap into
that available energy. I also experienced an inability to maintain the
unconditional love and joy that lifts my chest up high and my spirits
with it. Once I figured I hadn’t been grounding, I went back to doing so
and all these problems vanished.
The
book has a comprehensive feedback section, and what I deduced from it
is that it helps a lot of people with a lot of problems. Severe
problems, like chronic illnesses, to simple problems, like a deep cut to
the skin. What I noticed was a recurring reaction, which as soon as
these people ground themselves, within an hour a major portion of their
pain, resulting from the inflammation, subsides. However, it has been
also reported, that as soon as they disconnected from the ground or had
forgotten to do so for even one night, the pain would return. Therefore,
I concluded that Earthing is a major painkiller and an inflammation
resolver.
It
has an important role in shutting down inflammation in the body,
allowing cells to switch the genes associated with healing and repair.
This is crucial for the healing process to begin, however the return of
the inflammation shows me that a deeper issue must be resolved, and it
could be related to nutrition of some sort. Whether physical nutrition,
mental nutrition or emotional nutrition, it really depends on a personal
level. The Earth, is seems, sets up the stage and platform for healing
to occur, but then it really is up to that person to amend his
lifestyle. Personally, I would love to walk barefoot as a lifestyle,
wouldn’t you?
In
the book you will find visual evidence of the effect of Earthing. From
thermal imaging to microscopic images of red blood cells, the effect is
clear enough on camera to develop a personal belief that this simple act
of Earthing is more than a miracle, but more like an evolutionary
benefit of life on a planet. What Dr. Sinatra emphasizes is the drastic
change, within 30 minutes, of many biomarkers of health body-wide, that
he calls for rewriting physiological text books. I would agree, as this
entire chase after antioxidants is a foot away, and all it takes is
redesigning footwear, floors and mattresses to complement this
connection we require from the ground. Thus, we could build our health
from the ground up (as Dr. Sinatra loves to say).
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Now,
these reviews are there to share the gist of what the authors share
with the reader. Of course, a more detail analysis is required to get a
more complete picture of all these elements and of more elements that
can be derived from prior investigations I made into nutrition.
In
the following article, you will find an in-depth connection between the
knowledge you can infer from these books and hopefully you will acquire
tools that will take you in a path of self-recovery from the diseases
of civilization.
The Bacterial Entity and the Hunger for Connection
Basically, there is a huge difference between traditional methods of processing grains, which yield our breads, pastas and pastries, and conventional (and more recent) method of processing.
