Recommended Reading

When a few women met to talk about our local chapter of the Weston A Price Foundation, we agreed upon the need for a "recommended reading list" for the blog.

Hopefully, over and over, you will see us recommend Nourishing Traditions.  Written by the president of the Weston A Price Foundation, it is one book I wholeheartedly rave about and tell people to buy.  You could buy it blindly by faith, or check it out from the library.  Either way, if you're serious about changing your diet, this book is a worthy investment.

Some of the books are in the Central Arkansas Library System. We are working to request all of them to be purchased. Without further ado, in no particular order, here's the brainstormed list.

Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats
Based on more than two decades of research, Eat Fat, Lose Fat flouts conventional wisdom by revealing that so-called healthy vegetable oils (such as corn and soybean) are in large part responsible for our national obesity and health crisis, while the saturated fats traditionally considered "harmful" (from such foods as coconut, butter, and meat) are essential to weight loss and health. {Product Description from Amazon.com}

Real Food: What to Eat and Why
Nina Plank offers a view of sensible nutrition in Real Food.  Think about what your great-grandmother would eat - or even, recognize as food.  Readers are encouraged to consider fresh, local food while exploring the need for healthy fats in our diet.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods
"Far from deprivation, the nutritional plans here for fertility, pregnancy, nursing and young kids propose a wide variety of whole grains, seasonal vegetables and fruits, and raw milk and organic animal fats necessary for healthy pregnancies and fetal and childhood development instead of skim milk, “carbage”(junk carbohydrates) and trans-fats... It tastes better and it’s good for you. Plank gives more comprehensive pre-pregnancy and pregnancy diets than those in What to Expect, and her lively, genuine and personal approach makes it easy to absorb a lot essential information." - Publishers Weekly

Schwarzbein Principle: The Truth About Losing Weight, Being Healthy, and Feeling Younger
The author, Diana Schwarzbein, is an endocrinologist - one who studies the endocrine system and the secretion of hormones.  Through her experience with patients who suffered with diabetes, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, menopause, thyroid conditions and osteoporosis she wrote this paradigm shifting book.  The highly prized "USDA food pyramid" comes crashing down and she presents a more balanced, food cube.  Schwartzbein recommends eating protein, (healthy) fat, starchy carbohydrates and non-starchy carbohydrates.

The Schwarzbein Principle Cookbook
The recipes in this cookbook help one to implement what is learned in The Schwarzbein Principle.  The meals are yummy, easy to prepare, most take less than 30 minutes with manageable (not exotic) ingredients.

What the Bible Says About Healthy Living: Three Biblical Principles that Will Change Your Diet and Improve Your Health
In a world infatuated with junk food and fad diets, why have we overlooked the simple instructions provided in the Bible that have guided people for thousands of years toward better health? You don’t have to be Jewish or a Christian to find wisdom for healthier living in this doctor’s scripturally based book on eating and feeling better, and living longer. You’ll learn the truth about grains and nuts, and the ins and outs of meat, fat and sweeteners. Discover why beverages can be the elixirs of life or death. The principles here will help anyone who is sick and tired of feeling sick and tired find energy, freedom from illness and more vibrant health. {Product Description from Amazon.com}

The Maker's Diet
After facing an "incurable" disease, Dr. Rubin baffled conventional doctors by discovering a cure - by turning to "man's first - and only - true health plan" using the dietary principles found in the Bible. It's a truly holistic approach that:
- Boosts the immune system.
- Enables followers to maintain ideal weight.

- Produces abundant natural energy.
- Improves physical appearance.
- Reduces stress.

- Helps digestion.
Dr. Rubin achieves all this and more by incorporating the four pillars of health (spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional), and prescribing a plan for diet, nutrition, exercise, hygiene, and body therapies for complete and total physical and spiritual wellness.   {Product Description from Amazon.com}

Sugar Blues
The classic, bestselling expose on the dangers of sugar reveals how this commonly ingested ingredient in countless foods is highly addictive and causes a host of medical problems from depression to coronary thrombosis.  {Product Description from Amazon.com}

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
This book chronicles the year that Barbara Kingsolver, along with her husband and two daughters, made a commitment to become locavores–those who eat only locally grown foods. This first entailed a move away from their home in non-food-producing Tuscon to a family farm in Virginia, where they got right down to the business of growing and raising their own food and supporting local farmers. For teens who grew up on supermarket offerings, the notion not only of growing one's own produce but also of harvesting one's own poultry was as foreign as the concept that different foods relate to different seasons. While the volume begins as an environmental treatise–the oil consumption related to transporting foodstuffs around the world is enormous–it ends, as the year ends, in a celebration of the food that physically nourishes even as the recipes and the memories of cooks and gardeners past nourish our hearts and souls. Although the book maintains that eating well is not a class issue, discussions of heirloom breeds and making cheese at home may strike some as high-flown; however, those looking for healthful alternatives to processed foods will find inspiration to seek out farmers' markets and to learn to cook and enjoy seasonal foods. Give this title to budding Martha Stewarts, green-leaning fans of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (Rodale, 2006), and kids outraged by Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (Houghton, 2001).–Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
For nearly 10 years, Weston Price and his wife traveled around the world in search of the secret to health. Instead of looking at people afflicted with disease symptoms, this highly-respected dentist and dental researcher chose to focus on healthy individuals, and challenged himself to understand how they achieved such amazing health. Dr. Price traveled to hundreds of cities in a total of 14 different countries in his search to find healthy people. He investigated some of the most remote areas in the world. He observed perfect dental arches, minimal tooth decay, high immunity to tuberculosis and overall excellent health in those groups of people who ate their indigenous foods. He found when these people were introduced to modernized foods, such as white flour, white sugar, refined vegetable oils and canned goods, signs of degeneration quickly became quite evident. Dental caries, deformed jaw structures, crooked teeth, arthritis and a low immunity to tuberculosis became rampant amongst them. Dr. Price documented this ancestral wisdom including hundreds of photos in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. {Product Description from Amazon.com}