Reversing 100 Years of Bad Dietary Advice — My Nutrition Reading List

I’m convinced that the western world has been fooled by the last century of food innovation and its perfect complement, modern dietary guidelines. And food is at the root cause of all the inflammation-centered health problems of the day, particularly chronic pain, arthritis, and digestive disorders and diseases.

There is hope. Learning has been a journey of several years for me, but I’ve managed to to heal my gut from Crohn’s disease, dramatically reduce pain, and go completely off of medication (except for the occasional Tylenlol). There are many food trends today that are reversing the mistakes of the past. It’s hard to decide who to follow, whether it’s Paleo, Vegan or the Tom Brady diet. But I’ve found some common ground, and some balance across these philosophies. Below is my ethos and the reading list that drove it.

Eat Plenty of:

• Saturated fat (Butter is good for you! Even Time magazine is waking up)
• Natural fatty food (Coconut, avocados, whole fish and whole meat)
• Food rich in omega-3 fat (Sardines, fish oil, pastured eggs, grass-fed beef), but I’m skeptical of anything that is unnaturally spiked with omega-3
• Collagen or gelatin — far underconsumed in a processed food diet, this type of protein is critical to bodily function. You need collagen to hold mucus membranes together and keep joints functioning. Get it from bone broth or a supplement.
• Food naturally high in cholesterol (eggs are one of the best foods you can eat; even the FDA has reversed course on dietary cholesterol; try to at least get cage-free)
• Animal protein (it’s the easiest form of protien to digest)
• Fermented food (yogurt or vegetables). Although I don’t think they are as critical as I used to. You develop a good gut biome from eating the right food. I also have come to learn that fermented food can trigger more histamine production and exacerbate my seasonal allergies.
• Vegetables. These should fill in most of the rest of your diet and calorie intake after eating a sufficient amount of the above. So generally that means a majority of your food is vegetables.
• The best quality food without breaking your budget (I don’t always buy organic, pastured, or grass-fed, but I try to when it’s reasonable and important)

Avoid:

• Seed and soybean oils (any oil that your great grandmother would not have been able to purchase) and avoid trans fats like the plague
• Refined sugars (absorbed too fast in the body)
• Food that is shelf-stable. Real food goes bad

Be Careful with:

• Nightshade vegetables (tomato, potato, eggplant and pepper). If they don’t effect you they are fine, but they are new to the diet for most humans so they could be causing problems
• Dairy. I’ve gone nearly dairy free, except for butter and ghee. I just feel better off dairy. Milk for sure is the worst.
• Legumes. Could cause you problems, but probably good for you in moderation
• Grains. Glutinous grains (e.g. wheat) could be a problem, but I’ve started to think there might be a lot of hype here outside of people who have Celiac. In any case, I think it’s personal. Traditionally prepared sourdough from organic wheat makes me feel great. I tolerate rice well. And I need some carbs from grain in my diet. I feel better that way.
• You do you. I’ve found that my most severe food sensitivities are random things I’ve found through careful control and testing of my diet. Listen to your body. And, think about transit time through your system. If you’re not feeling well, it could be something you ate 12 to even 36 hours ago.

Online Reading List

• Awesome, awesome article in the Huffington Post by Dr. Joseph Mercola about cholesterol that my Dad recommended that got me to seriously consider real diet changes
• Danielle Walker— SF based writer — also just came out with a cookbook. She had severe Ulcerative Colitis, adopted a Paleo diet, got better, and now writes about it
• Chris Kresser — Super smart nutritionist and blogger. He’s a leader in the Paleo community, but has some controversial views within Paleo. He’s very, very pragmatic and fact based. He really breaks down the issues around foods like legumes and dairy. He outlines what can cause you problems, but isn’t religious about it. He has a philosophy of being methodical about testing to see if a food causes you problems, but go ahead and eat it if you know it’s safe.
• There are plenty of other diet flavors that might work for you. The SCD Diet, low histamine, low FODMAP. It’s not one size fits all, but I think these diets do have merits based on specific issues.

Books

• The Autoimmune Solution — My primary care doctor w/ a nutrition background recommended this. Awesome guidance on all the things in our lives that trigger inflammation (really what autoimmunity is all about). Great book to start with, but she is a little extreme in her guidance. I’d follow these themes but not get stressed out if you can’t follow her 100%
• Breaking the Vicious Cycle — Explains the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), where the main goal is to avoid complex carbs that are hard for your body to digest because they require specific enzymes that aren’t available with a damaged intestinal wall. The undigested carbs then ferment (in a bad way) causing gastrointestinal issues and more damage to the intestinal wall
• Practical Paleo — Great background in the beginning on how processed foods have caused us all kinds of problems, and very tasty, easy recipes in the 2nd half
• The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet—Heavily researched book by a former NYTimes journalist that traces the history of dietary guidelines and research over the last century. Fascinating to read, and helps reset your thinking about your typically government-dictated dietary guidelines
• Tartine Bread — As my gut healed, I started experimenting with 100% whole grain, ancient grain, sourdough fermented bread. It turns out that one of the best bakeries in the world may also have some of the healthiest bread in the world. This book taught me how to bake bread the way your great, grandmother probably baked bread. The way it was baked for several thousand years and sustained humanity, before being mutilated and turned into near-poison for your digestive system
• The Good Gut —This book represents the scientific cutting edge on the study of the human microbiota, which is the name for the millions of microbes that we host in our bodies. I think it represents a good direction in medical science. It draws connections to various chronic problems from a core foundational concept. That alone is a challenge today in medicine, which has become ultra-specialized. However, it still suffers from a somewhat parochial view. It was a fascinating read to understand everything we are learning about how humans need the microbiota. It helped my thinking, but I balance some of the dietary advice in this book with the other books I have read that explore things more holistically around the human diet.

Learning has led to my hope. I do not think technological progress must be bad. I just think that over the last century, when it came to food, progress was poorly directed towards convenience and volume at the sacrifice of nutrients and nature. I see progress happening in various corners of the world where innovation is applied to solve the problem of how to produce more natural food as nature intended that is simultaneously more sustainable and gives us health.