What Books Should I Read?
(Robyn’s favorite books on nutrition, reviewed and summarized)
The Essential GreenSmoothieGirl library: recipe resources and books I recommend:
For those wanting to eat more raw:
Any of Victoria Boutenko’s books
Igor and Valya Boutenko, Eating Without Heating (easy, great recipes)
Renee Underkoffler’s Living Cuisine (caveat: recipes are delicious and gourmet, but time consuming)
Kenney and Melngailis’ Raw Food Real World (gourmet, some labor intensive recipes, some pretty easy, the authors are gorgeous, the perfect examples of what raw cuisine does for beauty)
Gabriel Cousins’ Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine
Jordan Maerin’s Raw Foods For Busy People (easy, machine-free recipes)
Jennifer Cornbleet’s Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People
Brigitte Mars’ Rawsome! (lots of good info in addition to recipes)
For anyone wanting the read the world’s most important books on nutrition:
Sick and Tired, The pH Miracle, Back to the House of Health by Dr. Robert O. Young and Shelley Young
Dr. Robert O. Young and Shelley Young’s books and recipe books: Sick and Tired, The pH Miracle, Back to the House of Health (containing many excellent recipes). Dr. Young, with multiple PhDs, is the most credible authority on why an alkaline diet is the most important aspect of disease prevention and treatment. His ace-in-the-hole over other authors is that his wife is a recipe developer and therefore gives practical help in addition to this century’s leading-edge nutrition theory.
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, which contains a massive amount of great information and tons of recipes, newtrendspublishing.com, 877-707-1776. I mostly disagree with the author about meat and dairy (which she embraces, in fermented and organic forms), in light of The China Study’s implications, as well as a large body of other research documenting the virtues of avoiding animal proteins. But I agree with everything else she promotes, and the book is worth owning just for the fermented foods information and recipes, where Fallon is the reigning authority.
The China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell
Dr. Colin Campbell’s The China Study, the largest and most comprehensive nutrition study in history conducted jointly by Oxford and Cornell, the most empirical evidence ever gathered validating a plant-based diet.
Colin Campbell is a professor of nutrition at Cornell University and has sat on the highest nutrition governing boards in the U.S. He is the son of a cattle rancher and believed, in his early nutrition research, that he would find lack of protein to be the cause of childhood liver cancer in the Phillipines.
He found just the opposite: the wealthier children with good access to meat/milk were dying of liver cancer, not the poor children who could afford only plant food. Time and again, Campbell and many other researchers discovered the same results: that in animals and humans, high consumption of animal protein causes all the modern Western diseases, including cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, and much more.
The rodent studies are fascinating: two groups of mice are put on 5% animal protein pellets (casein, from milk) and 20% animal protein pellets, respectively. That parallels an almost-vegan diet versus the typical American diet. At the typical rodent lifespan, the 5% group were lean and healthy and the 20% group were full of cancerous tumors and many were dead (all would die early).
Even more fascinating is how the researchers could SWITCH the groups’ diets. Lean, healthy rodents develop tumors and die when placed on the 20% animal protein diet, and formerly cancerous rodents lose weight, tumors are eliminated, and they live and thrive when placed on the 5% animal protein diet. These studies were duplicated with the same results, by other researchers all over the globe.
Campbell went on to conduct the largest, most longitudinal, most comprehensive nutrition study in human beings, in history, yielding hundreds of statistically significant correlations. He has been studying 360,000 people in China for about 30 years now. Whether or not you completely eliminate animal foods from your diet, this book is so compelling that you will be motivated to make a commitment to a plant-based diet and share the message with others.
Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Furhman
Dr. Joel Furhman’s Eat to Live contains excellent data about a plant-based diet versus meat and processed foods from a courageous medical doctor willing to recommend vegetarian lifestyle changes instead of drugs and surgeries. The books contain a limited number of simple recipes at the end. Possibly because many of Furhman’s patients are cardiac patients, he is preoccupied with “low fat” in Eat to Live, which I think unnecessary and even possibly harmful for most people, but it’s a small criticism of a great book.
The Food Revolution by John Robbins
John Robbins’ The Food Revolution (as well as his earlier work Diet for a New America), a pivotal book with a compassionate voice for the Earth, the animals we abuse raising them for food, and the people of the planet. The son of Baskin Robbins’ founder, John abandoned his destiny to teach people instead about the virtues of a plant-based diet, and you will be forever changed by reading his book that comprehensively documents why we should eat lower on the food chain. The author is precise with data, and he covers all the data points comprehensively, from cancer and heart disease risk, to genetically modified foods, to global warming, to animal cruelty.
The Rave Diet & Lifestyle by Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson’s The Rave Diet & Lifestyle is fun and fairly quick to read, because it pulls no punches. It’s hard hitting and unapologetic in its promotion of the plant-based diet. It’s jam-packed with information (that duplicates Robbins, Fuhrman, and Campbell), well written, and contains lots of easy recipes at the end. My only slight quibble with Anderson (and Fuhrman) is that I don’t think people in normal weight ranges need to be afraid of fats, the kind found in nuts, seeds, and unprocessed oils.
Original Fast Foods by James and Colleen Simmons
James and Colleen Simmons’ Original Fast Foods is so pure in its intent, to help others experience the profound health improvements that the formerly very ill Jim Simmons achieved when he undertook a whole-foods, plant-based diet. The book is expensive but intelligently written, and it contains tons of information and lots of good recipes at the end, all of them easy. Self published, you can occasionally get used copies on Amazon, but the author sells them at www.originalfastfoods.com.
Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko
Victoria Boutenko’s Green for Life documents how Boutenko, a long-time raw foodist, felt there was a missing link in her family’s nutrition, even as good as it was. (They eliminated many chronic diseases from their lives when they went all raw 15 years ago.) She undertook to study the diet of primates, since humans share 99.4% of our DNA with primates. Of course, what she found is that they eat copiously of greens, a wide variety of them.
Boutenko asks the reader to undertake an experiment: to chew a mouthful of greens, and spit it out right before swallowing. You’ll find it is simply torn up, not creamed and ready for digestion like it needs to be. This is because over several generations of eating increasingly more refined foods, the human body has adapted by developing ever-narrower palates. We no longer chew food to the extent that we need to to extract nutrition from denser foods like raw green vegetables, like primates with wide palates do. The BlendTec Total Blender does that breakdown for you, in the green smoothie: all you have to do is “chew” as you drink it, to create saliva for digestion.
Greens like kale, collards, mustard greens, arugula, turnip greens, celery, spinach, dandelion greens, beet greens, and chard don’t end up on too many salad plates. But they’re easy in green smoothies. And, you don’t have to drizzle them with fattening, chemical-laden salad dressings to get them down, in a smoothie.
Best of all, in addition to the superior nutrition of dark leafy greens, Boutenko points out that kale fiber, for instance, can remove many times its own weight in toxins from the body. She undertook to study a group of 30 people ranging from the morbidly obese in wheelchairs to people who already ate a fairly healthful diet: every one of the 30 reported excellent improvements in health, some of them very dramatic. Many said they just wished they had more than a quart a day! The top three health benefits were better digestion/elimination, more energy, and weight loss.
Raw Power by Steven Arlin
Steven Arlin’s Raw Power, for anyone who wants to build muscle mass or compete athletically while eating a raw, vegan diet. I’m just a girl, not a true bodybuilder, but I love weight training, and this book long ago helped me let go of protein powders and bars and hold my own, strength-wise, with much-younger, carnivorous weightlifting friends. Arlin has eaten a 100% raw vegan diet for 20 years and would be the biggest guy in most gyms’ free-weight rooms. His recipes are interesting and unique.
The Sugar Blues by William Dufty
William Dufty’s The Sugar Blues was written in the 1950’s in a very provocative and engaging style. This seminal book is your chance to get up the motivation to kick the sugar habit. As many nutrition authors have stated, sugar is killing us. And it’s more addictive than cocaine. (I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?) Even more fascinating is Dufty’s claim that the sugar industry sabotaged his efforts to publish his expose.
Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept by Dr. Edward Howell
Dr. Edward Howell’s Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept is a 162-page abridgement of this medical doctor’s lifelong work that originally culminated in a 700-page book with 700 references. It is an old book, published in 1985, reviewing all the scientific literature from the beginning of the 20th century pointing to enzymes being the most critical element that our diet is now deficient in, as we have strayed from raw foods. It draws conclusions and postulates scientific theory long before the recent raw-food movement gained any traction.
For those interested in cleansing:
Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care: A Complete Program for Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management by Bernard Jensen
Bernard Jensen’s Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care: A Complete Program for Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management is a must-read for anyone willing to face the fact that the average person is carrying 10 lbs. of impacted fecal material. The last 25 pages are color photos of what those who undergo a colon cleanse actually eliminate, and I am warning you that it may turn your stomach. However, it may also be just the motivation you need to get rid of it. Great information is in this book from an early pioneer in health, healing, nutrition, and cleansing. Dr. Jensen is a man who lived, well into his 90’s, what he preached.
Cleanse & Purify Thyself: Book 1 and 2 by Richard Anderson
Richard Anderson’s Cleanse & Purify Thyself: Book 1 and 2. This naturopathic doctor was on a quest (because of his own desperate health situation) to find exactly the right herbs for a thorough intestinal and parasite cleanse. He walked around in the mountains for months, with a friend, experimenting. The commercial products I enthusiastically endorse (because I have personally experienced the promised results, as well as studied the methodology) that resulted from Dr. Anderson’s quest are the Arise & Shine cleanse, found in health food stores and at www.ariseandshine.com. The products are high quality, and the cleanse truly delivers a comprehensive cleanup of the entire gastrointestinal tract. Other cleanses I researched are lightweight compared to this one, and the nutritional support is astonishing: I lived my normal, crazy-busy soccer mom/professor/entrepreneur life the entire time I did the regimen, with plenty of energy. These books, too, contain graphic photos of actual eliminations from cleanse patients.
For parents:
The Vaccine Guide by Randall Neustaedter
Randall Neustaedter’s The Vaccine Guide is the most science based, objective, and compelling look on the vaccine issue of all the books I read as I made the difficult decision not to immunize my children. For instance, although the DPT shot seemed a no-brainer to avoid after reading about the evidence, Neustaedter is fair and balanced in saying that no known deaths result from the tetanus shot.
How to Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor by Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.
Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.’s How to Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor is an enlightening, if old, book by a renowned pediatrician who left a top hospital post after becoming disgusted with the way modern medicine treats children. Dr. Mendelssohn led a research hospital in Chicago until he became so disgusted and disenchanted with medical practices that he wrote this book that every parent should read to understand why it’s so critical to not put blind faith in medicine. Some of the things I recall most vividly is how he challenged the escalating trend of tonsils and adenoids being taken out of young boys, only to find that truly, these surgeries were unnecessary and risky for the patients but were needed to fill quotas for medical residents’ requirements.
I learned from Dr. M that a fever is a natural, healthy way for the body to fight infection, and that fever should not be “fought” or drugged. He put my mind at ease with statistics reassuring me that an out-of-control fever is so rare as to be something I needn’t worry about. This book is a good start towards realizing that the doctor isn’t God: a good first step down a road to a mother becoming a healer in the home.
You won’t so much get alternative health advice as much as understand the medical paradigm’s limitations and abuses, which is helpful in a parent’s initial effort to break loose of modern pediatrics.
Disease Proof Your Child by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Disease Proof Your Child is an excellent primer, a book to buy as a gift for people who love their children and want them to be healthy. It explains why eating plants is our kids’ best protection against the modern plagues that have become epidemics, and “your new cookbook” at the end is a good resource. I disagree with some of the ingredients Fuhrman uses, such as canola mayo and lots of soy milk/cheese/etc., as well as his promotion of multivitamins, but these are small issues considering the dramatic potential of this book for families.
Permission to Mother: Going Beyond the Standard-of-Care to Nurture Our Children by Denise Punger, M.D.
Denise Punger, M.D. is a GreenSmoothieGirl 12 Stepper and a brave new voice in modern medicine. She’s a board certified doctor married to another medical doctor, but she’s also a mother who has breastfed for 12 years and delivered her last baby via home birth. She’s an advocate of home birth, doulas, breastfeeding, and trusting a mother’s instincts. Her Permission to Mother: Going Beyond the Standard-of-Care to Nurture Our Children is an important book for young mothers to own.
Fast Food Nation and Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food by Eric Schlosser
Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food are geared towards teens. Give your kid an incentive to read one or both of these books. My 11- and 13-year old kids loved these best-selling exposes and never wanted to set foot in a fast-food establishment again. Okay, they never set foot in fast-food establishments anyway, except to make a bathroom stop on a trip. They inspired my oldest daughter to become a vegetarian, and she later converted her sister. Written for preteens and teens, this is an excellent education in why you want to avoid all fast food. I overheard my daughter after she read Chew On This telling a friend regarding the friend’s sugar habit, “You know that children diagnosed with diabetes by the age of 8 shorten their lives by 25-30 years, don’t you?” (Heh heh, my evil educational plot is working!) Too bad the author states in the introduction that his favorite meal is a fast food burger.
The Children’s Health Food Book by Ron Seaborn
Ron Seaborn’s The Children’s Health Food Book is a seriously weird book! A friend recommended it to me, and when I picked it up at a health food store, my then-four-year old son went crazy for it. I read it to him several times a day, because he begged me non-stop, until I just couldn’t take it any more and was making up my own words. The antiheroes are the Starch Creature, the Dairy Goon, the Meat Monster, and the Sugar Demon. Of course, the vegetable, fruit, and whole-grain superheroes come in and save the day. This book is good for younger kids—just beware that the preschool teacher might call you and say your kid is scaring the other kids by pointing out how bad their snacks are (this actually happened to me).
For those wanting to grow a garden (the #1 way to save money eating a plant-based diet):
The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash
Marian Morash’s The Victory Garden Cookbook is the definitive garden how-to, with hundreds of recipes on how to use each of those garden vegetables–I use this recipe book constantly, except when someone borrows it, falls in love with it, and doesn’t return it!
Four Seasons Harvest by Eliot Coleman
Eliot Coleman’s Four Seasons Harvest was a breakthrough for me, showing how to grow a winter garden even outdoors in a cold climate.
Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening has taken the home gardening world by storm. That’s because this is the very best way to grow a garden, maximizing space and minimizing work.