Food Rules: A Doctor's Guide to Healthy Eating [Paperback]

Catherine Shanahan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2010

Good health doesn't have to be so complicated. The best diet for serious athletes is also the best diet for weight loss, heart health, cancer prevention, and just about everything else. In the spirit of those chefs, journalists, and food writers who have brought a spotlight to the importance of eating well, knowing source, and respecting traditions, Dr. Shanahan adds to this growing food revolution the voice of an experienced physician and scientist. Full of straightforward and memorable advice, Dr. Shanahan's Food Rules offers key details that even her most health-conscious patients had been missing-the details that may save your health.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dr. Shanahan is the Michael Pollan of medicine, telling us what to eat and why to eat it." --JoAnn Deck, Vice President of Ten Speed Press

"I enjoyed Deep Nutrition so much that I honestly did not want to finish it." --Marjorie Tietjen, Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation

About the Author

CATHERINE SHANAHAN, MD, is a board-certified family physician specializing in the promotion of health and reversal of disease using traditional food as a first line of treatment. She has studied biochemistry and genetics at Cornell University and ethnobotany at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kauai, Hawaii. In 2010, she was invited to relocate to the mainland to direct The Bedford Center of Nutritional Medicine, the first clinic of its kind in the country to bring farmers and chefs together with exercise therapists, massage therapists, and dietitians to form a multidisciplinary patient care team. She is author of Deep Nutrition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (May 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1452861382
• ISBN-13: 978-1452861388
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Catherine Shanahan, MD is author of the underground classic Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food, and the easy-to-read executive summary of holistic nutrition, Food Rules: A Doctors Guide to Healthy Eating. She is also a Cornell trained genetic researcher with two decades of Family Practice experience. Over that time, she has observed dramatic changes in the bone structure, immune-system hyper-reactivity, and behavioral development of her patients. She wants to empower her patients and her readers with the knowledge to lose weight, get healthy, and have healthy children by following principles of traditional nutrition. She has received many thank you letters from around the world written by readers who have astounded their friends, family, and their doctors and been taken off chronic prescriptions.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Food Rules RULES May 6, 2011

By claudia

Format:Paperback

I love Michael Pollan, and his `food rules' are good. Gary Taubes has done some great reporting and synthesizing. The American public is slowing growing an understanding that what Big Farma wants you to want is not good for you. (Big Pharma, however, is happy to make you think that only they can fix the resulting damage.)

In her first book, Deep Nutrition, Dr Cate (Catherine Shanahan, MD) explains how important nutrition is to not only maintaining health, but also in restoring it! She explains things more completely and with a much greater understanding of the complexity of the human body than pretty much anyone trying to do so (the only exception I have found is Nora Gedgaudas, who is equally competent and whose book complements the Shanahan's book perfectly).

I think of Dr. Cate's Food Rules as the icing on the cake! (Cake is now made with nut flours and lots of eggs from my own chickens, topped with un-sugared whipped cream). Cate again packs an amazing amount of information into a slim volume. If you want some valuable tips, insight, or coaching on what food to buy, how to cook it, and how to eat intentionally, this book is for you. You do not need to read Deep Nutrition to greatly benefit from the food rules based on it. If you have been eating junk for years, are ill, seek longevity, or want optimum health this little guide book is far, far, far superior to every similar guide on the market. There is a 30 page section called Doctor's Orders that has "must read" material (just go read this section in your local bookstore if you are already a foodie eating nutrient rich foods).

If every American household had a copy of Food Rules and used it, healthcare costs would, I'm serious, drop to a mere 10% of what they are today. I know, because my 25-year-old daughter who was officially diagnosed with Chronic Pain Syndrome (after Kaiser exhausted their options) is now approaching a normal life after following these rules for six months. These rules work better than you can imagine.

This book is the perfect gift at baby showers, wedding showers, and anyone's birthday!! Five stars are not enough, but they won't let me add any.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Results Speak for Themselves September 9, 2011

By Davis

Format:Paperback

I'm a type 2 Diabetic and have been looking for ways to get my blood sugar under better control, and also lose some weight. Since the market is flooded with so many diet and nutrition books, I was skeptical about buying any of them, so I thought I'd just try cutting back on the amounts of food I was eating and try exercising a little more. Well the exercise plan didn't work out so well, and neither did the portion reductions. I was always hungry and craving more and didn't have a lot of energy. At a recent doctors visit I was talking to the doctor about changing my medication. She recommended instead changing my eating habits, and buying Doctor Shanahan's book "Food Rules a Doctors Guide to Health Eating". I said to myself "here we go another book on dieting" but figured what the heck I'd give it a try and let the results speak for themselves. I can honestly say it's the best money I ever spent. In a matter of six weeks I lost six pounds, my blood sugars are in much better control, my blood pressure dropped from the 140/80 range to 112/72, I feel much less hungry and have a lot more energy. I'm not really eating a lot less, but rather a lot different. I learned that many of the foods I had been eating that I thought were good for me weren't, and many of the things that I liked but had given up were actually good for me. I kind of equate it to a car, if you try to run a car on just gas, or just oil, or just antifreeze it won't run. Consequently if you put tomato juice in the gas tank, or water in the oil, you'll need a new car in short order. Dr Shanahan's book gives you the recipe for the right ingredients to make your body run like it should. I may be too old for my body to run like a highly tuned racing machine, but if I stick to Dr Shanahan's Guide to Healthy Eating, I can at least become a respectable antique. I thank Dr Shanahan for writing a book that is not just another Fad Diet book but rather a true educational Guide to Healthy Eating.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The REAL 'Food Rules' Book You Should Get December 5, 2011

By Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Man TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

There's another book out there by Michael Pollan called Food Rules: An Eater's Manual that unfortunately has gotten a lot of attention in the mainstream health press because of Pollan. But I would argue there is another book by the same name that is so much more worthy of your attention. It's FOOD RULES: A DOCTOR'S GUIDE TO HEALTHY EATING by Dr. Catherine Shanahan. She is board certified family physician who has been using traditional nutritional methods as a primary means of helping her patients reverse and defeat chronic disease for many years. While most of the medical profession focuses on what the next big pharmaceutical drug breakthrough will be, Dr. Shanahan just keeps seeing good old-fashioned lifestyle changes in diet giving her the desired results in her patients.

And lest you think it's the same old low-fat, high-carb, calorie-controlled, exercise 'til you drop approach to dieting, you'd be sorely mistaken. Dr. Shanahan realizes that's a foolish way to go about doing things because it is futile in the end. She values eating real food, reducing sugar consumption, skipping the high omega-6 vegetable oils, controlling total carbohydrates which turn to sugar in the body, warning of MSG for various people, knowing that veggies are a better choice than fruit, zeroing in on raw and grass-fed sources of dairy and meats, and so much more! She even offers up ways to cook your food in the same manner of generations past. My favorite part of the book is when Dr. Shanahan explains HOW to eat with helpful advice that you wouldn't typically get from a physician. But the real payoff of FOOD RULES is knowing what all of these changes in your diet are doing to your health--in a GOOD way!

If more people ate the way Dr. Catherine Shanahan outlines in this easy-to-read book, then we wouldn't have an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The world would be a much healthier place to be. Don't you want that for yourself and your family? This is the real FOOD RULES book that will give you the truth about what to eat and why.