I just got the book today and went through the whole thing, not carefully reading the immunology parts at the beginning because that's a little heavy for me right now. But I appreciate that it's there because I will go through it more in depth. I don't like diet books that make things superficial; I want the explanation for things and this book gives them. Beautiful pictures as well.
When it comes to the actual diet the author recommends, my thoughts were 'holy cow, is she serious', because it was so restrictive!
I got this book because I realized I was getting sick to my stomach (indigestion and bloating) really bad after I was having some ketogenic-friendly peanut-butter and almond butter sandwiches with a new low carb/grain free bread I found at a local health food store. I realized my body might need more help than what I was giving it with my already strict dairy free, gluten free, ketogenic, no artificial ingredient, factory farmed free diet. Like that isn't strict, right?
So, this book did provide information that gave me insight as to why nuts could be messing me up, because they disrupt the gut. Could be eggs, too. That was in the bread I found. When I read one of Dr. Gabriel Cousin's books a few years back (I have 3 of his, forgot which one mentioned it), he mentions that Macadamia nuts don't need to be soaked, so I'm guessing those are safer to eat than this author suggests and so I will keep eating those. Also, this author suggests that we don't eat stevia and doesn't present a good case for that. She also says to stop eating spices that are seeds such as mustard, cumin, ect. That is the point where I was like 'is this author serious?!'. She really is!
So, if all goes well, she gives a protocol for re-introducing foods into the diet, but apparently I don't need to worry about that for quite some time...
Also, there aren't recipes as an FYI.
So, my bottom line is that this is a well-written, beautiful book that provides some hope, but I doubt that I could adopt such a strict diet as to cut out stevia and spices that are seeds. Other foods that are purported as being health foods by various gurus that this book's diet says to exclude are chocolate, chia seeds, xylitol and erythritol. This book tries to make it sound like the diet isn't as restrictive as we think by having list of foods that we can eat that are full of obscurities that I've never heard of before, and others I'd never be able to find. Seal, sea lions, camels and beavers are acceptable red meats. You can even eat starfish! For the ketogenic people out there like me who can't eat the mid-high carb foods on the list, don't worry, plenty of leafy greens are on the plan such as lizard's tail, melokhia, fluted pumpkin leaves, poke, orache and more! Take away the obscurities and the list isn't as vast.
While waiting for this book to arrive, I stopped eating nuts except for macadamia and cut out egg, and that alone took away my bloating and indigestion. I have psoriasis which has not gone away after being strictly gluten free for over a year (and dairy free for nearly 3 years), and I think the gut has a lot to do with it, so I'm hoping the info here about legumes and nuts, lectins, and all these anti-nutrients really does the trick. The scientific community, which doesn't seem to embrace diets at all, is starting to explore the gut microbiome. This author might have written a book that might save our country millions of dollars if giving up these foods that destroy the gut truly help us heal.
And in case anyone was wondering, yes I know nightshades are bad for psoriasis. Yes, the author talks about that. Yes, I've been nightshade free before and no, that didn't work. In combination with being grain, nut, legume, and dairy free, maybe it will. And going nightshade free means getting rid of half the spices I have, which is why getting rid of even more seasonings seemed outrageous. So, I can't say I'll follow this 100%, and there is room to make some really big changes without doing this 100%.
**Update Feb 5 2015**
It's been a bit over a month so I'd like to give an update since I've given this diet some time. Key points:
*With all the things I had to give up on this diet, I found myself not needing stevia for anything, so I've ditched it even though my autoimmune disease isn't hormonal so I see no reason why I'd benefit from not eating it.
*I was using Garden of Life probiotics for several years, and I thought they worked really well (compared to the million others I've tried) but I had to stop because they weren't in compliance due to nightshades, so I switched to the soil based organism probiotics recommended in this book. Not only do they work better, but they don't need to be refrigerated and you don't have to take as many pills. Huge plus!
*My sinus got noticeably better in the week I started, very quick results. Not 100% better though. Not 50% better, actually. But better than before.
*There was so much info in this book that I missed the details that although coconut is permitted, only in small amounts (besides coconut oil). Whoops - I was eating way too much coconut for the first month! No more coconut wraps, milk, nor cereal. Huge bummer.
*I ended up not cheating with spices and macadamia nuts although I was tempted to. I've never eaten in restaurants nor other people's houses, so I know there was no unknown cross contamination affecting my results. However, I had to cheat with some cold lozenges when I got fatigue and a sore throat. It's a bigger setback to get sick than to have a few lozenges even though every single one I saw at both a standard pharmacy AND my local health food store had prohibited ingredients. Anybody looking for a business idea please make us some grain-free zinc lozenges...
*My skin is unaffected so far by the diet. I wouldn't expect miracles in a month, especially since I was eating more than a few tablespoons of coconut every day. So I will give this a few more months before deciding whether it actually helps my psoriasis. I will update accordingly.
*Besides that, I find that I am skipping breakfast for the sake of it being too monotonous to eat a lunch/dinner style breakfast. So that's not great. Nobody said this was a fun diet...either way, it's not meant to be forever. If it works, you get to introduce food back. If it doesn't work, you'd be a fool to keep doing it. So I'll plug away for a few more months.
**Update 9/26/15**
I could have kept going on the diet for quite some time longer, but I got an intuitional feeling that it was time to move on and reintroduce other foods even though my skin problems, asthma, ect didn't go away. That was back in March, maybe. So, I've been off the diet for about half the year and I'm doing relatively well. I did break out in eczema from exactly four bites of organic macaroni and cheese, but after taking gluteneaze supplements, that cleared up. So, now I'm eating almost everything this book says not to but I'm not having the original problems that resolved when I gave up dairy 3 years ago (mental fog), nor have my seasonal allergies came back bad after reintroducing gluten, nor has my mental fog and bad ups and downs from glucose swings came back after not being ketogenic. So I think there was definitely progress made from healing my gut on this diet. I continue to take Prescript Assist probiotics. My psoriasis, which didn't clear at all on the diet, has cleared maybe 90 percent by now though! My arms and shoulders have none, my face has almost none, torso has very little, and my shins were my worst area, and they are 75% better. So, I don't know whether to attribute that totally to the diet, meditation, or what, but I have no regrets with the month and a half I spent on this diet, nor do I regret stopping when I felt like it was time rather than staying on for what would feel like eternity. So I have upgraded this to 5 stars, but one of my bottom lines besides this diet being worth it if your problems are bad enough is that it's like a psychological prison for how restrictive it is. But at least it's temporary!
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Textbook- recipes in a separate book
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2019
This book is thick and has the organic chemistry makeup of several things which is filler but not at all helpful. A lot of science for why to do paleo but not much for actually doing it. Wish it had A simple grocery list of foods to chose, a menu with recipes but it is not in this book. You have to buy another book or two to get the authors recipes. I am a dietitian with a minor in chemistry and don’t want to wade through all the filler info. Give me the cliff notes version with AIP recipes instead of a textbook. I wanted to like it but will most likely return it for something that gets to the point.A list of nutrient values are listed for foods in raw form...Problem 1: Foods should be compare by serving size not 100g. For example raw spinach of 100g is about 3 serving sizes. As a Dietitian I would never give values of 100g as that would not be a meaningful value to my patients. Problem 2: that only raw food values are provided. Meat should be compared in cooked form because the weight is less when cooked since water and part of the fat cook off. Some meats have solutions added which will affect raw weight also.Also, cooking may change the nutrient values of vegetables depending on how cooked and that 1/2 cup cooked may be closer to the nutrient values of 1cup raw.
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2019
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Day 4 - I feel like I am on holiday!!!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 27, 2019Amazon Customer
Comprehensive book about Auto Immune disorders and why they may be affecting your body...is Paleo the answer?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 27, 2018
