Book Review - Deep Nutrition

Deep Nutrition by Dr. Catherine Shanahan is a book that delves into a wide variety of topics - mainly (and this may be obvious) what foods the average person should be avoiding and what foods they should be including. After being a family doctor for over 20 years all over the United States and taking a good look at the research, Dr. Cate believes any chronic disease can be avoided by paying attention to your diet. We influence not only our health through what we eat but also our children's and even our grandchildren's.

To live a cancer-free, diabetes-free, Alzheimer's-free life and to give our children a better opportunity of a healthy lifestyle, she advises avoiding vegetable oils and sugar while instead eating whole, fresh, and nutritious foods. Dr. Cate also has experience working with the Los Angeles Lakers and gives examples on how following a nutritious diet gives you an edge in the sports world as well.

The research for this book did not only include her education in Biochemistry at Cornell or Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, but mainly from reading Biochemistry textbooks on her own, looking at cookbooks from all different cultures, and researching the diets of indigenous peoples around the world. Dr. Cate states that we do not have to go back far to find healthier cultures - before the 1950s, most diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's were much more unusual than they are today. 

From her research, she discovered all cultures focused on what she calls the Four Pillars of the Human Diet:

1. Meat on the bone: Consuming meats that do not have the fat removed and still include the bone. Also, including bone broth to strengthen joint tissues.
2. Organ meats: After the Industrial Revolution and getting away from hunting our own food, we have also gotten away from consuming the whole animal, mainly organ meats, and we are depriving ourselves from vitamins and minerals.
3. Fresh foods: This includes all fresh foods - meat, vegetables, and fruits. Some tips she gives for this are:
   1. Limit fruits to one serving per day at most. Most fruit nowadays is nutritionally bankrupt
   2. Eat at least 4 salads each week that each include 4 cups of vegetables of 4 different colors.
   3. Look for organic, grass-fed, and pasture-raised meats. The treatment of animals along with their diets affects the nutrition we get in return in a big way.
   4. Include raw seafood on a regular basis.
4. Fermented and sprouted foods: These foods provide us with the probiotics we need to keep our guts healthy; strengthening our digestive and immune systems.

This book is close to 500 pages and goes deep into the science of why we need to avoid vegetable oils and sugars and include the Four Pillars in our diets if we don't want to get roped into the health care system with a disease later on in life.

My opinion is that this is a great book if you have an interest in the Biochemistry - how everything we eat affects our cells throughout our body and also our genes. This book had a little too much science for me but I am definitely glad I read it because it has a TON of great information. She even gives tips on things like making your own salad dressings. If you want a shorter version, look for her book Food Rules​.

For more book reviews/descriptions, check out my Recommended Books page.