Deep Nutrition

Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food was out for a while in its original iteration, but has just been released as a revised, greatly-expanded version.  The overall premise is that good nutrition makes a difference deep down — all the way to the genetic level.  This book is jam-packed, with both theory and practice, so I’m going to do my best to try to summarize what you’ll find when you dive in.

The Premise

One of the things I love most about this book is the author’s basic philosophy: if it worked for thousands of years to produce strong, healthy bodies, it should work today to produce strong, healthy bodies.  This is such common sense, but in our culture of “experts,” we’ve largely discarded common sense in favor of fads.  And it hasn’t been working out very well for us!  So Dr. Shanahan looks at what people ate for thousands of years, in indigenous cultures around the world, and what all the varied cuisines had in common, then uses that as the foundation for how we should still be eating today.

The Science

There is a lot of nutritional theory in this book.  It’s a breath of fresh air, being both evidence-based and rooted in common sense — and coming from a doctor, to boot.  However, I’ll warn you, it does get a bit heavy at times.  This is my area of study/interest, and even I got bogged down a bit in the middle section of the book.  There’s just so much there, with the author really detailing the causes and effects of good quality foods vs. poor quality foods on our genes, cells, tissues, and organs.  It’s well-written, so it goes into great depth, while still being accessible to an intelligent lay reader.  Just be warned that if this is not “your thing,” you might want to give yourself time to go through it slowly, taking some mental breaks.

Most of Dr. Shanahan’s philosophy is about what to eat, rather than what not to eat, but there are two exceptions: vegetable oils and sugars.  There is a good deal of space dedicated to explaining why these two “foods” (vegetable oils, especially) are so damaging to health.  As tedious as this can get, it’s very, very important.  I was already aware that vegetable oils are more harmful than helpful (contrary to the non-evidence-based recommendations of most modern “experts”), but I still learned a lot about why they’re actually considerably more harmful than I previously realized.  (I don’t think most of us need to be told that sugar is detrimental to health, which is probably why less space in the book is devoted to that subject.)

“Vegetable oils” are all the cheap, modern oils that are high in polyunsaturated fats.  Sometimes these appear on labels simply as “vegetable oil,” and sometimes by name: canola oil, cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil.  I know it’s disruptive to most Americans’ thinking to suggest that these are unhealthy oils.  We’ve been indoctrinated for decades to switch to these for health!  But the fact is, both lab science and general observation (like anthropological observations) confirm that these oils are harmful to health.  (Many of these should be common sense for other reasons, too, if you think about it.  Would you eat a canola or cottonseed?!)  Not convinced?  Read the book; you will be.

The Diet

Dr. Shanahan (“Dr. Cate“) observed four elements that are part of every traditional diet, despite the immense variations between the traditional diets of various cultures.  She calls a diet built on these four pillars The Human Diet.  The four pillars of The Human Diet are:

1. Meat on the bone
2. Fermented and sprouted foods
3. Organs and other “nasty bits”
4. Fresh, unadulterated plant and animal products

The beauty of this is that it’s so utterly flexible, and it’s also very simple.  But it isn’t necessarily easy for those of us accustomed to a sanitized American way of eating.  Fermented foods and organ meats, especially, can be hard concepts to swallow (perhaps literally!).  The author is aware of this and offers some very practical ways to get started.  We’re talking practical, common sense, all the way down to the level of “don’t buy stuff nobody likes.”  Should be obvious, right?  But we often lose sight of common-sense guidelines like that when trying to make a major change.

I would like to see more help in how to slowly acclimate to organ meats (which is addressed some, but not as much as I’d hoped).  That seems to be a gap in every resource advocating the use of organ meats.  But apart from that, this does a pretty good job of offering a how-to-get-started.  (And she does acknowledge that some people might just struggle to stomach organ meats — at least in the beginning — and make suggestions for what to do if that’s the case.  Including one of my favorites — desiccated liver pills.)

The Setup

This is not a short book.  My copy is 440 pages, not counting the 25 pages of end notes.  I have an advanced reader copy, so the final page count may vary by a few pages, but it should be pretty close.  It’s divided into three major sections: The Wisdom of Tradition, The Dangers of the Modern Diet, and Living the Deep Nutrition Way.

Although there’s some overlap — especially in that there are chapters dealing with the science of how food interacts with our bodies in every section — roughly speaking, the first section is painting a picture of what strong, healthy bodies really are.  We take a look at peoples historically and around the world (with heavy reference to Weston Price and his work), as well as the differences between the most beautiful specimens of modern humanity and “the rest of us.”

In the second section, we read mostly about the kind of damage vegetable oils are doing to our bodies, with a little bit of discussion regarding sugars and our bodies.  Be careful to read the whole book before drawing conclusions from this section.  Taken in isolation, it would lead one to believe that the author is opposed to all carbohydrates, which is not the case.  The final section of the book makes this clearer.

Speaking of the final section of the book, this is where we read about what comprises The Human Diet, as well as some immensely practical ways to moving toward this way of eating.  There are a few recipes, a lot of meal ideas, shopping suggestions, and even some tips for providing enough variety to avoid boredom while not moving so far into “varied” that you’re completely overwhelmed.

Final Notes

Although I might personally disagree with a detail or two, I found Deep Nutrition to be remarkably in line with my own understanding of sound nutrition — an understanding I’ve arrived at based on Scripture, anthropology, modern science, and common sense.  It’s also basic and flexible enough to be a practical approach.  The author makes reference to several other of my personal favorite authors, like Weston Price and Adelle Davis.

This is not, first and foremost, a “how to” book.  While the final section does offer practical help for getting started, you will likely want some other resources for really getting grounded in this way of eating, especially in terms of fermented foods and organ meats.  Some of the recommended reading at the end of the book will help with that, but there are lots of other resources “out there,” too.

(These two areas are areas I’m wanting to grow in, myself, so hopefully I can share my own successes and struggles in the coming year and we can learn from each other.)