“Never take advice from someone you wouldn't trade places with” is a principle I live by. Thus, I would not trust an unfit personal trainer or a business advisor who never run a business.  What matters are results, not degrees and credentials. That is why I was pleasantly surprised when I found four books written by people who achieved or witnessed the achievement of extraordinary results with the help of nutrition. These books were four gems in the ocean of literature on nutrition, filled to the brim with well-grounded and contradicting recommendations. The best part was that all these four books had common themes, which profoundly changed my relationship with food.  

Stories of Healing

Meals She Eats: Empowering Advice, Relatable Stories, and Over 25 Recipes to Take Control of Your PCOS by Tom and Rachael Sullivan, published in 2023.

Tom and Rachael Sullivan are a married couple who struggled to conceive a baby due to Rachael’s polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). As a part of their journey to success, the couple switched to unprocessed “real” food. They eliminated inflammatory and hormone-disruptive ingredients, such as sugar, refined carbs, dairy, and soy. They focused on organic, grass-fed, and non-GMO food. The book is filled with delicious recipes for each of the four phases of the menstrual cycle.  

UnDiet: Eat Your Way to Vibrant Health by Meghan Telpner, published in 2013.

Three years after graduation from university, Meghan was diagnosed with an auto-immune, inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn’s Disease. Possible medical interventions included surgeries and a lifetime of pills. Instead, Meghan navigated to a vibrant health through food choices. Meghan’s health-building food options include green vegetables, especially raw leafy greens, non-starchy vegetables, beans, fresh fruits, whole grains, raw nuts and seeds, fish, and eggs. On her journey to healing, Meghan said her farewell to processed food, fruit juices, soda, and caffeine.  Meghan grows her vegetable garden and buys organic food.

Rejuvenation Program

Younger You: Reduce Your Bio Age and Live Longer by Kara N. Fitzgerald ND, published in 2023.

Dr Fitzgerald developed a diet and lifestyle program to reduce biological aging measured by DNA testing. The program resulted in an average decrease in biological age by 4.60 years over eight weeks.

Dr Fitzgerald’s recognizes the power of whole organic food and recommends avoiding processed food, added sugar, artificial sweeteners, and refined carbs. The program is primarily plant-based, focusing on dark leafy greens, cruciferous and colorful vegetables, seeds, fermented food, and berries. Non-plant-based foods on the program include eggs, chicken, chicken liver, and fish. Dr Fitzgerald’s recommends drinking up to five cups of green, oolong, and herb tea a day.

Longevity Research

The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100 by Dan Buettner, published in 2019.

The Blue Zones project was launched in 2004 by Dan Buettner an award-winning journalist who teamed with National Geographic and the National Institute on Aging. Dan traveled to and researched communities in the world with the highest concentration of healthiest nonagenarians and centenarians. These communities are spread worldwide but united by relatively common food habits. The project was documented in a series of books, including the Blue Zines Kitchen.

The first common characteristic of Blue Zones nutrition is that people there grow their food and use simple tools to prepare meals. They eat mostly plant-based diet rich in cruciferous vegetables, beans, and nuts. They drink mostly water. Their bread is homemade, sourdough or one hundred percent whole-grain.  

Common Themes

Homemade Meals.  We all know processed food, refined sugar, and refined carbs harm our health. Most of us, however, don’t realize the extent of the impact. Switching from processed to homemade food helped Meghan Telpner heal her body within a month. Similarly, Dr Dr Fitzgerald found a significant difference in DNA results within just eight weeks after the change. 

Local Organic Food. Our predecessors and the healthiest people living in Blue Zones grow food free from commercial herbicides and pesticides. Very few people can do it today. The closest alternative is seasonal organic food from local farms, which is fortunately still available in many parts of the world, including my town in Canada. Many consumers, including our family, find the taste of local organic food exceptional compared to imported mass-produced food.

Low-Carb Plant-Based.  Cruciferous vegetables, dark leafy greens, seeds, and nuts are cornerstones of longevity, rejuvenation, and healing diets. Seeds and nuts are delicious in salads. Dark leafy greens make a fantastic morning smoothie. An excellent way to add more cruciferous vegetables is by growing sprouts. Whole grain carbs and selected animal products are fine but in moderation.

My Take Aways

Switching to homemade, organic, low-carb, plant-based food relieved me from any symptoms of emotional eating. The main reason is that this food is not engineered to release dopamine like its processed counterparts. I no longer feel food cravings and enjoy lots of energy.

I realized that food is an investment in my family’s health, but not an item to cheap out on.  For comparison, local homemade healthy food cost an average American family 43% of their disposable income in 1900. That percentage dropped to 11% in 2022 due to efficiencies and also some quality shortcuts. 

While homemade food is worth every minute it needs to prepare, which can also be time to bond with a family. Making healthy meals and experimenting in the kitchen is fun. If cooking is properly planned, it should take reasonable time. 

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Natalia Brattan is a lifestyle writer and coach based in Waterloo, Ontario. She created a website https://www.alignedpriorities.com/ with tips and ideas on how to find time for what matters in life, including the preparation of homemade healthy meals.