Healthy Eating = Bacon - Bread?

Believe it or not, one of the topics most discussed by your library professionals in the break room is food.  "What's for dinner?  Are you going to bring me some tomorrow?"  

One trend we've been noticing as people who work in an information environment and as people who love food is the "eating fat is good for you" movement.  Truth be told, this is delicious advice that we don't mind following!  The movement propounds that eating healthy fats (their definition including saturated fats) actually helps your body lose weight and absorb the nutrients in your food.  Recently (June 23 2014, to be exact) there was an article in Time Magazine* entitled "Eat Butter" which goes in to "why scientists were wrong to label fat the enemy."  This dietary viewpoint is reflected in the Paleo and Primal Blueprint approaches, both of which are generally based on what our ancestors probably ate (including, but not limited to, lots of bacon).  Therefore, these two diets eliminate or reduce sugars, processed foods and grains.  Which leads us to...

A related trend that has grabbed our attention: avoiding grains (kissing cousin to the Atkins diet, where phases of eating low carb are the golden ticket to weight loss).  Again, an idea that goes completely against the grain of wide-held opinion (yes, we intended the terrible pun).  This one is not as thrilling for most of us, especially when the grain in question is wheat and we must avoid it completely because of allergies.  But this dietary adjustment promises good for the body as well: weight loss, improved mobility, better brain function, etc.

The reasons that people choose no-grain diets are as varied as the people themselves.  Some folks avoid grains because of the negative way eating them affects their blood sugar and insulin levels, others because they want to manage their weight.  We spoke with somebody recently who said a big reason she no longer consumes wheat is because she was horrified by the research she did on the amount of pesticides that are used on wheat.  For many, avoiding wheat is less of a choice, and is done because of allergy or disease.

We think the hardest part about following these diets is determining the answer to this question:  "What can we eat instead?"  If we choose not to eat processed food, grain, and sugar, what's left?  (And how do we find it?!)  Which is where the related cookbooks come in, of which there are many.  We've compiled some here for you relating to these popular, yet unorthodox trends, but don't forget that we have plenty of books in the library about more conventional diets, as well as cookbooks of all kinds.

Catalog Searches

Paleo

Primal Blueprint

Gluten-Free

Fat

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Meat, Butter, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz

Eat Fat, Lose Fat: the Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon

Nourishing Traditions the Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon

Grain Free

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis

Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 Recipes to Help You Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis

Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers by David Perlmutter MD and Kristin Loberg

The Grain Brain Cookbook: More Than 150 Life-Changing Gluten-Free Recipes to Transform Your Health by David Perlmutter, MD

No-Grain Diet: Conquer Carbohydrate Addiction and Stay Slim for Life by Joseph Mercola 

Related Links
Peruse these sites and articles for unconventional perspectives on food and surrounding issues.

The Weston A. Price Foundation - Consuming animal fats and nutrient dense foods
A Campaign for Real Milk - Drinking raw milk
The No Grain Diet - by Dr Joseph Mercola
The Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat - On Mark's Daily Apple
Paleo Diet 101 - Paleo Magazine
Primal Blueprint 101 - About the Primal lifestyle, a la Mark Sisson

Have you heard of or tried any of these "diets" (we can hardly bring ourselves to call eating a bunch of fat a diet)?  Or, do you have any other interesting dietary habits?  Please share in the comments!

*Don't forget that all of the ABC Library branches have various magazines for checkout.  Search them in the catalog by title to see which branch has the most recent issues.  Usually, the most current issue of a magazine is available only to look at inside of the library, but some branches keep issues on hand for up to two years, and these are available to check out.  We also wanted to mention that with your library card you can access free digital magazines (as many as you want!) from Zinio, which you can check out, download to your device and keep for as long as you want.  Digital magazines are even more fun and addicting than physical copies because they can be interactive - for example they can link to sites as well as show video clips inside of an article.  Check them out and enjoy!