|| 2.5 ⭐️ ||

It’s another okay book on nutrition that lays out some good information. Could be a decent starting point for learning about how metabolism works and how food (and other factors) can either promote or prevent disease.

But there’s a lot to unpack here. As I read more and more nutrition books they’re all starting to feel very similar. Like many that I’ve read, Good Energy goes extremely in-depth into various specific cellular functions and specific nutritional components’ impact on those. While this is super interesting to read about, I’m increasingly grateful that God takes care of all these little mechanisms and we don’t have to know too much about them in order to remain healthy—all we really need to know is the basics of what and how to eat. I can’t help but feel like someone new to using food as medicine would find all this information more overwhelming than it needs to be.

Another thing that a lot of nutrition books have in common is an overemphasis on nuts and fibre. As per usual, the author goes on about how sugar has never been consumed in such high doses until recently, yet ignores the fact that the same goes for nuts and seeds and instead encourages people to eat them liberally… including as a substitute for grains, which people have been eating since the beginning of time. There is never any mention of proper/traditional preparation of nuts/seeds/grains if we do choose to eat them. She also tries to make a case that veganism can be an acceptable diet, despite lacking loads of the basic nutrients she repeatedly admits we need for optimal health. These things are always a bit baffling to me when professionals write about them, regardless of how many studies they cite.

The chapter on stress and mental health was heavily secular and new age and I disagreed with a lot of the proposed solutions. Especially when BetterHelp was recommended as a good way to find a therapist….yikes. And psychedelics… even more yikes.

I did appreciate the chapter on circadian health, which is something many books on health overlook. 

Finally, being a doctor who left the mainstream system to start her own private practice, she gets into a lot of the problems with the Western healthcare system from an insider’s perspective. That was very interesting and I agreed with her take wholeheartedly there.