Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond Paleo for Total Health and a Longer Life

By Samuel Simon Schmucker

Book Overview

Combining your body's Paleolithic needs with modern nutritional and medical research for complete mind-body wellness - Provides sustainable diet strategies to curb sugar cravings, promote fat burning and weight loss, reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep and moods, increase energy and immunity, and enhance memory and brain function - Shows how our modern diet leads to weight gain and "diseases of civilization"--such as cancer, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and ADD - Explains how diet affects the brain, hormone balance, and the aging process and the crucial role of vitamin D in cancer and disease prevention Examining the healthy lives of our pre-agricultural Paleolithic ancestors and the marked decline in stature, bone density, and dental health and the increase in birth defects, malnutrition, and disease following the implementation of the agricultural lifestyle, Nora Gedgaudas shows how our modern grain- and carbohydrate-heavy low-fat diets are a far cry from the high-fat, moderate-protein hunter-gatherer diets we are genetically programmed for, leading not only to lifelong weight gain but also to cravings, mood disorders, cognitive problems, and "diseases of civilization"--such as cancer, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome (insulin resistance), heart disease, and mental illness. Applying modern discoveries to the basic hunter-gatherer diet, she culls from vast research in evolutionary physiology, biochemistry, metabolism, nutrition, and chronic and degenerative disease to unveil a holistic lifestyle for true mind-body health and longevity. Revealing the primal origins and physiological basis for a high-fat, moderate-protein, starch-free diet and the importance of adequate omega-3 intake--critical to our brain and nervous system but sorely lacking in most people's diets--she explains the nutritional problems of grains, gluten, soy, dairy, and starchy vegetables; which natural fats promote health and which (such as canola oil) harm it; the crucial role of vitamin D in cancer and disease prevention; the importance of saturated fat and cholesterol; and how diet affects mental health, memory, cognitive function, hormonal balance, and cellular aging. With step-by-step guidelines, recipes, and meal recommendations, this book offers sustainable strategies for a primally based, yet modern approach to diet and exercise to reduce stress and anxiety, lose weight, improve sleep and mood, increase energy and immunity, enhance brain function, save money on groceries, and live longer and happier.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1437104576
• ISBN13: 9781437104578
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Helpful Dietary Information

This book is the most helpful and practical book I have found on the issue of dietary health. I only wish I had read this a decade ago.

Truly empowering! One of the very best books on human nutrition out there!

'The USDA Food Pyramid should be renamed 'The Feedlot Pyramid.' It's nutrient profile is the same as swine fattening chow...' If you're relying on your doctor, the media, etc. to give you accurate information on proper nutrition, be forewarned: much of their information is alarmingly and dangerously skewed, either out of ignorance or the not so surprising fact that certain 'powers that be' value profits over your health!...

It's A Health Plan So Easy Even An Unga Bunga Caveman Can Do It!

Unga bunga! Me Tarzan. You Jane. How we eat? Meat yummy. Fat yummy too. Fish sometimes yummy. I eat few plants, berries, and nuts. No worry about calories. And run real fast from hungry predators from time to time, too. That is, in a nutshell, what Paleolithic living was like thousands of years ago when grocery stores and gyms didn't even exist. And author Nora Gedgaudas uses humor, science-based facts, and sometimes common...

Primal tools for the (almost) modern human

Primal Body-Primal Mind covers a wide range of health topics - nutrition, metabolism, exercise, weight loss, vitamins and supplements, depression and other emotional issues - but ties them all back to one central idea: physically, we are virtually identical to our Paleolithic ancestors. We may drive minivans and listen to modern jazz on iPods, but our bodies and brains haven't really evolved past the stone-tools era. Your...

The Clear Voice of Truth

I was right in the middle of writing my cookbook, eliminating gluten from the recipes and only including "safe" natural sugars, when a friend handed me this "Darn" book, Primal Body-Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas and said I had better be ready to have my mind blown. Of course my mind was saying (I don't need any more information right now and what more could there possibly be?) Well.. The more I read Nora's book, the more...