After reading The Diet Myth: Why the Secret to Health and Weight Loss is Already in Your Gut, by Tim Spector, you will realize you are never alone when you eat. You are host to millions of microbes in your gastrointestinal track that are eating with you. Talk about intimate dining! And each one of us has a different combination and balance of those microbes, influenced by a wide range of factors - heredity, culture, environment and food itself.
Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London. He has done extensive research on the genetics of twins. Some of this has led him to questions regarding what people eat and what is really happening to the food and to them.
Using the format of a typical nutrition label, Spector covers the topics of calories, fats, proteiens, carbs, sugars, fibre, additives, vitamins and warnings. He discusses existing theories, past thinking, current research and speculations about diet, health and our bodies. In our diets, what works, what doesn't? Why does a "one-size fits all" approach to a diet fail?
Spector clearly, with wry humor, navigates scientific research, including his own failures and successes with food choices. It appears our internal microbial "company" thrives on having a great diversity of foods - the greater the diversity the better for the microbes and, ultimately, us.
The book is written in an approachable manner, one topic easily leading to another. It can help make sense of the bewildering abundance of stuff out there about food, weight and health, giving the reader literal "IN-sight."
Scheduled to be published September 2015.
P.J. O'Rourke advises "Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
Let Galesburg Public Library staff and friends guide you in finding those books.
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