91 books like Forks Over Knives

Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food is also a classic, coming out in 2008. This book takes you deeper into the world of ultra-processed foods vs. whole foods—though the term “ultra-processed” wasn’t yet being used when he wrote this book. His famous “eater’s manifesto”—Eat food.  Not too much. Mostly plants. – is the tl/dr version, but if you want to learn more about how he came up with this manifesto, you’ll find it all within these pages. 

This book is not the one-size-fits-all approach of many food books. Naturopath Dr Peter J. D’Adamo has carried on the work of his father to research the effect of various types of lectins, a type of protein found in our body, and found in many foods. One way our unique biology is expressed is in our blood type – O, A, B, or AB. Different types of lectins cause agglutination (the clumping of particles) in different blood types. ‘If you eat a food that contains lectins incompatible with your blood type, those lectins cling or bind themselves to membranes in the digestive tract causing damage such as inflammation.’

Eating right involves two very important things- what you need to eat a lot of for health, and what you need to avoid eating because it will make you ill. A very sobering look inside the so-called ‘food industry’ and how it is operating in the modern world, Swallow This educates us as to what ‘food’ labels mean; ‘natural flavourings’, ‘modified starch’ and so on. Once you’ve read it, you will understand completely why I put ‘food’ in inverted commas, and will develop a proper aversion to processed ‘food’, which will save you from a raft of serious health outcomes.

Not strictly speaking about food, but I decided it needs to be included here because good hydration is as foundational for health as a good diet - no matter how good your diet is, if you are chronically dehydrated, you won’t be well. Your Body’s Many Cries for Water describes why. The book’s subtitle sums it up: You're Not Sick; You're Thirsty: Don't Treat Thirst with Medications. Dr. Batmanghelidj’s fascinating exploration into the importance of proper hydration basically says that if people drank about 2.5 litres a day of clean water, we would be free of at least 50% of illnesses.

Michael Mosley was the one of the first best-selling authors to disseminate the new knowledge about how type 2 diabetes could be put into remission. It is all the more authentic in that he describes his personal battle with rising blood sugar levels. "Once you tip from prediabetes into diabetes you will be slapped on medication faster than you can say 'Coca-Cola'."  And it worth avoiding that fate. This is an eminently readable book which brings you onside with the author—a confident not a teacher. Just look at the section "Sort out your head". It’s the mind and body thing, often overlooked by well-meaning advisers. Just glance down the three sections of the book—The Science, The Diet, The Menus. Where will you start? This book bubbles with well-informed enthusiasm.

Dr. William Li is a well-known and well-trained Harvard medical doctor. He has devoted his life to research. This book reveals much of his research and how we can use nutrition to beat cancer and many other diseases. Did you know that cruciferous vegetables, tea leaves, and the extract from berries which are loaded with antioxidants, can help fight cancer? There is much rich information in this book.

There has been a massive shift since the early twentieth century in our diets from the whole foods that served our ancestors well to ultra-processed foods that appear on shelf after shelf in our grocery stores, even in the infant and toddler section.

The author of Metabolic, Robert Lustig MD, is an endocrinologist with a passion for healthy nutrition, and he teaches us the many reasons why consuming a diet of ultra-processed foods is so damaging to the health of our bodies and our brains. Lustig explains how switching over from a convenience food diet to a whole food diet can help prevent type 2 diabetes and lead to many other health benefits.

His advice hit home with me because I went through that very process in 2006 and have reaped the benefits.

I read this book about 12 years ago. My son was having a hard time. I had tried therapy for him, for me. It wasn’t enough. In no way was I going to put him on medication as I had seen what this had done to some of my young adult clients. They were struggling and also self-medicating with recreational drugs. I wanted something more, something natural. A friend recommended this book and the author Julia Ross happened to live only 45 min away. I read this book and it was a game-changer for me and my family. The amino therapy was so helpful and created such an internal change for my son that life was more manageable. Now 10 years later I am training in this work and have seen amazing changes in some of my clients for anxiety, depression, energy, sugar cravings, and more. 

Ravella, a gastroenterologist, takes readers deep into the human immune system and its go-to process—inflammation. 

She provides illuminating details about macrophages (a type of immune cell) and how dietary patterns can shift their normally helpful activities to harmful ones. And only recently was it learned that immune cells need certain fats (omega-3s) to make the compounds that end an inflammatory event. Where do we get Omega-3s?

In the foods we eat, among them fatty fish like salmon, grass-fed meat and dairy, and certain nuts and seeds. I also love the history of science and Ravella provides generous sprinkles of various characters and their ideas throughout the book to share how intertwined inflammation is with human biology. 

The research on the gut-brain axis connection and how what we are eating and drinking contributes to our anxiety is beyond fascinating.

A cookbook and a breakdown of the foods to eat and avoid depending on the mental health concern, this book is one for the ages. When you consider how our foods are contributing to inflammation in the body, and thus an increased stress response, it’s no wonder we feel more anxious. Thankfully, Dr. Naidoo makes astute recommendations on how we can shift the course of our anxiety but changing what we put in our mouths.