Nutrivore: The Radical New Science for Getting the Nutrients You Need from the Food You Eat
Extra, extra, read all about it! Breaking news!! My new book launches TODAY, May 14th, 2024!
I am sooo excited to have my new in-print book, Nutrivore: The Radical New Science for Getting the Nutrients You Need from the Food You Eat, out in the world for all to enjoy. I have been counting down the days until release so I thought it would be fun to share with you what the book has to offer, broadly and chapter by chapter, in the interest of helping you decide if this book would be a good resource for you!
So, what’s this book about anyway?
Nutrivore is a transformative guide that navigates the world of nutrition, dispels diet myths, and empowers you to embrace a nutrient-focused lifestyle tailored to your unique needs. With no food off-limits, Nutrivore encapsulates a permissive dietary structure, emphasizing nutrient-rich selections compatible with your preferred diet or anti-diet, that reduce your risk of future health problems and alleviate many of the symptoms you’re currently facing. With a wealth of scientific insights, relatable stories, and practical resources, Nutrivore delivers a timely and intuitive solution that revolutionizes how we perceive and prioritize the foods we consume.
Broad strokes, the book is divided into 3 sections, generally themed why, what and how!
Part 1 explains the importance of nutrients, why nutrient insufficiencies are widespread, and how they impact health. It introduces the Nutrivore philosophy as a permissive dietary structure, rather than a restrictive one, summarizes the three most important dietary patterns to support health, and provides practical guidance on choosing nutrient-dense foods using the Nutrivore Score.
Part 2 builds a strong foundation of nutrient knowledge and explores the links between specific nutrients and all the most common health complaints, from headaches to PMS, type 2 diabetes to seasonal allergies, high blood pressure to menopause insomnia. It’s designed for easy navigation, allowing you to focus on those nutrients relevant to your health concerns, and provides cheat sheets for quick reference.
Part 3 offers practical tools and guidance to implement Nutrivore principles while dispelling common diet myths so you can move forward with confidence. I highlight the most valuable foods and food groups, review the science on taste adaptation, and discuss tips for budget-friendly Nutrivore eating, all culminating in a collection of nutrient-dense snack suggestions and mix-and-match recipes.
If you want to know even more about what you can expect from this book, let’s take a tour of each of the chapters!
Let’s start at the beginning with Chapter 1: You’re Not Getting Enough Nutrients. In this chapter, I explain what a nutrient is and why they matter, the prevalence of nutrient deficiencies and insufficiencies, the eating patterns that contribute to this high rate of dietary shortfalls, the problem with weight loss diets, why its better to get nutrients from foods, and why it’s time to ditch the guilt!
Chapter 2: Fix Your Diet (and Health) with Nutrivore. This chapter explains how increasing nutrient intake can lower risk of health problems, explains the complex health equation and where diet fits in, and lays out the Nutrivore philosophy, why it’s permissive and not restrictive, and how Nutrivore can help us achieve sustainable nutrition while continuing to eat our favorite foods and not breaking the bank every time we go to the grocery store!
Chapter 3: The Nutrivore Score, covers, you guessed it, the Nutrivore Score! I talk about the history of nutrient profiling, the actual calculation and what it tells us, and how to practically use (and how not to use) the Nutrivore Score day-to-day. This chapter wraps up with a 4-page table summarizing the Top 100 Nutrivore Score Foods that you can find at just about any grocery store.
Chapter 4: Easy Steps to Nutrivore wraps up Part 1 with a discussion of the most important overall eating patterns that help us increase nutrient intake without having to think too hard about what we’re eating. All the most important action steps are covered in this chapter, including a simple guide on how to craft a nourishing and balanced meal!
At this point we’re launching into Part 2 of the book, the first chapter of which is Chapter 5: Mighty Macronutrients: Protein, Carbs and Fats. Throughout the second part of the book, I examine the link between one specific nutrient and a health concern, with chapters organized by nutrient type. With this macronutrients chapter, I also explain what macronutrients are and how they aren’t monolithic—not all proteins, carbohydrates and fats have the same impact on our health—so we really want to understand the roles of the various macronutrient building blocks in supporting lifelong health rather than looking at macronutrients purely through the lens of weight loss. I wrap up with an explanation on why balanced macros are the default setting on Nutrivore.
Chapter 6: Magnificent Minerals starts off with one of my favorite historical anecdotes since it mirrors so much of what we see today on the internet, that elevation of a beneficial nutrient or food to miracle cure status, and the trouble we can get into when we overdo it (which I revisit later in the chapter where I talk about the Tolerable Upper Limit). I then continue with the format of Part 2, examining the specific link between one nutrient and a common health concern, hitting some of the biggies in this chapter, like high blood pressure, migraine headaches, PMS, insulin resistance, and susceptibility to infection! I wrap up with a handy-dandy table that summarizes all the biological roles of the essential minerals, how much we need, how much is too much, and what foods are the best sources.
Chapter 7: Vital Vitamins highlights how important it is to get enough of all the essential vitamins by looking at how specific vitamins impact our sleep, mental health, energy, and focus, in addition to supporting a healthy pregnancy and reducing our risk for osteoporosis! This chapter wraps up with the Valuable Vitamins Cheat Sheet which summarizes all the wonderful ways that vitamins impact our health, how much we need, how much is too much, and what the best food sources are for each vitamin.
Chapter 8: Phenomenal Phytonutrients! This chapter is all about phytonutrients, not technically essential but still super important for supporting long-term health. I cover how various classes of phytonutrients can improve chronic pain, muscle recovery after a workout, vision and eye-related diseases, and reduce risk of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The summary table at the end of the chapter revisits the idea of “eating the rainbow” (discussed in Chapter 4) by highlighting all of the phytonutrients that are also pigments in plant foods and the various ways they benefit our health. This chapter wraps up Part 2, the goal of which is to demonstrate the profound impact that nutrients can have on our health, and hopefully make nutrition feel more relevant to each reader by covering all of the most common health complaints and concerns.
The first chapter in Part 3: Nutrivore in Practice is Chapter 9: Nutrivore Foundational Foods, which both summarizes a lot of the foods highlighted throughout Part 2 as being particularly nutritionally valuable, as well as looking at studies that give us some guidance on how much of them to eat. We also look at food groups through the lens of the Nutrivore Score and discuss taste adaptation so we can enjoy the new nutrient-dense foods we’re adding to our diets!
Chapter 10: Busting Myths About What, When, and How to Eat covers all of the most prevalent myths and misconceptions about foods and food quality that are out there these days. My goal with this chapter is to help you feel comfortable facing your food fears and expanding your diet, while also providing you with the knowledge you need to avoid falling for predatory marketing and food-phobic myths you might not have heard about yet! Yes, there are a lot of topics in this chapter that I’ve personally done a 180 on, which is also why the citation section for this chapter is as hefty as the chapter itself!
Chapter 11: Applying Nutrivore Principles is actually the conclusion chapter of the book, bringing all of the ideas together into easy action steps and culminating in the Nutrivore Weekly Serving Matrix! This chapter also covers a bunch of other practical tips, like how to eat Nutrivore in a restaurant and Nutrivore on a budget.
Chapter 12: Nutrient-Dense Master Recipes includes a collection of 15 nutrient-dense snack suggestions and 12 mix-and-match style recipes for breakfasts, lunches and dinners, like a choose-your-own adventure of a nourishing meal! You get to select your favorite ingredients to cater to your own tastes, use up what you happen to have in your home, and/or to be intentional about upping your dietary diversity! These are all straightforward meals to prepare using simple ingredients and techniques, and ultimately there’s hundreds of variations of these recipes.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this sneak peek into my new book but if you want to hear even more about it, including listening to me read some excerpts from each chapter, check out my video.
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