If you’re ready to take your health into your own hands, this book is for you.
If you’re looking for a light read, however, this book may not be for you! Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine by Robert Lustig, as the name implies, is a critical investigation into the industrial food complex and how it causes chronic illness. In addition to being a critique of our food and health system, this book delivers the evidence behind whole foods as a powerful medicine.
With that, welcome to the third edition of The Brodo Book Club. This is a content series that will uncover our favorite books that share our values and back them up. You already know that we’re firm believers in real, whole, delicious foods. But we’re not just making this up – we have a collection of books to back our beliefs! We hope you learn as much as we did from our latest selection.
Here are our takes:
YOU DON’T NEED TO READ THE WHOLE BOOK, BUT YOU’LL WANT TO
Although the book goes into extensive detail, the premise is simple: stay away from processed foods. What we like about the book is that it doesn’t demonize any particular diet – the author believes veganism, keto, paleo, and so on can be perfectly good diets as long as you mostly abstain from processed foods. This is key to living a healthy life free of chronic disease.
WE CAN’T BE “DRUGGED” BACK TO HEALTH , BUT WE CAN BE “FOODED” BACK TO HEALTH
One big problem in US healthcare is that we are given pills to treat the symptoms of chronic illness instead of addressing the root cause. This strategy benefits “Big Food” because it tells us that your health problems aren’t your fault and you can keep eating addictive processed food. It benefits “Big Pharma.” of course, because they’re the ones making billions of dollars from the medication. Lustig then connects the dots on how the processed food industry benefits the pharmaceutical industry and vice versa.
In fact, the US spends the most on healthcare per person of any country in the world, yet we have the worst health outcomes of any country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. According to Lustig, chronic illness is most effectively treated by a healthy diet rich in whole foods. But for several reasons, which the author discusses, our doctors are not coaching us on eating well – they’re throwing pills at us.
THE TAKEAWAY
It’s easy to become overwhelmed and pessimistic with all this information, but at the same time it can be very empowering to take back your health simply by choosing the right foods. At Brodo, we were inspired by the evidence behind whole foods as medicine. We try to make eating healthy easy, delicious, and even fun. Our bone broth is made the traditional way- by simmering meat and vegetables with sea salt, herbs, and spices – no powdered collagen, preservatives, or flavor enhancers. It’s delicious on its own and also the perfect backbone to soups, cooking whole grains, and other nourishing meals with all the bone broth nutrition.
Learn More
You can find Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine on Bookshop.org. You can also find our very own Brodo cookbook here, with bone broth musings and recipes from our head chef and founder Marco Canora.
