When walking down the health and nutrition aisle in your local bookstore, you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the sheer number of books related to diet and nutrition. Considering the health crisis that we face today (a rise in diabetes among the youth and an increase in diet-related degenerative diseases among older adults), it’s no wonder that there are so many texts trying to define the way to eat. However, it is important to note that this overabundance of diverse diet information reveals two things: there is a strong market for diet-related books, and there is no single dietary answer that fits everyone’s needs.

While there may not be a dietary text that will answer all of your questions and concerns, Nina Planck’s Real Food: What to Eat and Why, does an excellent job providing solid dietary advice in a very approachable way. Like the Feelgood Eats food philosophy, Planck encourages her readers to eat real, traditional foods and avoid modern processed and refined foods.

Planck begins the text by sharing her own journey with food. She describes growing up on a farm filled with traditional foods and her early-adult years where she avoided all of the foods she grew up with in order to eat more “healthy.” After years of following modern dietary advice, eating a primarily vegetarian diet and only low-fat foods, Planck relates:

• I felt terrible. My digestion was poor, and I was moody, tearful, and tender in all the wrong places before I got my period. In cold and flu season, I got both. I was depressed, too. Partly to starve off the gloom, I ran three to six miles a day, six days a week. On this virtuous regime I also gained weight steadily - and before I knew it I was plump. (p.16)

A move to London and an involvement in setting up farmer’s markets changed Planck’s dietary patterns. She notes, “without really trying, I stopped thinking about food and started tasting it” (p. 18). It is at this point that real food enters her diet and becomes the foundation of her food and wellness philosophy:

• From the farm to the factory to the kitchen, real food is local and seasonal; grains should be whole; fats and oils unrefined. From farm to factory to the kitchen, real food is produced and prepared the old-fashioned way - but not out of mere nostalgia. In each of these examples of real food, the traditional method of farming, processing, preparing, and cooking enhances nutrition and flavor, while the industrial method diminishes both. (p.2)

By moving away from modern “health” foods (non-fat, lean, processed) to a more traditional diet, Planck was able to regain her health and vitality. Throughout the text Planck details what she considers real food, offering chapters on milk, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Planck’s Dietary Guidelines:

• Eat generous amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables daily
• Eat wild fish and seafood often
• Eat meat, game, poultry and eggs from wild, pastured and grass-fed animals often
• Eat full-fat dairy foods, ideally raw and from unhomegenized grass-fed cows
• Eat only traditional fats; these include butter, lard, poultry fat, coconut oil and olive oil
• Eat whole grains and legumes
• Eat cultured and fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut and miso
• Eat unrefined sweeteners (such as raw honey and maple syrup) in moderation

This book is a valuable addition to my library and I find that I turn to it again and again for a quick review. I appreciate that Planck avoids making strong dietary mandates, and instead sets a valuable framework that encourages the reader to think and taste again.