Practical Paleo Book Review: Practically Perfect

by lisa | 10 October 2012 12:25

I love books and have absolutely no self control when left alone in a bookstore. Once I fell in love with the paleo lifestyle, of course I had to have every paleo book out there. However, if you have more self control than me and you can only get one paleo book, Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo is the one I would recommend. Diane is a Certified Nutrition Consultant and I’ve been following her blog and her podcasts for ages. I was thrilled when I found out she was writing a book. I had the pleasure of meeting Diane at the Sustainable Dish farm dinner in August (which I wrote about here) right after her book was released. She said, “Don’t be nice to me! Everybody is being so nice that I’m going to cry!”. Well, Diane, get ready for some more nice because you deserve it.

Practical Paleo is broken up into three different sections. Part 1 is called ‘The Why–Food and Your Body’.  It gives you an easy to understand education about paleo and the whys behind this way of eating. You’ll get information on stocking a paleo pantry, a guide to food quality, a guide to fats and oils, a guide to cooking fats and tips for eating out and traveling. Then you get an introduction to your body with special emphasis on your digestive system, leaky gut and a guide to gluten and blood sugar regulation with a guide to sweeteners. This section of the book has the best picture in any paleo book ever…it’s on page 75 and you’ll just have to get the book to see what I’m talking about.

Part 2 of Practical Paleo gives you 30 day meal plans. The very unique thing about this section of the book though, is that these meal plans are broken down into meal plans for specific conditions so that you can tailor your eating to your own individual needs. There are meal plans for autoimmune conditions, blood sugar regulation, digestive health, thyroid health, multiple sclerosis/fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue, neurological health, heart health, cancer recovery, athletic performance, fat loss and squeaky clean paleo. She gives you guidelines on what to include/exclude depending on what your particular situation is. For example, if fat loss is your goal, you get diet and lifestyle recommendations, nutritional supplements and herbs to consider, supportive nutrients and a list of foods that contain them and then 30 days of meal ideas. This was the section for me (along with thyroid health) while my husband was particularly excited about the section geared towards athletic performance. Something for everyone!

Part 3 is filled with recipes. Here is where you’ll find all of the recipes to go along with the 30 day meal plans. The recipes are easy, tasty and beautifully presented. All of the pictures were taken by Bill Staley of Make it Paleo (one of my favorite cookbooks) and I think that man could make moldy bread look good! At the end of the book, there are even tear out guides that you could stick to your fridge or take shopping with you. It’s like a present just for you inside the book. I love presents.

The reason I recommend this book as your one “must have” book about paleo is because it covers everything. You’ll learn about the whole process of choosing your food, preparing it, eating it, digesting it and eliminating it (again, you gotta see page 75!). This book is so easy to navigate and Diane makes it so easy to understand the paleo way of eating and even easier for you to figure out how to implement it into your own life.

You’ll probably also notice that we have a link to Diane’s Balanced Bites Nutrition Guide over on the right hand sidebar of our home page. If you click on it, you’ll get a fantastic 25 page FREE resource which includes many of the guides from Practical Paleo. You know somebody is authentic and serious about helping people when they make information available for free. Go on…go get it!

Happy Reading!

*BTW, if you live in Switzerland and order from www.amazon.de the shipping is free*

 

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