It's a travelogue, a nutrition advice book (complete with case studies), and a cookbook, too. Writing in the first person, Daphne Miller brings these three books together into one fun read. She's adventurous and curious, which makes a book about preventing diabetes, cancer and depression into a delight. Who'd have thought!
Several ideas come together here: "Cold spots" are places in which chronic Western diseases are noticeably absent. Miller explores what and how people eat in the cold spots. Then she cites the research showing why a particular indigenous diet provides protection against a particular condition. She was led to the cold spots in her efforts to help individual patients who were struggling with health issues--and whose ethnic heritage is tied to the cold spot. That's another piece of the puzzle: in this fast-food world, it's not easy to maintain the ideal diet as usually presented: fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and varying advice on carbs. " But a Mexican "cold spot" diet might be easier for a Chicana patient to stick with. The foods might appeal to cultural memory, or even an individual's memories of grandmother's cooking. Sure enough, it turns out that way, as Miller returns from cold spots with traditional recipes to share with her patients. For example, a Scandinavian patient, who turns up her nose at ubiquitous California salads, turns out to love the Icelandic diet with plenty of berries, fish, and waxy potatoes. And eating the Icelandic way helps her out of a serious depression. Miller explains how it works.
The book invites us to eat our way around the world and learn the principles of each indigenous diet. We can sample from Camaroon, Crete, Okinawa and more. The recipes look good--I haven't tried them yet-and are written to incorporate ingredients easily available in most US towns. Miller finds out about the recipes by peeking into kitchens and cooking with locals, who are colorfully portrayed. I found inspiration for healthy eating in this book, and learned a lot about the mechanisms behind the adage "we are what we eat."
I should tell you that Dr Miller is our family doctor. She's just as devoted to her patients as it seems in the book. And her constant scan of medical and nutrition research has helped our whole family. While I haven't made any of the recipes yet, I recognize changes we have already made based on her advice.
`The Jungle Effect` is what Dr. Miller noticed when her San Francisco practice patients went on a "native diet". Unlike typical Western diets, which caused her patients health problems, when they switched to native diets traditional foods from native cultures their health improved, often dramatically. To learn more about native diets, Dr. Miller visited places such as Iceland, Nigeria, Crete, the Amazon, Okinawa to discover what they are doing right. Thousands of years of human trial and error, according to Dr. Miller, have selected for the best diets for human health and longevity.
Dr. Miller is not new in this approach. Dr. Weston A. Price in the 1930s observed the same heath giving benefits of traditional foods and today there is a large and active community of native nutritionists surrounding Price and his legacy (see Sally Fallon's classic Nourishing Traditions). However Miller's book does offer some new and interesting perspectives. She actually traveled to native regions and sampled the foods and diets, and this makes for fascinating reading in an up to date journalistic human-interest story style. She dispels the notion that genetics plays a significant role, suggesting that anyone of an ethnic background can adopt any native diet (eg. a European can benefit from an Okinawa diet). Finally, she suggests food is more than its parts, each dish is symbiotic, so it is important to eat the entire food way, not just its elements. For example olive oil is good, but best in combination with the entire Mediterranean diet. Oddly enough, she also recommends mixing and matching various native diets (she personally cooks from different regions each night).
Dr. Miller's book is an excellent primer for anyone not already familiar with native nutrition. Her research supports and adds to the work done by the Weston A. Price Foundation, with a slightly different approach. Her field-trips make for excellent reading and reveal specific regional food-ways. `The Jungle Effect` is a valuable contribution to the growing literature, and an easy and fun to read introduction to native nutrition.
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The old cliche is true Dr. Miller has been my personal doctor for years and proved it to me. Her approach helped my health and well-being tremendously and is so logical and common sense it's a shame that more doctors don't use nutrition as the first line of defense and offense for good health.
I expected it to be an interesting resource with some good recipes but it is a highly readable and inspiring book. Worth owning and living by!!
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Author & Book Views On A Healthy Life!
The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home (Collins Living, 2008) by Daphne Miller, M.D.
Daphne Miller, M.D. author of The Jungle Effect, writes that indigenous foods, or native plants, vegetables, and fruits, are the natural prescription solution and even prevention for type 2 diabetes. Past studies of Pacific Islanders and Australian Aborigines have shown that when these peoples eliminated their own native diets, for the Western high carb diet, they quickly developed pre-diabetes or full-blown diabetes. Indigenous diets include nuts, roots, and seeds like cheeky yam, black bean seed, and bush onion. Others you may be more familiar with: quinoa, barley kernels, cracked wheat (bulgur), steel-cut oats, and millet.
Further testing of the indigenous foods showed that they were difficult to break apart and digest. Blood sugar and insulin levels rose more slowly after eating these foods, whereas Western carbs --refined flour, sugar, pasta, mass-produced corn, white rice--digest quickly, rapidly raising blood sugar and insulin, leading to diabetes.
In The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home, Dr. Miller gives five reasons why slow release indigenous foods are antidiabetic:
* Slow-release foods are slowly digested--keeping blood sugar and insulin levels lower.
* Slow-release foods are fiber-rich--extending satiety, decreasing the desire for fast-release snacks (donuts, candy, etc..)
* Slow-release foods are nutrient-rich--unrefined grains have not lost their vitamin and mineral properties from the refining process. For example, white flour retains only 15% of its magnesium content after the refining. Dr. Miller writes that "Low-blood magnesium levels are linked to insulin resistance, poor blood sugar control, and diabetic complications."
* Slow-release foods are free of bad fats--saturated, partially hydrogenated, omega 6. Instead they contain stanols and sterols, healthy plant fats, which lower triglycerides.
* Slow-release foods have unique antidiabetic capabilities. Some specific indigenous foods cause sensitivity to insulin--some herbs, spices, and the prickly pear cactus.
A wonderful example of a slow-release meal is the corn tortilla, filled with beans, accompanied by squash, jicama, herbs, spices (cinnamon, pepper, cumin, coriander), and nopales (prickly pear cactus).
First, purchase or make tortillas that have 3 grams minimum of fiber each, have been treated with lime, are organic (if possible), and are free from hydrogenated fat and preservatives.
If you have a choice, cook your own beans. They are usually fresher, cheaper, tastier, less salty, and digest more slowly than the canned varieties.
Squashes, both the hard winter types and summer varieties, have been eaten in the Americas for several thousand years, says Dr. Miller. They are chock full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
Jicama, easily peeled and eaten raw, can be sliced into small slices and dressed in lime juice and chili powder.
Look for the prickly pear in Latino/Hispanic/Middle Eastern markets. Stick to small, tender, and bright green ones.
BackStory: "In the past 70 years, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the United States has increased over 700 percent, and the disease is slowly affecting younger and younger populations. While this is the case with people of all ethnicities, the most dramatic rise has been experienced by Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. Furthermore, recent statistics have shown that diabetes is now taking center stage as one of the greatest health issues worldwide."--Dr. Daphne Miller
Daphne Miller, M.D. traveled around the world investigating the diets of many native peoples. She is a board certified family physician in private practice in San Francisco and an associate professor at the University of California, where she teaches nutrition and integrative medicine.
The Jungle Effect--I highly encourage you to read this book for better insight on your diet and health.--Kelly Jad'on
5 Stars
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I just loved this book, too, and probably will never read another diet book again. "The Jungle Effect" is really not a diet book it's the Occam's razor of human dietary habits, the way our ancestors have always eaten for survival. Working only a block away from Dr. Miller's office, I've been tempted to walk down there to get the book autographed and buy ten more for my family and friends. I probably won't do that, but I definitely will do my best to promote it to people I know. I've already started making changes in my husband's and my diet and it's been a joyous, life-enhancing and elegant experience.
By comparing the sort of meals that Americans are used to eating to, say, an African meal, Dr. Miller conveys an eye-opening epiphany. It should come as no surprise that the fiber content in African meals actually prevents the development of colon cancer. It's not a big mystery, but we're always looking for complicated schemes and sophisticated medical breakthroughs for answers, when the solution is pretty darn obvious and really pretty simple.
I think that readers will also enjoy the travel diary experience as Dr. Miller wends her way not only through remote highlands in Mexico, but the wilds of Walmart in the Central Valley. She really wants to help everyone find a solution, regardless of their status or income and to be able to do it with any and all available resources. What a wonderful book. What great medicine.
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San Diego should, perhaps, be located further north in California. It has the heavy development found among the other southern California metropolitan areas but it also offers an ambiance that is in some ways more typical of the central California coast. Outdoor recreation is highly valued in San Diego. More preserves are being set aside on a regular basis and the county boasts some of the finest year round hiking in the state. If you would like to escape from the urban congestion and bustle of the greater San Diego region for an afternoon and explore a few of these preserves, then veteran outdoor author Sheri McGregor has the book for you. Part of the new "Easy Hikes" series from Menasha Ridge Press, this guide to the wilder part of San Diego will have you out of the car and on relatively easy and very scenic trails in short order.
