merilini_raamatujutud's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

olympiajournals's review

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3.0

I thought i liked this book when i first finished it but i went away and did some further reading and realised i didn’t actually agree with some of the points the author was making.

i appreciated it disproving a lot of common diet myths and explaining the science simply for people who weren’t interested in science but after some further reading i realised i disagreed with his health at every size approach.

kimouise's review

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informative medium-paced

3.0

johannabeek's review

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funny hopeful informative fast-paced

4.0

nixkonkretes's review

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informative fast-paced

3.0

melreadsstuff's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

rubyoung22's review against another edition

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challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

steffilietzke's review against another edition

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hopeful informative fast-paced

4.0


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hmatt's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

3.5

This was a quick listen for me, but I liked the author's approach. The title is intentionally misleading, if that's not clear. The author breaks down food and diet trends that have recently circulated, largely through social media, and debunks them from the lens of nutrition. He emphasizes the different roles and functions that food has in our bodies in contrast to the function of medicine. 

He mostly keeps it out of this text, which I think is appropriate, but the author is also someone who advocates for intuitive eating. I think this is an important lens to go in with as a reader, regardless of your personal relationship with food.

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kingabee's review

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4.0

I first heard of Dr Joshua Wolrich via Jameela Jamil’s podcast and his journey from a diet culture afficionado to its very outspoken critic caught my attention, so I splashed out on this hardcover.

“Food Isn’t Medicine” is a very straight forward book. It doesn’t tell you anything absolutely ground-breaking when it comes to nutrition. It’s the same old truths – eat more fruit and vegetables, eat more whole grain, cut down saturated fats. Almost everything is ok in moderation. And the truth is that’s all you truly need to know. No matter what the new fad diet tells you, or some sensational headline in a tabloid that blows out of proportion some dodgy study performed on five mice, if you stick to those old, tested rules, you will be fine. Wolrich debunks a lot of stuff I knew was nonsense (alkaline diet, BMI /though didn’t know the extent of this nonsense/), suspected might be dangerous nonsense (ketodiet), didn’t even know was a thing (carnivore diet). He does all of it with humour backed by solid science. It’s a difficult balance to strike between making your book accessible but not juvenile and he does it well. It’s not one of those books where you feel like you are stuck at some family function listening to your uncle’s cringe-worthy jokes.

We have convinced ourselves that food holds the key to everything - it can make us healthy, make us sick, cure everything from cancer to depression. And while a healthy diet is important, food isn’t medicine. Believing that food has more power than it does gives us a false sense of control but it’s time to let go. All these beliefs have made almost all of us show some signs of disordered eating.
This book’s strength is not in some cutting-edge nutritional science but in how persuasive and successful it is when it comes to repairing our relationship with food. I admit I was already on the path of giving less fucks about calories and kilograms, but I think I needed this one last push to officially unsubscribe from all those ‘Fit Healthy’ groups on Facebook, that masquerade as ‘healthy’ groups but still equate ‘healthy’ with ‘losing weight’.

I had always put off most things in my life "until I lose weight" and that was back when I didn’t even have any weight to lose (but my gymnastics coach said I was getting too chunky, when I was 10 and looked 8, instead of the preferred 6 year old look). But now I am the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. But I’m also the happiest, and with definitely the healthiest eating habits, that have developed naturally the more I was letting go off all this nonsense.

The only weight I truly needed to lose was the weight of fat stigma, diet culture, calorie obsession. I’m not 100% there yet, but I’m definitely closer and feel much more relaxed around food. And can eat cake even on the days I didn't go for a 10k run beforehand.