Despite the expanse on books and magazine articles about proper digestive health, Americans continue to allow their stomachs – and more importantly, their cravings for “feel-good” foods – to dictate their eating habits. And as The Informer Quick Guide has documented, good overall health begins in the digestive tract and strengthens or weakens through our consumption of either the right or wrong foods. Here are a few books that will help encourage readers to kickstart their total health by being kind to their digestive systems.
Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning by Rafia Zafar
Food studies, once trendy, has settled into the public arena. In the academy, scholarship on food and literary culture constitutes a growing river within literary and cultural studies but writing on African American food and dining remains a tributary. Recipes for Respect bridges this gap, illuminating the role of foodways in African American culture as well as the contributions of Black cooks and chefs to what has been considered the mainstream. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and continuing nearly to the present day, African Americans have often been stereotyped as illiterate kitchen geniuses.
Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health by Charlotte Watts
Digestive issues are widespread and prove difficult to address through mainstream medicine. Senior yoga teacher Charlotte Watts sheds light on the connection between the gut and the brain, explains the links between stress, trauma and digestive issues and demonstrates how yoga with its focus on stilling the mind can have profound effects on conditions such as IBS, IBD, acid reflux, colitis, diverticulitis and more. Breath awareness allows the breath to drop into the belly and diaphragm, essential for good digestive function and understanding the fascial connections within the viscera help shape movement that enables optimal function.
Digestive Health with REAL Food, by Aglaee Jacob
Health begins in the gut. In addition to digestive disorders, many other health problems can stem from damage to your intestines, so tackling your digestion is crucial if you want to maximize your chances of obtaining optimal health, The information in “Digestive Health with REAL Food” will teach you how to address the root causes of your digestive troubles, and will help you build your own optimal diet by identifying the best foods for your digestive system: ones that are easy to digest, anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense, healing, and low in irritants and allergens. The nutritional protocol in this book, developed by registered dietitian Aglaée Jacobs, addresses numerous digestive problems including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and many more.
Acid Reflux in Children: How Healthy Eating Can Fix Your Child’s Asthma, Allergies, Obesity, Nasal Congestion, Cough & Croup by Jamie Koufman, Julie L. Wei, Karen B. Zur
This is an important book that will help change how America eats and guide parents to heal our needlessly sick children and adolescents. There are 80 million infants, children, and teens in America, and most have unhealthy diets. Every year, tens of millions are misdiagnosed as having asthma, allergies, nasal congestion, ear infections, chronic cough, and croup, when the real problem is acid reflux. A bad diet and childhood obesity are both strongly associated with reflux. So, when a child has a respiratory disease and is not getting better with medical treatment, we believe parents should consider that reflux may be the problem. Why? Because it can be fixed. Reflux is the greatest masquerader of our time. It can be the cause of almost any kind of respiratory symptom or disease.