We know that we should eat for brain health, but often that knowledge doesn’t go a lot further than “we should eat some nuts… but also not the wrong nuts, which would be bad”.

However, as Dr. Lisa Mosconi lays out for us, there’s a lot more than that!

This book is as much a treatise of brain health in the context of nutrition, as it is a “eat this and avoid that” guide.

Which is good, because our brains don’t exist in isolation, and nor do the nutrients that we consume. Put it this way:

We have a tendecy to think of our diets as a set of slider-bars, “ok, that’s 104% of my daily intake of fiber, I need another 10g protein and that’ll be at 100%, I’ve had 80% of the vitamin C that I need, and…”

Whereas in reality: much of what we eat interacts positively or negatively with other things, and thus needs to be kept in balance. And not only that, but other peri-nutritional factors play a big part too! From obvious things like hydration, to less obvious things like maintaining good gut microbiota, our brains rely on us to do a lot of things for them.

This book is very easy-reading, though a weakness is it doesn’t tend to summarise key ideas much, give cheat-sheets, that sort of thing. We recommend reading this book with a notebook to the side, to jot down things you want to attend to in your own dietary habits.

Bottom line: this is an excellent overview of brain health in the context of nutrition, and is more comprehensive than most “eat this for good brain health and avoid that” books.

Click here to check out “Brain Food” on Amazon and treat your brain like it deserves!

Notwithstanding the title, this book is not about being a woman or a warrior, but let us share what one reviewer on Amazon wrote:

❝I don’t want to become a plant based woman warrior. The sex change would be traumatic for me. However, as a man who proudly takes ballet classes and Pilates, I am old enough not to worry about stereotypes. When I see a good thing, I am going to use it❞

The authors, a mother-and-daughter team in their 80s and 50s respectively, do give a focus on things that disproportionally affect women, and rectifying those things with diet, especially in one of the opening chapters.

Most the book, however, is about preventing/reversing things that can affect everyone, such as heart disease, diabetes, inflammation and the autoimmune diseases associated with such, and cancer in general, hence the dietary advice being good for most people (unless you have an unusually restrictive diet).

We get an overview of the pantry we should cultivate and curate, as well as some basic kitchen skills that will see us well for the rest of the book, such as how to make oat flour and other similar mini-recipes, before getting into the main recipes themselves.

About the recipes: they are mostly quite simple, though often rely on having pre-prepared items from the mini-recipes we mentioned earlier. They’re all vegan, mostly but not all gluten-free, whole foods, no added sugar, and as for oil… Well, it seems to be not necessarily oil-free, but rather oil-taboo. You see, they just don’t mention it. For example, when they say to caramelize onions, they say to heat a skillet, and when it is hot, add the onions, and stir until browned. They don’t mention any oil in the ingredients or in the steps. It is a mystery. 10almonds note: we recommend olive oil, or avocado oil if you prefer a milder taste and/or need a higher smoke point.

Bottom line: the odd oil taboo aside, this is a good book of simple recipes that teaches some good plant-based kitchen skills while working with a healthy, whole food pantry.

Click here to check out Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior, and be a plant-based woman warrior!

Or at the very least: be a plant-based cook regardless of gender, hopefully without war, and enjoy the additions to your culinary repertoire