From the author of This Is Your Brain On Food, the psychiatrist-chef (literally, she is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and an award-winning chef) is back with a more specific work, this time aimed squarely at what it says in the title; how to calm your mind with food.

You may be wondering: does this mean comfort-eating? And, well, not in the sense that term’s usually used. There will be eating and comfort will occur, but the process involves an abundance of nutrients, a minimization of health-deleterious ingredients, and a “for every chemical its task” approach. In other words, very much “nutraceuticals”, as our diet.

On which note: as we’ve come to expect from Dr. Naidoo, we see a lot of hard science presented simply and clearly, with neither undue sensationalization nor unnecessary jargon. We learn about the brain, the gut, relevant biology and chemistry, and build up from understanding ingredients to dietary patterns to having a whole meal plan, complete with recipes.

You may further be wondering: how much does it add that we couldn’t get from the previous book? And the answer is, not necessarily a huge amount, especially if you’re fairly comfortable taking ideas and creating your own path forwards using them. If, on the other hand, you’re a little anxious about doing that (as someone perusing this book may well be), then Dr. Naidoo will cheerfully lead you by the hand through what you need to know and do.

Bottom line: if not being compared to her previous book, this is a great standalone book with a lot of very valuable content. However, the previous book is a tough act to follow! So… All in all we’d recommend this more to people who want to indeed “calm your mind with food”, who haven’t read the other book, as this one will be more specialized for you.

Click here to check out Calm Your Mind With Food, and do just that!

The term “roadmap” is often used in informative books, but in this case, Wollenberg (a nutritionist with decades of experience) really does deliver what can very reasonably be described as a roadmap:

She provides chapters in the form of legs of a journey [to better metabolic health], and those legs are broadly divided into an “information center” to deliver new information, a “rest stop” for reflection, “roadwork” to guide the reader through implementing the information we just learned, in a practical fashion, and finally “traveller assistance” to give additional support / resources, as well as any potential troubleshooting, etc.

The information and guidance within are all based on very good science; a lot is what you will have read already about blood sugar management (generally the lynchpin of metabolic health in general), but there’s also a lot about leveraging epigenetics for our benefit, rather than being sabotaged by such.

There’s a little guidance that falls outside of nutrition (sleep, exercise, etc), but for the most part, Wollenberg stays within her own field of expertise, nutrition.

The style is idiosyncratic; it’s very clear that her goal is providing the promised roadmap, and not living up to any editor’s wish or publisher’s hope of living up to industry standard norms of book formatting. However, this pays off, because her delivery is clear and helpful while remaining personable and yet still bringing just as much actual science, and this makes for a very pleasant and informative read.

Bottom line: if you’d like to improve your metabolic health, as well as get held-by-the-hand through your health-improvement journey by a charming guide, this is very much the book for you!

Click here to check out the Metabolic Health Roadmap, and start taking steps!