Taiji is an ancient (i.e. traditional) Chinese martial art and exercise. Meld that with the most fundamental and oldest form of human exercise in existence and you have ChiRunning.

I thought it would be interesting to see how application of Taiji principles to running would affect my marathon training. I am about 1/3 through the book now and already it has revolutionized my running. Running used to be a chore and 30-50 minutes of unpleasantness. Now I actually look forward to my runs and miss running on my off days. What used to be difficult now feels almost effortless.

As far as the book goes, the first four chapters seem a bit repetitive and there to just increase the page count. They could be compressed into 1 chapter in my opinion. It matters not. The techniques Danny presents starting in chapter 4 are well worth wading through the first 4 to get to.

This book is a must read for anyone who runs, even if you’ve never done Taiji.

The basic premise is that Michael takes us through his experience of four different meals ranging from a drive-through meal at McDonalds to a meal he hunted and foraged for himself. In between he experiences meals from “big organic” like Whole Foods Market and small organic from the likes of Joel Salatin.

Let’s just say that I diverge from Mr. Pollan’s world-view in regards to human origins and natural history. I am very much a believer in intelligent design. Michael spends a fair amount of time speculating about how our ancient history affects how we eat today. We also diverge in our political leanings, but I won’t go into that. These small differences are not enough to stop me from recommending this book. It is a profoundly thought provoking book that I believe anyone who eats should read.

Mr. Pollan doesn’t just sit down to these meals, he examines where the food comes from. He traces the McDonalds meal all the way back to a corn field in Iowa. He discovers that in fact a McDonalds hamburger is 52% corn, chicken mcnuggets are 56% corn, and a soft drink is 100% corn.

This book has strongly impacted Whole Foods Market’s stock prices. It sparked a continuing Internet discussion between Michael Pollan and Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey. Pollan does not portray Whole Foods in the most positive light, however I think is portrayal is mostly fair. On the other hand, John Mackey’s responses and subsequent actions have truly impressed me. He is a very impressive man and while Whole Foods is not perfect, it is the most powerful positive force in the food industry today.

Pollan does not simply examine our multiple food chains, he waxes philosophical. He shares the thoughts that go through his mind as he slaughters chickens, hunts wild boar, and drives a tractor through a field of corn. His thoughts give the book a rich flavor and provoke serious thought.

This book does not give us answers. It does not tell you what to eat. It shows us the big picture and gives us a place to start when thinking about food. It produces more questions than answers. But before you can find the answer, you have to know the question.

My preconceived concept of this book was that it was basically a rehash of information from a number of other readily available sources. But, since I’m addicted to reading books about food and I was in need of a week’s worth of evening reading material, I grabbed this at the local bookstore.

First let me say that yes, much of the information in this book can be gotten from other sources including Nourishing Traditions, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, The Maker’s Diet, and a few others. However, this book does take a different angle on the information and fills a useful niché in the genré.

For instance, The Maker’s Diet takes a bit of a religious slant and appeals to Christians (like myself) in particular, while Nutrition and Physical Degeneration views things from an anthropological angle. Of course since Nutrition and Degeneration is the foundation for the entire genre, we are ensured that all of these books end up with at least some discussion of anthropology. However, Real Food adds a significant amount of relatively recent scientific studies on the affects of various foods in the body. It also adds information from the paleolithic diet crowd based largely on the work of Loren Cordain. My thinking on paleolithic diets is that we don’t have a clue what they really ate and it is all speculative, but this type of research will appeal to those who put great stock in this type of “science.”

Now I happen to be skeptical of many studies on food, because I think the body is a chaotically complex machine that we really don’t have a clue about. So when I read about how triglycerides cause this or that and that the ratio of HDL to LDL is what is important rather than total cholesterol, I pause and say to myself, “self, they got this wrong the first time, what’s to keep them from getting it wrong this time around?” I prefer instead real substantial evidence supplied by hundreds or even thousands of years of experience, i.e. anthropological evidence. When we can find actual real primitive societies alive today (or at least in the 1930s) who are living in extreme health, that interests me. It greatly interests me in finding out what in the world they were doing to be that healthy.

That said, many people thrive on modern scientific studies on foods in the body and will only buy into this way of eating if they are provided with this type of information. It’s all in who you trust. Some people place a good deal of their trust in modern scientists. I may not, but those who do deserve to see the evidence for themselves, and there is indeed a growing pile of evidence for eating this way.

It is also interesting to note that Nina Planck has different priorities than some of the other books. Her focus is on fresh dairy products, pastured meat, sea food, fruit and vegetables. She has a couple chapters on various types of fat and oils and recommends traditional fats like animal fats, coconut oil, olive oil and a very limited amount of vegetable oils such as peanut and sesame oil. She eschews the oils such as soy, corn, safflower and sunflower oils that are so prevalent. She has one chapter where she talks about things such as grains, eggs, salt, soy, and chocolate.

I couldn’t find any recommendations I really disagreed with. It was all good information and built on a wide variety of material. It is an excellent compilation of useful information and research from all angles. It may be just what the doctor ordered for people who think Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Nourishing Traditions are inadequate.

As far as I can tell, this book has no competition. There are no other books out there covering this topic. It is loaded with information about how commercial flour is milled, what get’s destroyed, etc. It also tells you about all the different home grain mill milling mechanisms (e.g. impact, stone burr, roller, etc.) and their pluses and minuses. It has a lot of information about different manufactures and how to contact them. It also has a wealth of information about different types of wheat, dough conditioners, and recipes for various breads.

In short, if you are considering (or even if you are already an avid home-miller) milling your own grain, this is a must have book. Don’t go out and buy a grain mill and then order this book. For the small price you pay for this book you could save yourself a lot of pain and heartache. Buy it, read it, THEN order your grain mill.

That said, I do have some complaints. The author, Marleeta Basey, has completely bought into the whole low-fat agenda. She preaches low-fat high-fiber diets throughout the book. Naturally, Nourishing Traditions cooks will have to disagree with this preaching. There are about 3-4 chapters of nutrition information, which in my humble opinion are completely unnecessary. They talk about vitamins, minerals, fat and other things and there are a large number of speculative statements like… this study showed that vitamin x MAY do such and such. These are the same chapters that rail against fat. My recommendation is to take these chapters with a grain of salt and get down to the practical information in the book.

On the whole, I highly recommend this book. Even if you are not planning to mill your own grains, this book may change your mind.

I recently listened to Bill Phillips’ book Body for Life (the audio book version).

Body for Life seems to be a pretty popular book right now so I thought I would check it out. My basic assessment of Bill’s program will have to wait until I have tried it out for a longer period of time, but I wasn’t very impressed with his book. If you want a weight training oriented fitness program, Bill’s looks like a good one, but the essence of his program can be gotten from the Body for Life website.

If what you need is a lot of motivational psychobabble, then this book is great. Most of the text goes something like… “You can do it … You must be committed … Don’t try, do … etc.” Personally, I’m not a big fan of motivational writing and was anxious to get to the meat of the program. The audio book never really got there. I had to go to his website to find out the details.

Once I got to his site I decided that his program looks like a good one. He has some nice printable log sheets, animations of many of the exercises, and a lot of good information. I’m not really planning to implement his diet program, but it doesn’t look too bad. If one was really interested in trying it one could apply Nourishing Traditions principles to it without too much difficulty. But I’m not going to be eating 6 meals per day.

My wife and I tried our first session last night and let’s just say, WOW, am I really really sore…