Food for Life by Tim Spector review – the science of eating well
The epidemiologist and author of The Diet Myth returns with a comprehensive guide to foods that foster healthy microbiomes
T im Spector, an epidemiologist and co-founder of the ZOE nutrition study, wants to change the way people think about food. His 2015 book The Diet Myth popularised the idea that each of us has a unique and constantly changing gut microbiome that is crucial to our health. Spoon-Fed , in 2020, exposed diet misinformation. Food for Life, at over 500 pages, overlaps with these but offers more information than ever before. It aims to think about food for “our individual health, the health of our society and the health of our planet”. It’s complex, hard to digest and obviously good for us, like an enormous portion of fibrous vegetables, well balanced with spices.
Once you wrap your head around the microbes in our guts, which need a varied diet themselves in order to process the food that makes us healthy, much of it seems like common sense. Eating a wide range of plants keeps you well – 30 a week is ideal, including seeds, nuts, herbs and spices. “Ultra-processed foods” (UPFs) – a “heady, addictive mix” that makes us “fatter but less nourished”, are bad. Anything that claims to be a “superfood” is probably a con.
Other findings seem counterintuitive, but are often deliciously reassuring. Two cups of Americano coffee provide more fibre than a banana. You can reheat rice; unopened mussels won’t kill you; and eating meat doesn’t give you cancer (though “replacing 30% of traditional burger meat with mushrooms or fungi would be the equivalent of taking 2m cars off the road”). Some sources of nutrition are more beneficial together, like corn with beans, or “a glass of red wine daily with friends”. Replacing sugar, salt, fat and gluten with weird and untested chemicals is usually pointless and probably dangerous, and the 1980s advice to change butter and cream for margarines and vegetable oils was “one of the biggest health scandals ever”.
Appealingly, Spector writes as a food lover. He’s comically keen on kimchi, kombucha and sourdough bread – in fact, fermented foods are manna to our friendly microbes, including the cacao beans in good-quality chocolate. But he’s sometimes frustratingly understated when it comes to the politics – and finances – of food. Our choices are “a puzzle of availability, convenience, taste and education,” he admits, while cheerfully recommending that cheap UPFs and sugary children’s yoghurts “should be avoided”; that people should “choose organic, grass fed and whole milk” and “good honey from your local beekeeper”; and that “the tenfold increase in price” is the way to pick the right extra virgin olive oil.
However, his aim in this book is not to give advice. Our gut microbiomes are so different that, in human studies, there is an “eight- to tenfold variation in individual insulin, blood sugar and blood fat responses to the same meals”, and so every person’s ideal diet is different, and should be based on sensible choices from a position of knowledge.
Food for Life is a feast of that knowledge. It contains so much information that it’s impossible to process by reading it from start to finish, but bullet-pointed tips at the end of each chapter and an appendix of food tables make it a valuable reference book to keep on a kitchen shelf.
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Food for Life: The New Science of Eating Well Paperback – Aug. 29 2023
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- Print length 528 pages
- Language English
- Publisher Jonathan Cape
- Publication date Aug. 29 2023
- Dimensions 15.24 x 4.06 x 23.5 cm
- ISBN-10 1787334260
- ISBN-13 978-1787334267
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- Publisher : Jonathan Cape (Aug. 29 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 528 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1787334260
- ISBN-13 : 978-1787334267
- Item weight : 633 g
- Dimensions : 15.24 x 4.06 x 23.5 cm
- #2,336 in Nutrition (Books)
- #3,097 in Diets (Books)
- #17,647 in Social Sciences (Books)
About the author
Tim spector.
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2,532 ratings220 reviews. From the bestselling author of Spoon-Fed and The Diet Myth , a comprehensive guide to the new science of nutrition, drawing on Tim Spector's cutting-edge research.
Food is our greatest ally for good health, but the question of what to eat in the age of ultra-processed food has never seemed so complicated. Author and scientist Tim Spector has the answers in this definitive, easy-to-follow guide to the new science of eating well.
Learn how to eat well for your microbiome from Tim Spector, a leading epidemiologist and author of The Diet Myth.
Food for Life: The New Science of Eating Well, by the Sunday Times bestselling author of SPOON-FED. Kindle Edition. by Tim Spector (Author) Format: Kindle Edition. 4.5 1,857 ratings.
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4.5 1,953 ratings. #3 Most Gifted in Allergies. See all formats and editions. Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories. View Kindle Edition.
4.5 out of 5. 1,295 global ratings. Food for Life: Your Guide to the New Science of Eating Well from the #1 Sunday Times bestseller. by Tim Spector. Write a review. How customer reviews and ratings work. Top positive review. Positive reviews ›. AP. Highly recommend. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 January 2024.
4.5 1,863 ratings. See all formats and editions. From the bestselling author of Spoon-Fed and The Diet Myth, a comprehensive guide to the new science of nutrition, drawing on Tim Spector's cutting-edge research.
Food is our greatest ally for good health, but the question of what to eat in the age of ultra-processed food has never seemed so complicated. Bestselling author and scientist Tim Spector offers clear answers in this definitive, easy-to-follow guide to the new science of eating well.
Food is our greatest ally for good health, but the question of what to eat in the age of ultra-processed food has never seemed so complicated. Bestselling author and scientist Tim Spector offers clear answers in this definitive, easy-to-follow guide to the new science of eating well.