The Fallacy of the Calorie: Why the Modern Western Diet Is Killing Us and How to Stop It

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in "The Physiology of Taste" two months before his death; “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” In the almost 200 years since its publication in 1825 we have borne witness to the ultimate veracity of such a simple observation. We have seen that truism reflected in our own modern Western diet. It is a diet that delivers us unto the disabilities and diseases of modern civilization; obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, neurologic disease, and autoimmune disease. Disabilities and diseases that have at their root a chronic, continuous low-level inflammation. While we have suffered the inevitable outcome of such dietary indiscretion, the cause has evaded us. And without understanding the how and the why, redemption will continue to elude us. We will continue to focus on ineffective and misguided approaches. Super foods, dieting and weight loss fads, and the seeking of salvation through deprivation have yielded us nothing but continued misery and malady. Now for the first time; Dr. Mike, cardiologist and chef, reveals the how and the why of the modern Western diet. He explains how we are hardwired to seek out sugar, salt and fat. He details how that greed to for these consumables allowed us to become the most dominant species on the planet and construct the most technologically advanced and complex social structure the world has ever known. But that progress has not come without a price. Dr. Mike identifies the changes to our food and food pathways that occurred at the onset of the Industrial Revolution and have become particularly pronounced over the last fifty to seventy-five years. Changes that have disrupted our physiology and our relationship with our symbiotic gut microbiome. Changes that have produced the modern Western diet with its dysbiosis, disabilities, and diseases of modern civilization. With the eye of a chef and a deep understanding and appreciation for the experiential nature and integral role that food and cuisine has in our society, and our own personal health and wellness, Dr. Mike crafts a prescription to break the vicious cycle of addiction at the heart of the modern Western diet. This journey to metabolic health is a "Code Delicious!" (Michael S. Fenster, MD)