My Top Ancestral Nutrition And Health Book Recommendations

Books are one of my favorite ways to learn about nutrition and health! In fact many books have taught me more than college nutrition classes!

Over the past few years I’ve read a good amount of nutrition and health books and today I want to share my favorites with you! This list is my top recommendations, in order.

I will continue to update this post and add more book recommendations as I read and discover more excellent nutrition books. I also post little book review/recommendations on my Instagram whenever I finish a good nutrition book so it you’re interested in that and more ancestral nutrition and health content, you can follow me there.

1) “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Dr. Weston A Price

This is my all time favorite book! Dr. Price is truly an amazing man. A man who left the world a better place then it was before him. His timeless research set the fundamentals of what a healthy diet truly is. He complied all that he learned into the book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” a true master piece that I highly recommend!

Dr. Price traveled the world studying 12 isolated peoples and 12 modernized peoples. He studies their diets and health. In his studies he discovered a pattern that remained true across all of these peoples. Each time a group of people incorporated modern foods such as sugar, white flour, refined grains, vegetable oils, jams, sweets, and canned foods into their diet, their health declined rapidly.

• They became more susceptible to diseases like tuberculosis
• Their teeth grew crooked
• Teeth infected by cavities raised from 0.01-5% to 35-95%
• Their face, nasal passages, and dental arches did not form properly (this led to mouth breathing)
• Women’s hips narrowed leading to more difficult births
• Fertility of both men and women decreased
• Mental retardation became more common
• Eyesight worsened
• Intelligence decreased
• Arthritis increased
• Cripples and physical deformities increased

Dr. Price theorized that a major cause of these health problems was the decrease in nutrient intake. The modern foods listed earlier lost a lot of vitamins, minerals, and activators in the refining and processing. And people were replacing traditional nutrient rich foods like organs, fish eggs, seafood, dairy, and plants grown in nutrient rich soils with these modern foods that lacked nutrients.

Dr. Price advocated for adopting similar dietary principals to these isolated people. In prioritizing nutrient rich whole foods he believed we could reverse physical degeneration and ensure optimal health of ourselves, our descendants, and the future of the human race.

2) “Deep Nutrition” by Dr. Cate Shanahan

This book changed my life and set me on the path of ancestral eating and living!

This book is split into 3 parts. In the first part, Dr. Shanahan discusses the positive aspects of our ancestors’ diets. She digs deep into how the foods they ate effected their bodies on a physiological level, how it impacted their DNA, their health, and their children’s beauty and health. She also gives recommendations on what to eat based on similarities between traditional healthy diets, like the Mediterranean and Okinawan Diets. She recommends eating organ meats, meat cooked on the bone, raw fresh foods (including vegetables, dairy, and meat), and sprouted and fermented foods.

The second part is all about the problems with the average modern diet. She gets very scientific when explaining the harmful effects of vegetable oils and sugar. This section contains one of, if not, the best descriptions of the harmful effect of vegetable oils that I’ve ever heard.

The third part serves as a helpful guide to make transitioning to healthy eating easier. It offers meal planing, a few recipes, grocery lists, strategies, and an extensive Q and A section.

Overall I found this book to be incredibly impactful and fascinating! I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in deep explanations on how and why to eat healthy.

3) Gut and Physiology Syndrome,” by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride

This book will change the entire way you look at disease, dysfunction, and illness in the body! In it you learn how poor gut health is a major root cause for a vast majority of health problems.

Be it an obvious gut issue like Crohn’s, constipation, heart burn, etc. or a less obvious one like skin issues, hormonal issues, mental disorders, dementia, autism, arthritis, addictions, thyroid issues, and lots more.

The main reasons that poor gut health causes all these issues is because it decreases nutrient absorption leading to deficiency, allows a river of toxicity to flow into your body through a leaky gut, and an imbalanced gut microbiome leads to overgrowth of pathogenic microbes.

If you want to heal your health problems and prevent disease as you age, the best place to start is with your gut! From there you can also focus on increasing the nutrient density of your diet, removing toxins from the body, and really learning to tune into your body’s signals.

These are the 4 biggest things you can do to support your health!

Another reason why I love this book so much is because Dr. Natasha takes a very ancestral and holistic approach to healing your gut and body. She states in the book that it’s your body that actually knows all the complexities of how to heal and it will ultimately do the work.

What we can do is support our bodies in this process through proper diet and lifestyle. She places a huge emphasis on listening to your body and what it tells you as well as living closer to the way our ancestors lived (eating an ancestral diet, spending time outside in the sun, walking barefoot, jumping in lakes and rivers, etc.).

The biggest thing I took away from this book, was the belief that we are truly capable of healing and recovering from practically every health problem out there! We just have to understand our body and work with it, not against it!

Dr. Natasha’s approach to healing and health (especially in regards to chronic illness) is far superior to mainstream modern medicine! Instead of treating a symptom with a pill that typically suppress an important function in your body, she advocates for treating it at the absolute root cause.

In short I highly highly recommend this book!

4) “Real Food For Pregnancy” by Lily Nichols

I highly highly recommend this book to all women who either want to get pregnant in the future or are currently pregnant! The earlier you start preparing for pregnancy the better, so even if you don’t plan on having kids for several years, it’s great to start learning now!

After all, building up your nutrient stores, eliminating toxins from your body and environment, balancing your hormones, and putting what you learn into practice all takes time. Never the less, no matter where you are in your health and conception journey, this book is an incredibly valuable resource!

Lily Nichols does an excellent job combining ancestral wisdom with a scientific approach to make solid dietary recommendations for pregnancy. She really lays out the information to help the reader make well informed decisions.

She covers:

• Flaws in mainstream pregnancy recommendations
• What nutrients are required to build a healthy baby
• The best foods to get these nutrients
• The challenges of a vegetarian diet
• Foods to avoid
• Meal plans and recipes
• Info about supplements and lab testing
• How to deal with common pregnancy complaints
• Benefits of exercise and how to modify for pregnancy
• The importance of avoiding toxins and specific advise on what to avoid and how to avoid them
• Stress and mental health
• A lot of helpful info on what to do after your baby is born
• The importance of spacing pregnancies

During pregnancy about 10% of your nutrient stores go to your baby! Therefore it’s extremely important that you eat a nutrient dense diet prior to conception, during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and take a minimum of 2 1/2 years between pregnancies to rebuild your nutrient stores again!

How well you nourish yourself directly affects the health of your children as well as your own health. Nutrients are literally what build your baby and deficiencies have been linked to many health problems such as organ malformations, low birth weight, impaired cognitive development, neural tube defects, and more!

In addition to this, you still need adequate nutrients for your own health. Nutrients are key for every system in our body to function! If you don’t get enough, you’ll likely see health problems like osteoporosis, hypothyroidism, low fertility, worsening of eyesight, and more down the road.

However, you can prevent all of this and ensure the best health possible for your children and yourself by eating a nutrient dense diet, living a healthy lifestyle, and limiting toxin exposure.

Real Food For Pregnancy gives you so much valuable info that allows you to take the health and well being of yourself and your family into your own hands! I cannot recommend this book enough!

5) “The Carnivore Code” by Dr. Paul Saladino

In this book Dr. Saladino does an excellent job of describing ancestral nutrition and health, the importance of high quality nose to tail animal foods, why red meat and saturated fat are not bad for us, and the science behind plant toxins and anti-nutrients.

You don’t have to be carnivore to enjoy and benefit from this book, while Dr. Paul Saladino focuses heavily on animal foods, he also talks about which plants are the least toxic and best to incorporate if you wish to. I especially enjoyed the attention he put on how things really work in the wild. He discussed:

• How animals were the main source of food for hunter gathers while plants were used as a secondary food source.
• How plants don’t want to be eaten! Therefore they produce toxins to deter animals from eating them.
• How our ancestors ate the whole animal. You wouldn’t just leave half your kill to rot when food is challenging to get, would you?
• How when you’re out in nature and look around at possible food sources this all makes sense.

Dr. Paul Saladino combines his ancestral prospective with a scientific perspective, discussing many studies and scientific lines of thinking that align with an ancestral view. I found this very interesting and informative.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it, especially if you’re interested in an animal-based diet, learning about anti-nutrients, learning about ancestral nutrition, or looking for dietary advise for healing autoimmune or gut problems.

6) “The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby & Child Care.” By Sally Fallon Morell and Thomas S. Cowan, MD

This is a truly excellent book and amazing resource to have on hand. It covers seemingly everything about raising a healthy child from preconception to childhood.

Sally Fallon brings her incredible understanding of ancestral nutrition as well as her experience as a mother. While Thomas Cowan brings his incredible understanding of medicine along with his experience as both a father and physician.

In the book they cover:

• Nutrition for preconception, pregnancy, and breastfeeding
• How to have a healthy pregnancy and birth
• What to do after baby is born (they discuss the pros and cons of common medical practices)
• How to nourish your baby and what are the first foods you should introduce
• How to nourish and raise a growing child
• The importance of child spacing
• Common childhood illnesses and remedies (they go super in depth here)
• The GAPS diet
• Recipes
• Resources

The 3 biggest things that stood out to me in this book were:

1) Well nourished children are less prone to health problems, pickiness, and behavioral problems.

2) There’s a tendency for parenting advise to live in the extremes. It’s typically best to find more of a middle ground and to also see what works best for your child and situation specifically.

3) When you get sick, your symptoms are your bodies way of fixing a deeper imbalance/problem in your body. Suppressing the symptoms with modern medicines can worsen the imbalance and health problems over time. Instead it’s best to work with your body to help correct the imbalance.

If you’re looking for a solid resource for baby and child care (especially on nutrition, health, and naturally treating illness) then I highly highly recommend this book!

7) “The Fat Burn Fix” by Dr. Cate Shanahan

Dr. Shanahan nailed it again with this book! “The Fatburn Fix” describes how your metabolism is supposed to function vs how an unhealthy metabolism functions. Dr. Cate then gives you the tools to assess your own metabolism and make improvements to optimize your metabolism and lose weight (if you wish to).

Dr. Shanahan places a huge emphasis on metabolic flexibility (the ability to shift between carbs and fat for fuel) and how this is important for your overall health, maintenance of weight, and energy levels.

Most people’s diets are high in unhealthy foods like vegetable oils (sunflower, safflower, soy, canola, corn, and cottonseed oil), sugar, and refined carbohydrates. All of these foods inhibit your bodies ability to burn body fat and often set one down the path of hypoglycemia to insulin resistance to prediabetes and finally if it gets bad enough to diabetes.

This book focus on a low carb way of eating. It does not cut out all carbs but rather teaches you which ones can spike your blood sugar and cause you harm and which ones can contribute to a healthy diet.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in improving their metabolism, improving their energy levels, losing weight, starting a keto or low carb diet, treating hypoglycemia, or treating diabetes.

8) “Ayurveda and Panchakarma” by Sunil V. Joshi

Ayurveda is the traditional preventative medicine of India that is over 5,000 years old. Ayurveda looks at health from a very unique perspective that I believe is extremely beneficial! Ayurveda puts a strong emphasis on how nature, the cycles of nature, and the elements  influence our bodies and spirit.

It also focuses on maintaining balance, a strong agni (digestive fire), preventing the build up of ama (mucus and toxins), and thus preventing disease.

Panchakarma is the Ayurvedic method of cleansing. Panchakarma focuses on dislodging ama from the bodies tissues and removing it. There are many unique cleansing methods in Panchkarma such as using a tongue scraper, neti pot, taking herb infused ghee in the morning, and more.

I think this book did an excellent job digging deep into the topics of Ayurveda and Panchakarma. I learned a lot from it and I would highly recommend it! I will add that while I do agree with most of the principals of Ayurveda, I do not agree with the demonization of violence and eating meat.

I think both of these are very natural and not objectively bad. When I say violence can be good I mean it can be used to protect and feed your family, hunting after all is violent. There are also a few times where vegetable oils like sesame oil are recommended and most of you probably already know that I disagree with that recommendation. Instead I would replace this with quality olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, tallow, lard, butter, or ghee.

With that being said, this is still an excellent book that I would highly recommend!

9) “How To Heal Your Metabolism” by Kate Deering

In this book Kate Deering discusses how to optimize your metabolism; what are the best and worst fats, carbs, protein, and nutrient sources; how food quality makes a difference; and more. She gives a lot of excellent food choice suggestions that support metabolic health, adequate nutrient intake, gut health, athletic performance, energy levels, hormone balance, and overall health.

I personally really enjoyed the sections on which carbs are good for us and which should be avoided. She dug into some interesting science that I hadn’t heard of before in regards to fruit and fructose.

I will say that I didn’t 100% agree with everything in this book. For example I don’t think we need to eat right when we get up, right before bed, and for a total of about 6 meals a day, as suggested in this book. I see how that could work for some people, but I don’t find that ancestrally consistent and wouldn’t recommend that for most people.

I also disagree with the demonization of a low carb or keto diet. I do agree that some problems can arise in some people from long term keto, but I don’t think that’s a reason to disregard that way of eating as a whole.

Aside from that, I did really enjoy this book and thought it was full of lots of helpful information!

10) Brighid’s Healing By Gina McGarry

In this book, Gina seamlessly combines Celtic medicinal traditions, herbalism, Celtic mythology, and modern holistic health into a unique and beautiful approach to healing.

Her knowledge of Celtic traditions helps her pass on the wisdom of our ancestors and her knowledge of how the cycles and symbols of nature affect our bodies helps integrate a deep connection to nature and the divine into her approach.

She focuses this book on an Irish goddess of healing, Brighid, organizing a good portion of the book around the 4 elements (air, fire, water, and earth) all of which fall under Brighid’s domain. She also includes a helpful herbal index of 27 herbs and their uses.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive ancestral approach to herbalism and healing, then I highly recommend this book. Also if you’re of Irish decent, like me, and want to learn more about the traditions of your ancestors, it’s a great book for that as well!

11) “Taking Charge Of Your Fertility” By Toni Weschler

As it says on the cover, this book really is “the definitive guide to natural birth control, pregnancy achievement, and reproductive health!”

And I highly highly recommend it, especially to women who want to learn all the ins and outs of their menstrual cycle, fertility, and reproductive health!

This book teaches you to use the fertility awareness method (FAM) to naturally avoid pregnancy, achieve pregnancy, or simply maximize your own health.

FAM involves observing and charting 3 primary fertility signs: waking temperature, cervical fluid, and cervical position.

All 3 of these go through certain patterns in your cycle:

Waking temperatures are lower in your follicular phase (the 1st half of your cycle) and then rise after ovulation and remain high in your luteal phase. The rise is due to increased progesterone production from the corpus luteum.

Cervical fluid increases from dry to sticky to creamy to an egg white consistency as you approach ovulation and then is typically of egg white consistency on the day you ovulate. Cervical fluid keeps sperm alive for up to 5 days and thus its main purpose is to extend your fertile window (the amount of days you can get pregnant).

The cervix is firm, low, and closed for the majority of your cycle. However as you approach ovulation it becomes softer, higher, and opens. This is to help sperm travel to the egg easier.

And that just barely scratches the surface! There is so much more to it and Toni Weschler does an incredible job at very thoroughly explaining things. She also explains the vast variations that can occur in your cycle compared to both other women and your own previous cycles.

Overall this is a very comprehensive book that I highly recommend!

12) “Ina May’s Guide To Childbirth” and “Ina May’s Guide To Breastfeeding” By Ina May

Both of these are excellent books about natural childbirth and breastfeeding! They describe the amazing things that a women’s body can do given the right environment.

If you’re worried about the safety of a more natural home or birth center birth but are also hesitant about going to a hospital, these books will help you make decisions that you feel good about! While they obviously emphasize the amazing benefits of a natural home (or birth center) birth. They also describe when it’s a good idea to go to the hospital and when medical interventions are necessary.

On the flip side they also describe when medical interventions are unnecessary and harmful. So regardless of where you decide to give birth, these books will help you to understand the whole birth process, how you can best support that process, what potential complications to be aware of, and what side affects and risks are associated with interventions.

But most importantly of all, Ina May writes in a way that helps you restore faith in your bodies ability to give birth and breastfeed your baby. She emphasizes that birth doesn’t have to be very painful (it can even feel good!); that your body and hormones work together to make birth, breastfeeding, and bonding with your baby go smoothly; that fear and stress make birth way harder; that it’s important to feel relaxed and confident; and that a more primal approach to labor and birth including walking, moving, squatting, and making noise all help in the birthing process.

She shares tons of birth stories which convey how different each birth is. Her stories help to encourage women as well as increase their knowledge without creating unnecessary fear.

In the breastfeeding book, she emphasizes how the vast majority of women are able to successfully breastfeed their babies! They just need to understand how to help facilitate a good milk supply, have a good technique, and have the desire to breastfeed.

She also talks about how a natural birth increases breastfeeding success and she gives tons of practical breastfeeding tips!

Whether you’re planning to have a baby soon (or in the future) or you’re just curious about natural birth and breastfeeding, I highly highly recommend these books!

13) “Primal Endurance” By Mark Sisson And Brad Kearns

In this book Mark and Brad discuss some flaws in mainstream sports nutrition and propose a more primal approach to training. While they focus mainly on endurance sports, hence the title, I still found it very helpful as a weight lifter and think it can be a valuable asset to any athlete.

The most impactful part of this book for me was the strong emphasis on listening to your intuition and body. In doing so you meet your body where it’s at, going harder on days you feel more energized and recovered and taking your workouts a little easier on days where you’re tired and not optimally recovered.

In doing so you can perform, progress, and recover much better than going hard everyday on a dogmatic schedule.

Their intuitive style is blended with structure and a well thought out plan or approach to training, making it the best of both worlds.

A lot of attention is paid to optimizing recovery and living a more primal lifestyle, both of which can tremendously aid your performance and health. They dig into primal eating, circadian rhythm and sleep, getting outside, moving more, de-stressing, sprinting, weightlifting, yoga, training for endurance events, cold therapy, and so much more!

One really interesting concept they discussed was avoiding “active coach potato syndrome,” that is doing minimal activity outside of your structured workouts. This has many negative health consequences and is not consistent with a primal approach. Therefore they advocate for an overall active lifestyle that includes things like walking, playing, and yoga and does not involve sitting for hours on end.

One more prominent theme worth mentioning is nutrition! The benefits of a primal style diet for training are illustrated very well here and backed up by both science and many success stories from elite athletes. Including a couple who rowed in a 20 foot boat 2,400 miles from San Francisco to Hawaii in 45 days following a primal high fat diet!

If you’re worried about how you will perform on a low-moderate carb diet as apposed to the popular high carb diet, then I definitely recommend this book as it does an excellent job explaining the details of how adaptable our body is to different fuel sources and the many benefits that come from being able to use fat as a primary fuel source.

Overall this is a great book that I definitely recommend!

14) “Cooked” by Michael Pollan

This is an excellent book that explores the four elements as they relate to cooking. Fire is shown through BBQing whole pigs in the South, water is shown through braises, air is shown through the art of making sourdough bread, and earth is shown through fermentation.

He really focuses on traditional cooking methods and how they are healthier and tastier than quick modern methods. My favorite example from the book was a traditionally leavened sourdough bread that takes more than 24 hours to make vs. Wonder Bread which takes 2 hours to make.

He really digs into the details of how the grain variation and preparation makes a huge difference in how well people can tolerate bread and gluten.

Pollan also discusses the problems with specialization in our society and how because of it many people don’t know how to cook or don’t care to take the time too. This leads people to get take out and buy preprepared meals which have a negative impact on peoples’ health.

This book was very interesting and I highly recommended it, especially if you love cooking! There is also a Netflix special that goes with this book, also called “Cooked.” I really enjoyed that too! It complements the book well since both offer a lot of different info.

15) “What Doesn’t Kill Us” Scoot Carney

This is an excellent book for people interested in all aspects of ancestral health. It really digs into environmental hormesis. That is environmental stresses (like cold exposure and high altitude) that promote a positive adaptation that makes us stronger, healthier, and prepares our bodies for stronger stressors in the future.

Scott Carney discusses how our modern environment with heaters, air conditioners, GPS, and so on shelters us from environmental challenges and thus weakens us. As far as the GPS’s go he discusses how our reliance on them has decreased are sense of direction and ability to navigate on our own.

Carney then shows how we can regain the lost strength of our ancestors through environmental hormesis. He shares his own personal experience studying under Wim Hoff (the famous Ice Man), training for and competing in a Spartan and Tough Guy race, hiking to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in an impressive 28 hours and 6 minutes, and more!

Carney also digs into the science of how cold exposure can make us more adapted to the cold by increasing our brown fat. Brown fat (the brown color is from an increase in mitochondria) burns up white fat for heat and thus keeps us warmer and burns more body fat! Cold exposure also improves cardiovascular circulation, lymphatic circulation, boosts metabolism, reduces inflammation, improves immune response, improves mental focus, and improves resilience.

He also digs into the details and benefits of the Wim Hoff Method! This is an excellent book if you want to learn more about how to improve your health with environmental hormesis and an ancestral lifestyle.

16) “The Stevia Deception” by Dr. Bruce Fife

The Stevia Deception by Dr Bruce Fife, is an excellent and informative book. It discusses the dangers of no calorie and low calorie sweaters like stevia, sweet and low, splenda, aspartame, sugar alcohols, sweeteners in diet sodas and more.

These sweeteners promote weight gain, insulin resistance, diabetes, are anti-ketogenic, can cause digestive issues, and are highly addictive (some studies suggest they are 11x more addictive than cocaine).

When consumed they activate sweet taste receptors which triggers insulin release in anticipation of incoming Calories/ glucose. Insulin puts your body in a fat storing mode and the lack of Calories/glucose accompanying these sweeteners often lead to an increase in appetite. Pair this with addiction and you have a recipe for overeating.

Consuming these sweeteners also changes your gut microbiome to decrease leptin (the hormone responsible for telling your body you’re full) and increase ghrelin (your hunger hormone). This increase in hunger and decrease in satiation also perpetuates overeating.

To learn more about the dangers of no calorie and low calories sweeteners, I highly recommend this book. It’s very sciency and discusses many credible studies. Personally I found it fascinating.

P.S. If you have any good nutrition or health book recommendations please put them in the comments (Scroll back up to the top to leave a comment)! I’m always looking for more books to read and I think other people would appreciate your recommendations as well!