Category Archives: Non-fiction

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Clink Street Publishing (28 July 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 136 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1915229553
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1915229557

Feel, listen and give yourself permission. Learning how to be guided by your intuition when it comes to eating allows you to fully enjoy food once again.

No more diets and no more guilt. Learn how your taught behaviors have a profound effect on how you eat and feel about your body, and learn how to reprogram these behaviors to healthy and empowering ones.

With over 40 plant-based recipes inside, this book also includes useful daily meditation exercises, mindful prayers and stunning affirmations.

“The reason why I decided to go down the path of Intuitive Eating was because I wanted to change my whole relationship with food. Food, for me anyway, is one of the most enjoyable and natural pleasures on this planet and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life having a bad relationship with such a natural and essential part of life. I wanted to be able to eat foods that I love and enjoy every moment of it, without feeling bad about it afterwards.”

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My Review

This was one of the books I promo’d or reviewed for 12 Days of Clink Street. I could have reviewed it during the 12 days, but I was being polite and generally I try not to write negative reviews, but I don’t like grifters and bandwagon jumpers spreading misinformation. Look,

I’ve read more than a few books on this subject and I actually have some basic nutrition education so I know what I’m looking at on the subject of metabolism, intuitive eating and other related areas. I follow qualified dietitians and food scientists on social media and listen to podcasts on the subject. It has been a bit of a special interest for the last couple of years. I have notes on this book. So, my criticisms are not made from a place of ignorance and I’m capable of assessing this book competently. I was actually looking forward to reading this book and trying the recipes.

I knew I was going to have problems with it when I had to dig out my sticky notes. Firstly, I looked up the author, to see if she has any qualifications in nutrition or dietetics.

She doesn’t.

She’s an Instagram influencer from what I can tell. She posts pretty pictures of a curated life. She’s read some dodgy books from food nutrition grifters, for instance How Not To Die, by Dr Michael Greger, and thinks she’s an expert. That book in particular is mentioned by name and has been criticised for cherry picked data and misrepresenting the research. She tries to use that old saw – ‘Let food be thy medicine’ – although she garbles it. As Dr Joshua Woolrich tells us food isn’t medicine! Food can be a useful adjunct to good health, but if you can’t access fresh food, or food at all, you can’t use it as medicine. She also claims that illnesses and diseases are caused by what we put in our bodies if they aren’t genetic. Sounds ablist and classist to me.

There is no introduction to intuitive eating or any background about the concept. Nowhere does the author present her qualifications to provide dietary advice. Bartoli uses the ‘anecdotal evidence – it worked for me, it’ll work for you’ approach, and hints that intuitive eating will help lose weight. Looking at her Instagram in my search for any information about the author, I discovered she’s in a socially acceptable and highly privileged body. If she has any disordered eating tendencies – and her comments in the book suggest she does (clean eating, juice cleanses, and other fad diets) but reframes it as ‘overthinking’ about food – it isn’t because she’s ever been fat, but because she’s afraid to be fat, despite her privileged body.

Other notes from my reading:

• page 15 – Food chains – not how food chains work – no ‘top’ links – and we’re prey to most predators, we’re just intelligent enough to hunt them out or push them out. People still get killed by tigers, and in the middle ages pigs were regularly up before the magistrates for murder
• Page 16 – Weight is largely determined by genetics and environment , and ‘self-control’ is a way to beat fat people for being fat.
• Page 17 – not ‘overindulge’ – restrict and binge cycle – feeding your body what it needs.
• Page 17 – If you skipped breakfast and you’re hungry and busy, you probably do need a bigger dinner. It’s not making excuses.
• Page 19 – food wasn’t ‘put here by Mother Nature’; we are animals, we eat food, like everything else, and we modify the beings we eat to provide us with more nutrients and calories,
• Page 20 – misunderstands calories and how the metabolism works. Doesn’t understand that humans aren’t a closed system so weight change isn’t as simple as ‘calories in – calories out’.
• Page 22 – Finally makes some good points about diet culture
• Page 25 – At last, some explanation!
• Page 26 – Misquotes the ‘dose is the poison’ and misspells Cadbury’s. There are a few editing mistakes in the book.
• Page 28 – Weight loss is not guaranteed! And the author seems to suggest it is.
• Page 38 – another appeal to nature. All food is processed to make it more edible.
• Page 38 – Can’t seem to find the word ‘hormone’.
• Page 41 – Suggests meditation is essential to intuitive eating. It isn’t. Meditation is a useful tool that can help you become more aware of your body. However, the author assumes their experience is universal. It isn’t.
• Page 46 – This is a standard ‘breathing space’ meditation
• Page 60 – Oh my gods! No! Humans are not anatomically herbivorous, we’re omnivorous, as are our closest relatives the bonobos and chimpanzees. We can’t digest cellulose, and we aren’t adapted for for an all plant diet. If you want to be vegetarian or vegan, or even just ‘plant based’, go for it, but don’t tell people lies.
• Page 61 – There is limited evidence for higher nutrient density in organic food. It’s expensive and out of reach for many people. It isn’t sustainable, needing much more land for the same amount of food, and still uses pesticides!
• Page 68 – standard body scan meditation.

On to the recipe section.

The recipes scream privilege.

In general, the recipes rely on nut butters, nut milks and nutritional yeasts, and a heavy reliance on ingredients that are expensive and out of reach of many people. Chia seeds, coconut milk, almond butter, that sort of thing. Almonds are incredibly unsustainable to grow. I wouldn’t know where to get hazelnut butter, although I do know where to get chocolate hazelnut spread. I’ve heard of nutritional yeast (from a vegan friend), but again, I wouldn’t know where to get it. What is ‘coconut sugar’?

The recipes cover breakfast, dinners and desserts, sauces and pestos. They do seem a bit faffy though, and I can’t imagine most would be practical for feeding a family or if you’re busy. They are simply out of reach for the majority in terms of ingredients and preparation time.

I’m going to try the pesto recipes; I enjoy pasta in pesto with salmon and a rocket salad. Bit of spinach in there for some iron, and cherry tomatoes to help with the adsorption of plant iron. That’s a relatively balanced meal too. healthy fats from the pesto, carbs from the pasta, and protein from the salmon. Micronutrients from the salad and pesto.

The food photographer has done a marvellous job. They’re well presented and minimalist, even quite artistic. Probably the best part of this book.

Conclusion:

If you want to know about intuitive eating read Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, who first formulated the concept and is a qualified and registered dietician.

If you want faffy vegan recipes, go ahead and spend £16 for the hardback or £14 for the paperback from Amazon. There are other vegan recipe books available. I have a really good vegetarian slow cooker recipe book, for instance. The BOSH! books by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby are supposed to be good. It’s only £8 too.

The pictures and illustrations are pretty and I like the minimalist style, although they are a bit obvious – curvy, skinny, naked women with strategically placed flowers etc.