Page 58 - Winter2009

All Thumbs Book Reviews

Catching Fire: did those animals do over multiple generations
How Cooking Made Us Human on cooked food? I didn’t see any answers to those
By Richard Wrangham questions in the book.
Basic Books Wrangham points out a lot of evidence that
people trying to exist on raw food diets tend to
Catching Fire extensively documents the eventually give it up because they are hungry all
fact that cooking is not a recent, modern devel- the time. I can believe that is true of most politi-
opment. Wrangham traces evidence of cooking cally correct raw food diets because they are not
back through archaeology to at least the begin- nutrient-dense. The Weston A. Price Foundation
ning of homo sapiens, if not before. I would does not promote exclusively raw food diets and
certainly agree that cooking has been around does agree that many foods should be cooked and
for a very long time and that cooking is one of are more easily digested that way. I do know a
many things that distinguishes humans from person on a nutrient-dense raw diet who does
other animals. However, the author cooks up a not act or look hungry and is even a bit hefty. So
lot of points in the book that are a little hard for there is some evidence that it can be done but,
me to swallow. as Wrangham properly points out, we have no
Wrangham contends that animals thrive bet- historical examples of traditional cultures doing
ter on cooked food than raw food. Is that what that.
Pottenger and his cats told us? Wrangham points Many pages of the book are devoted to ex-
to studies where animals fed cooked food gained pounding on how we evolved and how cooking
weight more easily. Is weight gain really a good must have influenced that evolution. There is one
indication of an animal’s long-term health? How intriguing comment that apparently Australo-

WHEN HALLELUJAH BECOMES “WHAT HAPPENED?” CRASHING ON THE VEGAN DIET
By Gregory L. Westbrook
Weight of Wisdom Workshop

Gregory Westbrook gives us a firsthand account of what happens when you switch to a strict vegan diet. He and his
family experienced a wide range of symptoms, which sound familiar if you have listened to the experiences of other veg-
ans. There is often a short-lived initial period where you feel great, especially if you’ve been eating the Standard American
Diet (SAD). These short term results explain how people get drawn into the trap. But what follows are anxiety attacks,
quickly deteriorating teeth, muscle wasting, loss of energy … just about everything but spontaneous combustion. Adding
back dairy and eggs made a big difference for the author and his family but what made the most dramatic difference for
the whole family was adding that politically incorrect food, red meat.
Mr. Westbrook is an engineer and you can see the engineering approach in the book. Graphs and surveys abound. He
also goes into some detail about various gradations of veganism from an Old Testament perspective. There is the Genesis
1:29 diet, which is believed to be the diet in the Garden of Eden—all raw and no animal products. The Genesis 9:3 diet
came after the great flood and included kosher meat. The Hallelujah Diet is defined as the Genesis 1:29 diet (vegan) with
a small amount of butter and 85 percent raw food. For those who have experienced that diet, the “Hallelujah” part comes
when you get off the diet and go back to eating real food. One thing that is clear in this book is that you have to take a
small handful of Old Testament verses out of context and ignore a lot of other verses in order to Biblically justify a vegan
diet. Likewise you have to take small fragments of science out of context and ignore a lot of other facts to scientifically
justify a vegan diet. A pattern emerges. The THUMB IS UP for this one. Review by Tim Boyd.

56 Wise Traditions WINTER 2009