The Best Real Food Books for Beginners

Do you ever wonder how real food bloggers know so much about real food?  Some of us were raised on traditional real foods and learned about being healthy from our parents and grandparents, of course. But most of us grew up eating a Standard American Diet.  So, how do we know which fats are healthy, why modern wheat is bad, and what your mother’s teeth can tell us about your health at birth?

We read.  Voraciously.

We devour books, take notes, re-read, contemplate the information, and study it until we can break it down into manageable chunks for our readers to easily consume.  Real food is a study and we are real food students.

There is a vast amount of food-related information.  From scientific studies to anecdotal stories and the space between, we are interested in it all.  And you should be, too!

You shouldn’t simply take our word for it when we relay the latest study to you in a blog post.  You should read the study for yourself.  When we quote another author and tout his or her book as the best, you should check it out for yourself and see if you agree.

Now, I know that not everyone has time to sit around reading a college education’s worth of books, so if you’re limited on time or desire, check out these five books about real food. They will give you the information you need to know to make the best choices about what to eat and why you should eat it.

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The Top Five Real Food Books for Beginners

Real Food: What to Eat and Why

This book is a wonderfully easy read.  Nina Planck shares her personal story from a real food childhood to a  misled vegetarian and soy-filled young adulthood and finally back to real food as her health demanded.  She guides the reader through every food group and explains what is real food and what is not.

Death By Supermarket: The Fattening, Dumbing Down, and Poisoning of America

Death By Supermarket was the first real food book that I ever read.  Nancy Deville’s style is straight to the point and reading this book was quite the eye-opening experience.  I really didn’t need to read more to be convinced that the grocery store could be a danger to my family’s health.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Any real foodie worth his salt knows where his food comes from.  Michael Pollan does an excellent job in the Omnivore’s Dilemma of explaining to the reader where food comes from and how it gets from seed (or from mother) to our plates.

Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World

Joel Salatin, a self-proclaimed grass farmer, tells us in his simple, straight-forward way exactly what is wrong with the current food system.  He also tells us we can do instead of the current practices to bring back health to our land and to our bodies.

The Untold Story of Milk, Revised and Updated: The History, Politics and Science of Nature’s Perfect Food: Raw Milk from Pasture-Fed Cows

Even if your choice of real food diet doesn’t include the consumption of milk, this book is a great read.  It is important to understand how politics affect real food.  The Untold Story of Milk delves into that controversial subject and shows the reader how raw milk got a bad rap and why selling it for human consumption is now illegal in many places, although it is not the dangerous substance it is feared to be.