Reset Eating: Reset your health and resilience by turning what and how you eat into powerful medicine

By Rob Verkerk, Meleni Aldridge and Melissa Smith

Reset Eating enables you to turn your food into powerful medicine to reset your health and resilience. In it you’ll find information and practical tools, including how food provides specific information for the body. You’ll also find a bunch of recipes for serious health creation. They bring the ANH Intl’s ground-breaking Food4Health approach to life, catering for omnivores, flexitarians, vegans, vegetarians, as well as children.

Readers can choose to deep dive into the science behind metabolic, multi-system flexibility and resilience. You’ll also find out how food can provide information or disinformation for the body, how to crunch the numbers to help you get ‘keto-adapted’. Or you might just want to skip to the 12-step programme, nutrient and food sections for a more practical, just-do-it approach.

On your journey through this information-packed book, you’ll get to grips with microbes, why your gut is immune-central and why you need to avoid the two common allergens that can otherwise derail your best health efforts. Children’s health and re-thinking what kids are eating is crucial for parents who are looking for one book that can help you feed the whole family. Time challenged readers can jump straight to the recipes and just let the food be their medicine! Reset Eating invites the reader on a health creation odyssey with food – our first medicine – as the foundation of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Sep 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803138558

Rob Verkerk

Rob Verkerk PhD is an internationally acclaimed, multi-disciplinary sustainability scientist with a 40-year background in environmental, agricultural, food, nutritional and health sciences. He has masters and doctorate degrees from Imperial College London, where he also worked as a postdoctoral research fellow, and founded the non-profit Alliance for Natural Health International in 2002.

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Copyright © 2022 Rob Verkerk, Meleni Aldridge and Melissa Smith

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ISBN 978 1803138 558

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Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the many health seekers who have continued to set out on new health paths, filled with hope and positivity, only to find themselves at yet another dead end.

Health creation is multifaceted and multidimensional. The pivot point for our physical health, the foundation of vital resilience, always has been and for some time hence, will remain — the way we interact with the food we eat. Our connection to food is one of the most important relationships we have in life. Like any relationship that is valued, nurtured and respected, it holds the potential to dramatically change our lives for the better.

Editor

Meleni Aldridge BSc NutrMed Dip cPNI Cert LTFHE

Contributors

Robert Verkerk BSc MSc DIC PhD FACN

Meleni Aldridge BSc NutrMed Dip cPNI Cert LTHFE

Melissa Smith Dip ION

Mike Abbott

Copyrighted material

Cover design by Tacon Design Ltd

Design and artwork by Charlie Jones

Alliance for Natural Health International

Old Station House

78 Dorking Road

Chilworth

Surrey

GU4 8NS

United Kingdom

www.anhinternational.org

All enquiries to: [e-mail]

DISCLAIMER

The information contained within this eBook is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you have any underlying health issues or concerns, we strongly advise that you consult with a suitably qualified and experienced health professional before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle.

Reset Eating: Turn Your Food Into Powerful Medicine To Reset Your Health & Resilience.

ENDORSEMENTS

The current pandemic is a call-to-action for a self-care reset. Rob Verkerk PhD and Meleni Aldridge from the Alliance for Natural Health International deliver a timely, thoroughly science-based review of the practical strategies we can employ to reclaim our resilience.

Ronald Hoffman, MD, CNS

Host of the Intelligent Medicine podcast (www.drhoffman.com)

Food in our day-to-day life is often not given much thought, it’s something we reach for when hungry. But there is great power in food. The old view is that food supplies energy and 39 essential nutrients. The new view is that food is a source of over 10,000 substances that profoundly influence health within hours of a single meal. Food and nutritional medicine have the power to transform your health and are safe, affordable, and accessible. Food satiates us, but also connects us, inspires us, and quite literally transforms us. This guide will empower and inspire you.

Benjamin I. Brown, ND Director, The Nutritional Medicine Institute, UK

Contributing Editor, Integrative Health and Applied Nutrition

Advisory Board and Lecturer, BCNH College of Nutrition and Health

Today our food policies and governmental nutrition recommendations are influenced by agricultural conglomerates and their lobbyists. It is no mistake that highly processed junk food and overconsumption of sugar are not censored by these supposed experts resulting in out-of-control chronic disease. Yet clear and relevant nutrition guidelines are at our fingertips provided by the Alliance for Natural Health International. The Reset Eating eBook from ANH International provides scientifically rigorous recommendations, guidelines for food choices, and tools for meal preparation all within interactive links. Healthful living through sound choices of good food, the foundation of life, is yours by choosing Reset Eating!

Jeanne A Drisko, MD, CNS, FACN

Professor Emeritus, University of Kansas Medical Center, USA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book contains decades of combined independent learning from Rob and I (Mel); Rob as a scientist, myself as a nutritional practitioner and clinical psychoneuroimmunologist, both of us as victims of inappropriate diets and misdirected conventional treatments at earlier ages. On top of that, there’s the nearly two decades of development, training and education that we’ve been leading while heading the non-profit, the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) International. For that part, we’re incredibly grateful to Melissa for all the support and wisdom she’s offered over her years with ANH — and her immense passion, also sparked from her own health challenges and journey to wellness. We’re also incredibly grateful to the many contributions by Michelle Hallworth over the last decade in finding better ways of communicating complex information about human diets and behaviour from an evolutionary perspective — in a language that anyone can understand.

Public health has not only inadequately identified the dietary patterns, behaviours and addictions that cause the majority of preventable chronic diseases, it has also failed to empower health creation among individuals and communities. It’s clear that the majority of public health messaging is influenced more by corporate pressure than reasoned medical, clinical or scientific evidence. It also tends to be prescriptive and one-size-fits-all, being poorly adapted to the needs, environments, cultures and genes of the individual in question. This book provides a new way of looking at the interaction between our food, our genes and our bodies, recognising that food is so much more than a source of energy. If it’s any one thing, it’s a source of information for the body that drives genetic expression to create health rather than nurture disease.

Whilst food is not by any means the only contributor to health, its role — as a reflection of the most intimate way in which the insides of our bodies interact with the outside world — provides a fundamental cornerstone to health, one that has unfortunately been relegated to the margins of mainstream medicine. Humans, being multi-dimensional by nature, require multifactorial solutions to restore balance when it has been lost. In creating total health and resilience, nutrition must of course be partnered by many other things. Among them are mission, purpose, community, physical activity, stress transformation, sleep quality and spiritual connection.

This work would not be here in this format without the skill and creativity of Charlie Jones whose design and artwork has brought our words to life when words were just not enough. Mike Abbott and Ismail Faryad, from our media unit, helped deliver some great graphics and Gemma Tacon did her magic on the cover design. We must again mention Michelle Hallworth’s input, in this case, her final editorial input — we don’t call her the ‘grammar police’ for nothing. John Vincent’s inspiration and energy continue to guide us on many fronts and — thank you, John — for providing such a poignant Foreword.

Next, we must thank all the ANH supporters around the world over the years for their contributions. Without the feedback and incredible stories from those who’ve transformed their health by following our guidance, this book would never have made it to publication. That includes the many nutritional and practitioner associations and individual practitioners who’ve followed our work, provided us feedback — and all those who’ve been following our journey through Food4Health and keto-adaptation over the last decade.

A heartfelt thank you to all of you for being on the journey with us.

Finally, we need to thank from the bottom of our hearts, our families and friends for being so loving, accepting and supportive of our mission. Words are never enough.

Meleni Aldridge

BSc NutrMed Dip cPNI Cert LTHFE

Robert Verkerk

BSc MSc DIC PhD FACN

INTRODUCTION

Foreword

Laying the table…

THE FOOD4HEALTH PLATES

Let’s dig in

The 10 key Food4Health guidelines

A bit of number crunching

FOOD IS INFORMATION

RE-TUNING YOUR METABOLISM

Metabolic flexibility and resilience - markers of health

Food as ‘fuel’: storing and using energy (the science bit!)

12 steps to transition from being a carb burner to a fat burner

Calorie restriction & intermittent fasting - encoded in our evolutionary blueprint

NUTRIENTS: A DEEPER DIVE

Macronutrients

1.Protein

2.Fats

3.Carbs

Micronutrients

Eat a rainbow every day

Fabulous fibre

HERBS & SPICES: THE MEDICINE IN YOUR KITCHEN

Herbal history

Spice up your life!

THE TWO MOST COMMON ALLERGENS

Gluten

Dairy

FOR GUT’S SAKE

A brief glimpse into gastrointestinal anatomy

Your immune control centre

When your gut mimics a tea bag

Our gut-brain cross talk

When food is not our friend

ANTI-NUTRIENTS

Lectins

Phytates

Oxalates and histamines

CHILDREN’S HEALTH

Re-thinking what our kids are eating

Food groups for ages 4 to 8

The 10 Food4Kids guidelines

RE-FOCUSING YOUR SHOPPING TROLLEY

Sourcing quality ingredients

Ultra-processed food dangers - cooking from scratch

The human dietary diversity crisis

Why does diversity matter?

EATING THE F4H WAY: A FEW KICKSTARTER RECIPES VEGAN/CAN BE MADE VEGAN

BREAKFAST Coconut pancakes

Egg muffins

Mushroom ragout with poached eggs

Overnight keto ‘oats’

Overnight oatmeal

Protein power super smoothie

Rainbow veg smoothie

Thai omelette

Warm winter fruit bowl

LUNCH

Banh xeo - savoury pancakes with nuts and prawns

Chickpeas with sea salad and star anise

Creamy vegetable soup

Easy salmon fish cakes

Egg baked avocado

Egg fried veggie rice

Green tortilla

Longevity watercress soup

Nutty seedy bread

Oven roasted aubergine and tomatoes in yogurt sauce

Savoury gram pancakes

Stir-fried tempeh with bean sprouts and coconut

DINNER

Almond and sesame nut roast with onion gravy

Asian cauliflower rice stir fry

Baked eggs

Baked tempeh

Braised tempeh with curried coconut sauce

Coconut cauliflower ‘rice’ with sambal and okra

Herby mince

Kedgeree with a difference

Rich lentil stew

South east asian chicken/vegetable curry

Thai curry with beef

Food4Health masala

Walnut chilli

CHILDREN’S SNACKS

Savoury baked flapjacks

Savoury bhaji bites

Sweet bhaji bites

Quick & easy

SIMPLE SIDES

Anything goes slaw

Beautiful beetroot houmous

BrocCauli tabbouleh

Broccoli salad

Buckwheat and chia seed bread

Cajun sweet corn relish

Cajun sweet potato wedges

Cauli upma

Chimichurri

Pesto

HEALTHY TREATS

Anytime protein bar

Avocado, lime & coconut crumble pots

Chocolate keto bombs

Dairy-free egg custard

Golden bliss balls

No cheese berry ‘cheesecake’

Paradise squares

EPILOGUE

In the pause before you eat…

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SUPPORTING RESET EATING APPROACH

Fats

Protein

Ketogenic

Gluten

Dairy

Carb/insulin

Caloric restriction

Lectins

Phytonutrients/fibre

Dietary diversity & quality

General

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Rob Verkerk

Meleni Aldridge

Melissa Smith

INTRODUCTION

Eating a healthy and balanced diet is key to improving the quality of your life, especially when coupled with regular physical activity and due attention to your emotional health. Right?

It seems so simple, yet government guidelines and public health messages are still falling so far short of the mark when it comes to properly supporting health and wellness. We like to talk in terms of health creation, rather than disease management. And food is the foundation to it all because food is not merely fuel or an energy carrier, it’s information too.

We felt so strongly about the fact that government guidelines and public health campaigns were simply not delivering, we were compelled to produce our own guideline ‘plate’ that represents food group composition over a typical day. It’s a ‘plate’ that’s rooted in extensive nutritional science, clinical and citizen experience, but more than that, it’s anti-inflammatory, keto-adapted and will help you develop - or maintain - metabolic (and immunological) flexibility. Metabolic flexibility, which in simple terms is your ability to switch efficiently between fat and carbs as your primary energy carriers, creates resilience, crucial for resisting disease and creating health. Our ancestral norm if you will. A state of being we like to call ‘flexi-keto’.

We’ve called it the Food4Health ‘plate’, because that’s what it does. But in trying to come up with a short, punchy descriptor to give a bit more detail, we’ve failed miserably. So, this is what we’re left with — a largely unprocessed, relatively low carb/high complex carb, low glycaemic, moderately high fat and protein-rich, anti-inflammatory, pro-mitochondrial, longevity plate that sets the scene for metabolic, and also, immune system flexibility!

What follows is a starting point and a rough guideline to help you on your journey to being a keto-adapted, super-resilient, metabolically flexible and immunologically well person. Our bodies have a rather miraculous capacity for self-healing when we feed them with the right ‘information’.

We hope your food journey is inspiring, enlightening and rekindles, or strengthens, your most important relationship. The one with your own body.

Enjoy!

FOREWORD

John Vincent MBE

Co-Founder of LEON Restaurants, Co-author of School Food Plan (UK) & Entrepreneur

I am as excited that this book has been written as I hope you will be.

It has been created by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH-Intl), people who I have got to know well in my time running LEON and working on projects like the School Food Plan. The team who lead ANH are scientists and nutritionists determined to help us all learn from the available science and from the clinical experience of the world’s leading medical practitioners.

They have written this book to provide an impartial and in-depth guide for what to actually do. And explain why and how they have come to this conclusion.

You will find the latest insights into why food works in different ways in different bodies, why some people can thrive on veggie food and others can’t, why some people have difficulty burning fat, and others don’t, and why snacking can be deadly.

And it recognises that we’ve still got genes that are very similar to those of our palaeolithic ancestors, yet we live in a world with convenience stores, processed foods, and refined carbs on every street corner.

The book gets under the covers of what’s driving the silent pandemic of metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity. And why people suffering from these diseases have been the most vulnerable to Covid-19.

Many doctors and nutritionists look to ANH for guidance and for the most up to date science. So, it is a great milestone that they have produced a book of their own.

Rob, Mel and Melissa don’t just say ‘do as we say’ – I know from my own longstanding relationship with them that they are role-models for the actions and behaviours set out in these pages. So, you won’t be asked to follow a practically impossible theory.

This is the book I have been waiting for, for a long time.

I wish you well in making a habit of putting these lessons and insights into practice.

You will feel better and be better to feel...

Laying the table…

Different people’s lifestyles and genetic make-up call for flexibility in any system