nonfiction; health (autoimmune and inflammatory diseases). It is fairly rare (and therefore pretty valuable) to find information put out by a doctor who has done significant research on various toxins and supplements because her own health depends on it. However, she doesn't explain some things as well as I'd hoped and mostly comes off as a salesperson for her own products. Also, most people (except for the very desperate) would sooner dismiss what she says than make the drastic changes she calls for in this book. Diet is one of the things that people are most resistant to change, and she asks you to try giving up gluten, dairy, most sugar, and omnipresent GMOs (among other things).

If, on the other hand, you have a severe enough autoimmune condition or mysterious chronic pain, you may be willing to make some drastic changes in your life, and this could help. If you have milder but chronic symptoms and maybe aren't ready to completely overhaul your life, you can still heed some of the advice, absorb some of the things she says, be more mindful of the things that you ingest/breathe/absorb accordingly--and possibly alleviate some of your symptoms. If this is you (or someone in your family), then this book is definitely worth checking out from your library, but if you are not a big reader/collector of information you would probably be better served with a different book (such as Dr. Blum's). ( )

I have several pesky autoimmune ailments, thus I had been looking forward to see if this book offered any valuable solutions. But I have to say, no, not for me.

Four of the most important chapters are as follows: Heal your Gut, Get rid of Gluten, grains and legumes, Tame the toxins and Heal your Infections and Relieve your stress.
1) Heal your gut. I never really found out how to heal my gut. Step 1 was to remove the bad foods and I´ll get to that in the next point. Step 2 was to restore the Good. Here it is suggested to take digestive enzymes, and this might be a good idea, Step 3 is to reinoculate with healthy bacteria, and I have been taking good probiotics for years and also fermented vegetables regularly. Step 4. Repair the gut. Here the suggestions are to take L-glutamine and Omega-3 fish oils. I haven´t been able to get hold of the former as yet, but have been taking krill oil capsules, which Dr. Mercola, I think it was, thinks are preferable to fish oil.
2) Get rid of Gluten, Grains and legumes, we are informed of what we must totally exclude from our diet. This turned out to include all food products (except fish) that I use as my source of protein:
Gluten (I have excluded this.)
All grains –wheat, rye, barley, rice, millet, and oats. Also corn and quinoa though they are technically not grains.
Legumes – lentils, chickpeas (i.e. also humus), peas, green beans, and red, white, black and kidney beans.

However, Amy explains that gluten-free is not an option either, since these products are loaded with sugar, salt, preservatives, additives and dyes.

We must also avoid nightshades i.e. eggplants (which I never eat anyway), potatoes, though sweet potatoes are okay (hurray!) and tomatoes.

Also, dairy products are out of bounds, e.g. milk, butter, cheese, goat´s cheese, etc. Also eggs, my main source of protein other than fish. And nuts, peanut butter and seeds,

Amy´s diet may be perfect for an inveterate carnivore, since you can eat all the organic meat you might desire, but for me it´s inadequate. At least, at present, since I´m unable to get hold of the organic salmon fillets I usually eat. I can of course eat tinned sardines and anchovies, but I´m not keen on all the BPA you get to consume together with these fish.

3) Tame the toxins. There is good information here about getting rid of toxins, cleaning your air and water and buying clean body products. We are informed of the excellence of glutathione, which is “your body´s biggest detoxifier”, but this has proved difficult for me to get so far,
4) Heal your infections. I didn´t get much out of this chapter. I myself have to take considerable amounts of garlic every day to deal with interstitial cystitis, since my doctor can´t/won´t (both of these) help me.

Amy recommends a 30-day protocol. Avoid all foods she tells you to avoid for 30 days and see if your condition improves. This may well be a good idea, also for me, but I´m afraid I might feel quite weak and faint.

She offers many appetizing recipes. I might just try “Hearty Sweet Potato Mash” though I wouldn´t have time to make it for breakfast, as she suggests.

The author is a doctor and she herself has an autoimmune disorder, so she needed to find a way to thrive with this ailment, and came up with this system, which she calls “The Myers Way”.

To sum up, the book does in fact contain much valuable information, and it may prove useful to many, particularly carnivores. But I won´t go out of my way to recommend it, since I do not feel the author leaves us vegetarians with enough basic, nourishing foodstuffs to thrive on. But it is well-written and informative. ( )