Book Review: The Probiotic Revolution

I am reading The Probiotic Revolution - it's perfect for the person who wants "scientific studies" to "prove" eating probiotic rich foods are good for you. It is written by Gary B. Huffnagle, Ph.D. who is a professor of Internal Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical Center. He covers a wide range of medical conditions that are improved by probiotics - and cites studies to back up the claims. He also relates his personal success with combating asthma and allergies, and how to introduce probiotic foods to children.

The book is broken up into three parts:

1. The Promise of Probiotics
2. Preventing and Treating Disease
3. Promoting Microbial Balance: What You Can Do

There is one downside to the book. The information about fats is misguided. It states that we should avoid saturated fats and replace butter with canola oil or soybean oil! Gary needs to read Confused About Fats at the Weston A Price Foundation website.

The Body Ecology Diet has a special program for autistic children called BEDROK, Body Ecology Recovering Our Kids. The second therapeutic food introduced in the BEDROK program is raw butter. Butter is made almost entirely of milkfat, with vitamins A, D, E and a short-chain fat called butyric acid, which is very healing to the gut. In addition, raw grass-fed butter contains large amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and an additional fatty substance called X Factor by Weston A. Price, which is particularly high in butter from springtime milk. Butter is a 99% casein-free food, meaning it does have a small amount of casein in it. This has been a concern to many of the parents starting the BED from a completely GFCF diet. When butter is introduced four to seven days after starting the coconut kefir, that the small amount of residual casein does not usually cause a problem In fact the butter seems to really jump-start the healing process.

Overall, I think it's a great book for anyone who is intersted in learning about. His message about probiotics is that they work, they are safe, we should eat a wide variety of cultured foods and we don't have to wait for more studies.