First of all, this is THE best book on nutrition out there. Get this book. I own three copies: one for my own reference, and two to lend out. It's that good.Deep Nutrition is an easy read, witty and engaging. It reads more like a novel than a nutritional text. You will find yourself turning the pages and wishing for more. It will change the way you look at food forever. It has for us.The main premise is that you can change your life and the lives of your children by following the principles of traditional eating. In a society riddled by adult and childhood health problems, this is good news indeed! For the couple looking to conceive, it means having tools to have a healthy and beautiful child. For both children and adults with current health problems, it means hope for recovery. By eating a traditional diet, we can change how our genes work and how our children's genes work.We can also change the way our children look. Using principles from Stephen Marquardt and from modern scientific research, Catherine Shanahan shows us how beauty is objective, transcending all cultures and races. There is a certain dynamic symmetry that the human brain looks for and recognizes as beautiful. I know this sounds abstract, but the book provides some very convincing pictures. Especially interesting are pictures of siblings showing that the later born siblings have less dynamic symmetry, presumably the result of less optimal maternal nutrition. The latest born siblings have features similar to fetal alcohol syndrome. Could second sibling syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome both be related to maternal malnutrition? See for yourself, but you will not be able to look at facial features the same way again.So what is Deep Nutrition? What is traditional food? It's the food our grandparents and great grandparents grew up eating. It's soups and sauces made from bone stocks and broths, pasture raised meats and organ meats, fish, fresh vegetables, fermented vegetables, raw milk, nature made fats and fruits. Compare this with the modern American diet of frozen dinners, Pop Tarts, Cap'n Crunch, Doritos, Oreos, Gatorade, soy milk, "vegetable" oil, and Coke Zero. Our ancestors would not have recognized these products because they didn't exist until recently. So, how do traditional foods help us? OK. I'm in my 30's and I grew up thinking that soup had to come out of a can or a little envelope full of powder. My husband's mother made homemade chicken soup out of a real chicken, bones and all, for her children as they grew up. My 92 year old father-in-law tells us over and over about how, as a child, his mother made them real homemade chicken soup every Sunday and how they would eat the leftovers all week. He still walks without a cane. People cannot believe that he is 92. My husband is in his 40's and is as strong as he's ever been. He looks to be following in his father's footsteps. I grew up being overweight and plagued by soft tissue injuries, including injuries to the tendons in my arms, a ligament in my knee, and problems with my lower back. I was given an honorary t-shirt at the local physical therapy practice and told I had been there so long that I was considered to be part of the family. After learning that the Deep Nutrition in broths and stocks made from bones contain substances that help the body heal tendons, ligaments and joints, you'd better believe I learned how to make these stocks and broths myself. It's easy, by the way. I now use homemade stock in everything I can. It makes an ordinary meal taste extraordinary, makes delectable sauces and gravies, yummy soups, and my soft tissue injuries are finally healing! Talk about a win, win scenario! Oh yes, that's the other thing. Deeply Nutritious food tastes GREAT! Those little envelopes full of flavored powder that promise to become tasty if you will only add water and heat them up taste nothing like the real food that is Deep Nutrition. Expect to be inspired to spend more time in the kitchen crafting the foods that will craft and heal you and will deeply satisfy you and your family.Deep Nutrition is not a cookbook. It's a unique guidebook to traditional foods - what they are and why we should eat them. Whether you are already experienced in cooking these foods, or like me believed that soup came out of a can or a little packet, Deep Nutrition has something for you. I have not seen such clear explanations in any other book. Much research went into this book, and while scholarly, it is amazingly accessible. Also included are lists of good foods to include in your diet which have the power to transform your health, foods to avoid and why, a list of baby steps to help you change your diet to healthier traditional foods, and even tips on using nutritional know-how to lose weight and stay young. You need this book! While you are at it, just order two. You're going to want to share this with all the important people in your life. Seriously. Happy reading!