ruthheasman ·
Over the past few years, an alternative movement has been gaining momentum in the world of health and nutrition. This movement has centred largely around the writings of Dr Raymond Peat PhD, a former professor of physiology and endocrinology.
I first stumbled across Ray Peat’s website in 2011 while researching caprylic acid (a fat found in coconut oil with some remarkable properties). But some of Peat’s main ideas ran contrary to other sources I was reading at the time (for example, that fish oil is not a sensible health supplement) and it wasn’t enough to convince me away from my preexisting biases.
Over time, however, the name Ray Peat would crop up again and again in various places online, and I decided to go back and revisit Dr. Peat’s articles in 2014. Once I started reading Peat’s articles in greater depth, and began linking the common threads that are woven throughout them, my own understanding of human biology, health, and nutrition were changed substantively.
The key idea was that energy and structure are interdependent, at every level.
—Ray Peat
Peat presents a bioenergetic lens through which health, ageing, and disease can be understood as functions of energy metabolism—of the biological energy that’s available for use in our bodies. Energy isn’t just required for us to function, but for the organism as a whole to maintain its own integrity.
His articles describe how nutrition, hormones, and other environmental factors influence the availability of energy and impact health. These ideas are backed strongly by empirical research and validated by some of the most notable names in western science from the last century, including many Nobel Prize winners.
Despite this, many of the claims Peat makes run contrary to mainstream contemporary health advice and common cultural clichés.
This deviation from mainstream information, as well as the breadth and inherently technical nature of his articles, can mean Ray Peat’s work is often initially difficult to read.
I decided it would be helpful for me to dig deeper, and read the work of the authors Peat cites. This, I determined, would not only provide me with a deeper understanding of the information being discussed, but also help me to assess with greater confidence what are sometimes controversial ideas.
This educational journey has led me down a rabbit hole, creating a significant paradigm shift in how I understand and experience life.
Below is a list of books that I recommend to anyone who is interested in improving their own understanding of this broader way of thinking about life.
Note: This list is by no means exhaustive—these are only the books I’ve read so far—but I felt it would be inappropriate to recommend books that I haven’t read for myself. Readers will probably benefit from reading these books in the order presented, since they tend to progress in complexity.
If you would like to recommend a book be added, please feel free to contact me with your suggestion.
How to Heal Your Metabolism - by Kate Deering
My recommendation is to eat to increase the metabolic rate (usually temperature and heart rate), rather than any particular foods. — Ray Peat
Unlike many fad diet trends that focus on eliminating food groups or offer a strict protocol to follow, Ray Peat’s advice is simply to eat to increase the metabolic rate. Of course, this does include focussing more on certain food types and less on others — but you won’t find a specific “Peat diet” anywhere.
While there are many people who try to engineer their own diets based on Ray Peat’s recommendations (jokingly called “Peaters”), opinions are varied and can sometimes be conflicting. What’s more, scientific studies (which most Peaters try to look to) are often open to interpretation, and can be confusing to someone who doesn’t have a firm grounding in nutrition or biology.
To the newbie who is looking to start making positive health changes today, this book by fitness and nutrition coach Kate Deering is a great place to start. How to Heal Your Metabolism offers sensible, structured advice on the lifestyle, dietary, and training tips that are proven to increase metabolism and improve health.
How to Heal Your Metabolism on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2usBXkl
The Stress of Life - Dr Hans Selye, MD
That mystique of diagnosing disease (specific, concrete, reified disease) was so strong that when Hans Selye noticed (in the 1930s) something that underlies all sickness (he first called it the “syndrome of being sick”), he was disregarded and disrespected, at least until his dangerous perceptions could be trimmed, distorted, and subsumed under some proper medical categories. —Ray Peat
Central to understanding the impact of metabolism and energy on health, is to understand the effects of stress on the body. Hans Selye coined the term “stress” as we use it today. You could say he literally wrote the book on stress, and he called it The Stress of Life.
As a medical student, Selye observed that patients with a variety …