Laura Schoenfeld: As far as books on nutritional biochemistry, the one that I see getting recommended the most is Dr. Gaby’s book, which is called Nutritional Medicine. I don’t know if you all have heard of that book before. It’s pretty big. It’s a really large textbook. I think it says it’s 11 times the size of an average book, so it’s really big. It has a lot of really good information in there. I was joking with Lauren, who’s the host of this, before we got on that I have the book because my mom gave it to me. My mom’s also a nutritionist, and this was the book that was recommended to me when I was in another functional nutrition program. This was the textbook that was recommended as a reference. I will admit I have not actually read through the book because a lot of the stuff that I do I have learned through other practitioners or reading blogs or reading science articles, that kind of thing, so I can’t say that I’ve used this book. I just wanted to put that out there and be honest and say I don’t particularly use textbooks. I’m not a big textbook reader, in general, but this is a book that has a lot of recommendations from people that I trust, and it has a lot of information about a really large variety of different topics. There’s a bunch of information on vitamins and minerals, amino acids, and different types of conditions, so various types of cardiovascular disease, gastroenterology, even things like psychiatry and pediatrics, that kind of thing, so there’s a lot of information in there, and I’d say it’s probably the most comprehensive and the most trustworthy as far as the information is concerned. Again, I’m not a big textbook user. There are ways to learn this information without using a textbook, but if you’re the kind of person that likes to have everything condensed in a single reference, then this is probably the best reference that I can recommend. Again, that’s Nutritional Medicine by Dr. Gaby. I’m going to share that link on the Facebook page so everyone can get the right book.
I do think he actually has an online version of this book, too, which I think is really helpful because for me one of the big reasons I don’t use textbooks is because I find it hard to find the information. I’ll chalk that up to being in the generation of digital information. But he does have an online copy, so if you’re like me and you like to be able to search for information and not use the good old index of a real book, then you can actually use his online book, and I think that would be a really easy way to find the information that you need quickly.
Again, that’s the book I would recommend, and hopefully that’s helpful. I know there’s probably a bunch of other books out there that could be helpful. Certainly you’re not going to just use one book to guide your learning, but having a basic reference is always helpful.