Book Review: Everyday Detox

After 5 years of struggling to understand the complicated environment of my husband's digestive process following a major surgery, I'm excited to see more and more books on the market attempting to address the all-important gut.

Everyday Detox by Megan Gilmore seemed to be just the book I needed! It promised recipes to heal the digestive process and - added bonus - help you lose weight! The intro sounded promising, with phrases like "crowd-pleasing" and the familiar reassurance that you don't have to live a life of deprivation to be healthy.

This book may well prove to be the solution for someone. And if so, I'm happy for them! Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people. I don't know what crowds Gilmore is feeding with these "crowd pleasing" recipes, but they aren't the crowds I know. In addition to that, some of the advice sounds sketchy (only eat from one food group per meal?) and definitely wouldn't work for my husband (the last time I tried to feed him fruit for breakfast, we got in a fight 20 minutes later that didn't resolve until he flopped onto the couch and admitted his real problem: "I'm SO HUNGRY!") Other advice in the intro contradicts everything I've learned about my husband's gut in the last five years through a combination of trial/error and research. I haven't gone through the program Gilmore received her certification for, but I know what doesn't work for my mister - eating lots of high-fiber or high-sulfur veggies like cauliflower, for example - and this book contains most of it.

I feel like I wasn't able to give this book a fair shake because I was hoping so much for it to be a piece in the solution puzzle, and it turned out to be such a disappointing collection of things I've already tried and set aside.

The book is written well from a technical standpoint; it flows well, reads simply so it's understandable, and the recipes seem easy to follow. Even though the author is asking for a big change - switch totally off dairy, processed foods, refined sugars, and most meat - it's possible that someone who's already more used to these changes will find this book to be a great resource for healthy meal recipes. I personally didn't receive any such benefit, making me glad that this book was sent to me for review by Blogging for Books - and that I didn't waste any money on it.