Dr. Axe told me to Eat Dirt

Title: Eat Dirt
Author: Dr. Josh Axe
Date of Publication: March 29, 2016
Company: Harper Wave
Number of Pages: 352
Awards: #3 on Amazon.com for Medical Books on Digestive Organs, and #4 on Amazon.com for Medical Books on Gastroenterology

It's no secret that I've been unwell for a long time. When I was in my early twenties, I contracted a bacterial infection in my red blood cells. The only way to knock out this bacteria was with antibiotics, and because this was a "super disease" and kept morphing to resist the drugs it encountered, I ended up being on antibiotics for a long time. Six years long, in fact. And I did not take any probiotics to supplement my gut flora—because I didn't know I needed to!

You can probably imagine how frustrated I was when I finally tested negative for the bacteria, but still felt terrible. Cue tons of inflammation and suffering. For the past couple of years, I've been circling my solution. I've traced diet and sleep patterns, finding imbalances in my hormones, thyroid, and adrenals. And I decided at some point that I probably needed to heal my gut, but wasn't sure how to begin.

Dr. Josh Axe is a name you might have heard floating about on the internet or in functional health circles. He's sort of like Dr. Oz, I guess... But even more crunchy and holistic. Dr. Axe and Dr. Hyman (another important name in functional health), are really big on tracing traditionally un-cureable issues to gut health—even Aspergers and Diabetes. I watched Dr. Hyman's Broken Brain Docu-series when it aired earlier this year and found myself intrigued. The principles behind his method really made sense. To follow up on what I'd learned and make some cross-reference checks, I bought Dr. Axe's book Eat Dirt.

What I love about the Eat Dirt solution is that the reader never stops and says to themselves, "Okay, that was some neat-o information! Now what?" Axe literally lays out a protocol for patients, encouraging them to take control of their own health. There's even a quiz you can take to determine your gut type. It's a heck of a lot better than waiting for a bunch of pompous healthcare professionals pretend to listen to you, withhold treatments that might work, and then give you sleeping pills because your illness is "behavioral." (Yes, that happened to me. The complaint was urination frequency and dehydration. The actual answer was a Celiac's diagnosis.)

Another thing I love is that Axe does not eschew traditional medicine—as tempting as that is for all of us sometimes! He rather encourages the melding of methods both conventional and holistic, Western and Eastern, to bring about fulfillment and wellness in his patients' lives.

My biggest takeaway from this book is that most of us have been taught the wrong things regarding cleanliness and self-grooming since we were very young.

Killing 99.9% of germs by spraying down our homes with chemicals and antibacterial soap was the wrong call—sorry, Baby Boomers. Because when we drop an antibiotic bomb on our bodies, it kills foreign invaders, yes, but it kills the helpful civilians as well. Humans need active and healthy bacteria in our bodies. Without them, yeast, sugars, inflammation, and worse—drug resistant harmful bacteria are invited in for an extended stay. That's what happened to me.

I saw this clearly illustrated when I did a kitchen experiment this winter. I attempted to brew a Ginger Bug; a type of fermented drink. After just a few days, the liquid was fizzing and bubbling—active and healthy. One morning, I washed my hands before shredding some ginger to add to the mix... and everything died. The Bug went completely flat. I had used an antibacterial soap, and it had done exactly what it promised to. I tried to imagine what that would be like on a larger scale—and inside my body, and got totally freaked out.

Dr. Josh Axe's book Eat Dirt, even if readers don't necessarily agree with all of it, is a great read and might actually improve your quality of life.

I Feel Bad About My Neck

Title: I Feel Bad About My Neck
Author: Nora Ephron
Date of Publication: August 1, 2006
Company: Alfred A. Knopf
Number of Pages: 137
Awards: Book Sense Book of the Year for Adult Nonfiction (2007)

Ah, Nora Ephron. The queen of the romantic comedy. You've Got Mail. Sleepless in Seattle. When Harry Met Sally. And more recently, Julie & Julia. I'm not the quintessential "chick," that's for sure. I think when pressed, people say I'm interesting and intelligent and kind of dark. But even I am up for a bowl of popcorn, my sweats, and any of the above selections on a rainy October day.

Nora Ephron was technically writing scripts a little before my time. You've Got Mail came out in 1998, when I was twelve. But that didn't stop me from discovering it in my early twenties and watching the hell out of it. There's something timeless about her work; about her, I guess. And this is one of the things that attracted me to her book I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. That, and a recommendation from a dear friend.

Again, I'm a little young for this. But it was definitely compelling. I Feel Bad About My Neck is a collection of nonfiction essays written out of Ephron's experience as a consummate New Yorker in her mid-sixties. They are interesting, and honest, and, as we've come to expect of Nora, charming. I opted for the audiobook version, because she narrates it herself—a treat.
The topics of the essays vary. I came to find out that many of them were written for submission to different magazines, especially Oprah Winfrey's publication O. They fit together nicely, though.

Her essay Me and JFK: Now It Can Be Told is about the brief time she spent as a nominal clerk at the White House. This piece is hysterical. I was laughing out loud. And the last chapter, Considering the Alternative, is about growing older and sometimes losing friends. The author urges us to consider death before we think we need to, and offers thoughts on being left behind to grieve and what that feels like. This is personal, poignant, and beautiful work. Listening to Nora Ephron is a lot like listening to one of your friends. Or your mom. It's damn comforting, and I got used to it, and now the book is over. And I'm still thinking about death. I need more. So much more.

I have one beef with this book. Ephron's frank observations on the litany of creams she keeps in her bathroom, or her quest to find a cabbage strudel just like that one she had at that shop that one time are certainly entertaining. But I found there to be a disconnect here—perhaps generationally, and definitely monetarily.

She bemoans the fact, among others, that she has to wait forever for her toenails to dry after getting a pedicure at the shop. But I'm a millennial. I bemoan the fact that I will never have enough money to get a pedicure in the first place. Or to get my hair professionally dyed. Or to rent an 8-room apartment in New York. Much of her comic material, I am sorry to say, reeks of privilege. In trying to be relatable to the everywoman by confirming that life is hard and getting old sucks, she's outed herself as an elite New Yorker—and I think that younger generations reading her, at least for now, will respond with contempt.

Not withstanding, this is brave, good stuff. Listening to it was like eating a granola bar, but the good kind that's chewy and studded with chocolate chips. The warmth and familiarity of the author's literary voice is soothing. And it should be: I can quote some of her whole film scripts word-for-word. That's a high percentage of Nora Ephron in my brain, and I suspect you've got a lot, too.