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The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home | 
 enlarge | Author: Daphne, M.d. Miller
Creator: Allison Sarubin Fragakis
Publisher: Collins Living
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $13.24
You Save: $9.71 (42%)
New (42) Used (11) from $13.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 30162
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.4
ISBN: 0061535656
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2
EAN: 9780061535659
ASIN: 0061535656
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Pizza, pasta, hamburgers, sushi, tacos, and french fries . . . whether our ancestors were born in Madrid, Malaysia, or Mexico, chances are our daily food choices come from all around the globe. Unfortunately, we have taken some of the worst aspects of our varied ancestral menus to turn healthy cuisine into not-so-healthy junk food. Where did we go wrong? Why is it that non-Western immigrants are so much more susceptible to diabetes and other diet-related chronic diseases than white Americans? How is it possible that relatively poor native populations in Mexico and Africa have such low levels of the chronic diseases that plague the United States? What is the secret behind the extremely low rate of clinical depression in Iceland—a country where dreary weather is the norm? The Jungle Effect has the life-changing answers to these important questions, and many more. Dr. Daphne Miller undertook a worldwide quest to find diets that are both delicious and healthy. Written in a style reminiscent of Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, this book is filled with inspiring stories from Dr. Miller's patients, quirky travel adventures, interviews with world-renowned food experts, delicious (yet authentic) indigenous recipes, and valuable diet secrets that will stick with you for a lifetime. Whether it's the heart-healthy Cretan diet, with its reliance on olive oil and fresh vegetables; the antidepression Icelandic diet and its extremely high levels of Omega 3s; the age-defying Okinawa diet and its emphasis on vegetables and fish; or the other diets explored herein, everyone who reads this book will come away with the secrets of a longer, healthier life and the recipes necessary to put those secrets into effect.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Nothing new December 1, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The reason why I gave this book 1 star is because after I read it I saw Miller's talk on Google talks and she seemed arrogant and not interested in answering questions. The book itself is purely a travelogue and does not shed any new light on diets. Native diets are not comprised of some miracle combination of nutrients but rather whatever species of plants and animals happen to be in the area that humans use for food. Miller keeps reiterating old news such as :"what your meat eats matters", duh!
This is a lame attempt by someone with an MD to make money from her journal during vacations. DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!
 An "Easy to Digest" Book on Healthy Nutrition October 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Jungle Effect is a very well informed and well written book on healthy nutrition. Dr. Miller identifies various "cold spots" around the globe which have low or no rates of certain western diseases, and explains how the local diets are key to these statistical results. I use this book and the diets and recipes therein to plan my own diet that is tailored to my ulcerative colitis. The book is very well organized and very accessible. I strongly recommend this book to anyone looking to plan an informed new whole foods diet. Try the Ndole--it's great!
Reverse and Prevent Diabetes With Slow Release Foods October 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From: www.BasilAndSpice.com
Author & Book Views On A Healthy Life!
The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home (Collins Living, 2008) by Daphne Miller, M.D.
Daphne Miller, M.D. author of The Jungle Effect, writes that indigenous foods, or native plants, vegetables, and fruits, are the natural prescription solution and even prevention for type 2 diabetes. Past studies of Pacific Islanders and Australian Aborigines have shown that when these peoples eliminated their own native diets, for the Western high carb diet, they quickly developed pre-diabetes or full-blown diabetes. Indigenous diets include nuts, roots, and seeds like cheeky yam, black bean seed, and bush onion. Others you may be more familiar with: quinoa, barley kernels, cracked wheat (bulgur), steel-cut oats, and millet.
Further testing of the indigenous foods showed that they were difficult to break apart and digest. Blood sugar and insulin levels rose more slowly after eating these foods, whereas Western carbs --refined flour, sugar, pasta, mass-produced corn, white rice--digest quickly, rapidly raising blood sugar and insulin, leading to diabetes.
In The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home, Dr. Miller gives five reasons why slow release indigenous foods are antidiabetic:
* Slow-release foods are slowly digested--keeping blood sugar and insulin levels lower.
* Slow-release foods are fiber-rich--extending satiety, decreasing the desire for fast-release snacks (donuts, candy, etc..)
* Slow-release foods are nutrient-rich--unrefined grains have not lost their vitamin and mineral properties from the refining process. For example, white flour retains only 15% of its magnesium content after the refining. Dr. Miller writes that "Low-blood magnesium levels are linked to insulin resistance, poor blood sugar control, and diabetic complications."
* Slow-release foods are free of bad fats--saturated, partially hydrogenated, omega 6. Instead they contain stanols and sterols, healthy plant fats, which lower triglycerides.
* Slow-release foods have unique antidiabetic capabilities. Some specific indigenous foods cause sensitivity to insulin--some herbs, spices, and the prickly pear cactus.
A wonderful example of a slow-release meal is the corn tortilla, filled with beans, accompanied by squash, jicama, herbs, spices (cinnamon, pepper, cumin, coriander), and nopales (prickly pear cactus).
First, purchase or make tortillas that have 3 grams minimum of fiber each, have been treated with lime, are organic (if possible), and are free from hydrogenated fat and preservatives.
If you have a choice, cook your own beans. They are usually fresher, cheaper, tastier, less salty, and digest more slowly than the canned varieties.
Squashes, both the hard winter types and summer varieties, have been eaten in the Americas for several thousand years, says Dr. Miller. They are chock full of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
Jicama, easily peeled and eaten raw, can be sliced into small slices and dressed in lime juice and chili powder.
Look for the prickly pear in Latino/Hispanic/Middle Eastern markets. Stick to small, tender, and bright green ones.
BackStory: "In the past 70 years, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the United States has increased over 700 percent, and the disease is slowly affecting younger and younger populations. While this is the case with people of all ethnicities, the most dramatic rise has been experienced by Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. Furthermore, recent statistics have shown that diabetes is now taking center stage as one of the greatest health issues worldwide."--Dr. Daphne Miller
Daphne Miller, M.D. traveled around the world investigating the diets of many native peoples. She is a board certified family physician in private practice in San Francisco and an associate professor at the University of California, where she teaches nutrition and integrative medicine.
The Jungle Effect--I highly encourage you to read this book for better insight on your diet and health.--Kelly Jad'on
5 Stars
 The Jungle Effect September 1, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
`The Jungle Effect` is what Dr. Miller noticed when her San Francisco practice patients went on a "native diet". Unlike typical Western diets, which caused her patients health problems, when they switched to native diets - traditional foods from native cultures - their health improved, often dramatically. To learn more about native diets, Dr. Miller visited places such as Iceland, Nigeria, Crete, the Amazon, Okinawa to discover what they are doing right. Thousands of years of human trial and error, according to Dr. Miller, have selected for the best diets for human health and longevity.
Dr. Miller is not new in this approach. Dr. Weston A. Price in the 1930s observed the same heath giving benefits of traditional foods and today there is a large and active community of native nutritionists surrounding Price and his legacy (see Sally Fallon's classic Nourishing Traditions). However Miller's book does offer some new and interesting perspectives. She actually traveled to native regions and sampled the foods and diets, and this makes for fascinating reading in an up to date journalistic human-interest story style. She dispels the notion that genetics plays a significant role, suggesting that anyone of an ethnic background can adopt any native diet (eg. a European can benefit from an Okinawa diet). Finally, she suggests food is more than its parts, each dish is symbiotic, so it is important to eat the entire food way, not just its elements. For example olive oil is good, but best in combination with the entire Mediterranean diet. Oddly enough, she also recommends mixing and matching various native diets (she personally cooks from different regions each night).
Dr. Miller's book is an excellent primer for anyone not already familiar with native nutrition. Her research supports and adds to the work done by the Weston A. Price Foundation, with a slightly different approach. Her field-trips make for excellent reading and reveal specific regional food-ways. `The Jungle Effect` is a valuable contribution to the growing literature, and an easy and fun to read introduction to native nutrition.
Outstanding ! August 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really don't know what else to say without spending too much time writing a review. Just read it. If you don't you will never know will you? Unless you already know it all. What wonderful synergy contained in this book... Thank you Doctor Miller!
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