Vetanswers member and author, Dr Gundi Rhoades answers some questions about her new book The Food Solution. Gundi is passionate about convincing all of us to save our own health as well as that of the planet by making a relatively easy and small change in the food we eat as well as that which we feed our animals.
Q: Tell us about your new book
My book is called ‘The Food Solution‘ by Dr Gundula Rhoades (available on Amazon) – “Get truly healthy and save the planet one bite at a time”.
It explores the connection between soil, health, diseases and what happened to our food in the last 50 years or so. I inform about the gut and soil microbiomes, nutrient deficiencies, what they do and why it matters (for people and dogs or cats), why our food is nearly void of nutrients nowadays and what the chemicals used on the farm do to ecosystems and our bodies.
Q: You’re a veterinarian, so why did you write a book about food and gut health?
I am a veterinarian, but the principles of the destruction of the soil that, ultimately, synthesizes our building blocks for life, are the same for dogs, cats or humans. The book explains how the modern diseases of cancer, autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, arthritis, leaky gut, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autoimmune diseases, asthma, allergies, diabetes and so forth can be explained – and solved.
You are what you eat – and what you eat can have been produced on healthy soils and nourish you, or on dead soils (or without soils in hydroponic ‘food’ production) and make you or your pet sick.
Q: What are you hoping to achieve with your book?
I wanted to give information so that people are more knowledgeable about cattle, methane emissions, the negative or positive (!) role in ecosystems and planet health, soil, water cycles and carbon cycles and how it is all connected to how we produce food for us or our pets.
In essence, I want to help ’save the planet and us’ – which is only achievable through changing the way we farm. And as farming produces the food for us and ultimately what we as consumers demand, I want to show how much power we as consumers have to change the trajectory of history. Every person buying organic food or growing their own is starting an avalanche of positive change for the planet and themselves.
This is immensely empowering, as this information gives us the tools of how to be part of the climate solution rather than the climate problem – just by how we feed ourselves or our pets.
Q: How do you believe your book can help those working in the veterinary industry & why is it important that they read it?
In my opinion, modern medicine in veterinary medicine and human medicine has been treating symptoms of chronic disease for too long, without looking at the aetiology of these diseases.
I am not talking about acute injuries, like stitch-ups, broken legs, snake bites or tick paralysis. We are great at that as vets. I am talking about the wave of allergies and cancers in pets and the wave of myriad diseases of chronic illness in people. My book is a start to connect health to food again and to explain why modern agriculture doesn’t produce health-sustaining food but disease-evoking substances.
The veterinary industry has been following the dog and cat food industry’s advice for too long. We are feeding cats for example, that are hyper-meat eaters, a commercial kibble containing 60% or more carbohydrate-containing food, and then when they deliver an allergy, we give them a different bag with unrecognizable, hydrolysed proteins. When they get kidney disease from the high phosphorus content or the constant hyper-stimulation of insulin, we again prescribe a different bag of food, and when they get blocked urethra’s we again prescribe the next bag.
The elephant in the room about any grain and vegetable that is produced nowadays, is pesticide use. Glyphosate and other chemical pesticides or fertilizer use are destroying our soils – and the food produced is nutrient poor and laden with chemicals evoking a myriad of diseases – and contributing massively to climate change through carbon emissions from dead soils.
Changing our attitude toward food and going ‘back to nature can help reduce suffering in our pets and can heal the planet, too.
These are big issues affecting our planet which is in crisis, and I hope my book will give the reader a good overview of how changing their buying and eating habits can have a deep and profound change in healing the planet.
I’d love a copy of ‘the food solution’!
Yay for Vets for helping pets, people and the planet as a whole. Her book sounds like a great inspirational read.
I do believe we are what we eat and I want to know how to eat the right stuff!
Whilst I certainly strive to be as healthy as possible & have as minimal impact on our planet as practical, I am often skeptical about excessive, all encompassing claims and marked extrapolation about our impacts so I would be very interested to read this book & become better informed on the topic that I must admit I have a poor understanding of.
“The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself”. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882-1945. The 32nd President of the USA realised the value of soil a century ago. Thanks Dr Gundi!
Sounds like a very interesting and relevant read! Can’t wait to learn more.
This book sounds like a very thought provoking read. Love to be able to think about food wholistically and scientifically , in a different way.
I would love to win a copy of this amazing book, can’t wait to read it soon!