Where to Buy
Here are links for purchasing from Amazon in the US, UK, and Germany:
A good source for global buyers because it offers free shipping worldwide is:
Other online outlets include:
There are also various international editions of the book, including:
- The Australian/New Zealand edition from Scribe.
- The Hungarian edition from Jaffa Press.
- The United Kingdom edition is coming soon from Scribe UK.
Publishers interested in acquiring foreign rights may contact Paul at pauljaminet@perfecthealthdiet.com for referral to a rights agent.
Why You Should Buy the Book
Perfect Health Diet shows you how to optimize your diet and lifestyle to eliminate the causes of disease for a lifetime of great health.
The Perfect Health Diet is an ancestral (Paleo, Primal) diet that synthesizes insights from evolutionary biology and the dietary and nutritional literature to offer an innovative, yet ancestral, view of the optimal human diet.
As our Reader Results show, Perfect Health Dieters have experienced greatly improved health including cures of chronic diseases, permanent weight normalization without hunger or cravings, and improved energy, strength, and mood.
The food is delicious – it resembles gourmet cuisines such as French, Thai, and Chinese. There’s good reason for a healthy diet to be tasty: our brains evolved to make us healthy, so the foods that make us happiest are also the ones that make us healthy. The diet is also less restrictive than other Paleo/Primal diets, making it easier to fit into modern life.
Perfect Health Diet explains the science of good health clearly and comprehensively. If you enjoy science, or want to know the reasons why ancestral diets work and modern diets make us obese and sick, you’ll love the insight you gain as you see many lines of evidence lead to the same conclusions.
In short, if you would like:
- Better health
- Delicious and satisfying food
- Improved understanding of the science of diet and health
then this is the book for you.
More Information
If you’d like more information, here are some resources:
- Media, Interviews, and Book Reviews may be found here.
- An excerpt from the book can be reached by clicking on this image:
- Finally, here is the jacket to the US edition:
via this link:
Hi,
Just wondered if your book will be available online from the Book Depository (UK or US)? It’s a cheaper way for international buyers to get it (no shipping fees). Thanks!
Hi glenn,
I don’t know if they’ll pick it up. Amazon picks up everything but it looks like the Book Depository doesn’t. If they aren’t showing it within a few weeks, they probably won’t.
If you’re in Australia, I can tell you that our printer is opening an Australian facility next July and the book will be cheaply available at that time. Until then it has to be imported from the US or UK which, alas, is rather expensive.
LOOKS LIKE amazon… didnt find it at barnes and noble, however ours is on the college campus so i guess they dont carry a wide range
Amazon appears to be discouraging free shipping with new processing procedures affecting split orders (items shipped from separate warehouses) – this results in double charges which are a mess to correct…so I had to cancel my order for your book. 🙁
Will the book ever be available in local stores?
Hi Happy, I don’t think local bookstores will stock it in advance of orders. But you could ask your local bookstore to order it for you.
Glenn, the Book Depository says they should have it listed by Wednesday Nov 24.
Thanks Paul, had been looking out for it. They’ve got a 10% off Xmas deal going too, so will make a Perfect Health present 😉
Have you thought about creating a Facebook page for your book?
Hi Suzan,
Yes, I need to do that.
There seems to be a problem with the first Amazon.com link. For me, it is missing. I’d like to buy the book and give you a kickback please. 🙂
Hi speno,
I’m puzzled, the link is working for me.
Try this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982720904?tag=perheadie-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0982720904&adid=02R4GGQHH5TZ0ZF9EQXB&
Thanks for the helpful kickback!
Sorry, my bad. It’s the adblock extension in my browsers (safari and/or chrome). It automatically prevents certain content from rendering. It’s great until something like this happens. 🙂
So I just used the link you posted.
Thanks!
Hi Paul, I asked to bookdepository and they told me:
“Unfortunately, I can not find this title on our website.
Sorry I could not assist you further. Please do not hesitate to contact us with further enquiries”
I ordered and paid for the Ebook (when the hard copy wasn’t out yet) and you said the hard copy would be mailed to me. I haven’t received it yet. Should I have it by now???
Thanks!
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
Yes, you’re entitled to a copy, but I never got your address. Can you email your address to me, at pauljaminet@perfecthealthdiet.com? We’ll get a copy out to you right away.
Best, Paul
I really wish your book were available for Kindle.
I am still buying it, but this is a drag.
I’m sorry Chip. I have been overwhelmed with my regular work and I have to serve my consulting customers when they call.
You can be sure that I am eager to get the Kindle version out too.
It is now available at bookdepository.
Do you know why the .uk and the .com website of bookdepository have different prices?
http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780982720905/Perfect-Health-Diet
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780982720905/Perfect-Health-Diet
They both offer free shipping.
Hi Kratos,
Thanks for letting me know. I’ve updated the page to link to them.
I don’t know why the prices are different. Every bookseller can set their own prices, as long as they don’t exceed the list price. It’s possible one is buying from our US printer (priced in dollars) and the other from our UK printer (priced in pounds). Or perhaps their British arm is quoting the price in pounds translated to dollars, and the recent dollar rally has made buying in the UK cheaper.
I guess it pays to shop around!
Hi,
I recently got your book and am trying the diet. I’m wondering about squash as a starch. I see it is not listed as one of the safe starches, but would love to be eating it…
Let me know? Thanks, Jen
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, squash is a safe food. It wasn’t listed only because it has fewer starch calories.
Best, Paul
I have just begun reading your book and already have a question that I suspect will keep coming up. As a 4-foot ll-inch menopausal woman, I fear massive weight gain if I increase my starch intake to 100 grams per day, even if I compensate with less fat and protein. (Have been on a very low fructose, zero starch regime for years.) Did you assume average weight and size when you made your recommendations for carb and protein intake?
Hi Kathy,
Well, that’s a good question. Glucose requirements scale somewhat by brain size, and protein by body size, so your optimal intake for both may be a bit lower. (And total calories lower too.) In your case, glucose needs may be 100 calories per day or so lower.
Weight gain is another issue. A few observations:
1) As you add starch calories, you will need to cut back on something else, probably protein. Eat until you are comfortable, never stuffed.
2) It is possible that past metabolic damage can makes carbs hard to tolerate. If you do have a strong tendency to weight gain with carbs, then you may kind a ketogenic variant of the diet works better for you. But I would give a 200-300 starch calorie diet a try for a bit. For most people, only higher carb diets are problematic.
3) In general, I think very good micronutrition is key to appetite control and moving weight from adipose to lean tissues. So be sure to take our recommended supplements and the micronutrient-rich foods mentioned in the book, like beef liver, egg yolks, seaweed and green vegetables, etc. You might also consider the B vitamins discussed in the book.
4) Don’t be too fixated on a scale; go by how you feel and your body shape. I gained weight when I fixed my nutrition, but it was in muscle and bone density, and I felt better. Waist size didn’t change.
Please let me know how things go!
Best, Paul
Thanks for the quick response.
I gained 10lbs in 10 months when menopause hit (at my height 10 lbs matters!). And it was unmistakably fat (several inches gained around the middle and body fat percentage skyrocketed from 26% to 36%).
I have observed the same effect in my closest group of female friends and colleagues–a group that includes a vegan, 2 vegetarians, several low-fatters and calorie counters, athletes, and me. Some are on hrt, some bhrt, some on no hrt. None has escape the expanding, fatty middle.
Something happens to a woman’s metabolism at menopause regardless of her diet and exercise habits, but that is almost never acknowledged by purveyors of weight loss and/or health advice.
Thanks Paul!
One other question: I may have missed something in the book about dairy, but as I recall you say no pasteurized milk. Is there are a reason why cream and whole mik yogurt (which are also pasteurized most everywhere) are safe while milk is not?
Is your bone miso soup using fermented soybean paste?
Looking forward to a cookbook from the two of you! Jen
Hi Jennifer,
None of the dairy products except clarified butter / ghee are entirely safe, but the danger declines as the protein content decreases or becomes more digestible.
So it’s just a compromise – a judgment about what’s an acceptable level of toxicity (given that we love cream!).
Since we wrote the book a little more evidence has come out about milk dangers. I will have to do a blog post about this.
I do believe our miso soup uses fermented soybean paste, but I’ll have to check with my wife when she’s home. Certainly fermented is better than non-fermented. I think there may be an alternative fish paste, but I’m not sure about that.
Best, Paul
Thanks, look forward to the blog post! I’m a student of Classical Shamanic Qigong, and used to be in the sciences (currently teaching yoga and qigong). This is the first diet that made sense to me and therefore the first one I’m trying. There are a lot of correlations with what I’ve learned/experienced in Qigong. I’m on day four and feeling good – not trying to lose weight, just to be healthy. Thanks for your hard work, Jen
Hoping to get the kindle version as well 🙂
I just received the book today and enjoying the read! I love the combination of easy-to-read plus enough scientific information to help me tailor the diet and supplements to my chronic illness, gastroparesis (started in 2003 – got sick while traveling in Brazil, slowly got worse and diagnosed with gp by breath test in 2009).
My main and most debilitating symptom is vomiting, which for example in the past 2 months has been about 75% of what I eat. In the past 4 days of applying the perfect health diet (avg. 1400 kCal, protein/carb/fat ratios 24%/18%/58%) I have not vomited once :)! I realize I need to further optimize my nutrient intake, but I’m already noticing major improvement.
I would like to document my progress. I keep a food and symptom diary, but I think regular blood work would be insightful. Could you recommend an array of blood tests (e.g. complete blood count/vitamins incl. 1,25D, 25(OH)D/minerals?/fatty acids?/TSH) that I could ask my GP to do? For example, blood tests to look for pathogens may be insightful and maybe thyroid tests because of low average body temperature (avg. 35.6 C). A recent test consisted of glucose (5.5), hemoglobin (8.7), b12 (low) and cholesterol (< .5). Any suggestions would be well appreciated! No problem if you don't have time or would prefer not to advise on this.
Thank you for publishing this information!!!
Best, Claire
Hi Claire,
Wonderful! I have no idea why our diet stopped the vomiting, but that’s great news!
I can’t imagine what it must be like to vomit 75% of meals. How horrible.
As far as blood tests, 25OHD and TSH should be taken routinely, because they’re important and may impact nutritional supplementation. Since you have some kind of chronic infection, I would monitor white blood cell counts, liver enzymes, and the like, just in case fluctuations tell you something about your illness. Serum anion gap (Na + K – Chloride – CO2) can help tell you whether you’re eating enough vegetables (should be relatively high). Lipid profiles are fun, the diet should raise your HDL and lower your trigs, that should encourage you. High HDL is helpful for immune function.
I do think you should ask your doctor to follow up on pathogens and on the thyroid. Given your body temperature, I would do a full thyroid and adrenal panel. Get the data so you can analyze at home and share it with us. Re pathogens, you should probably be referred to an infectious disease specialist. Diagnosing chronic infections is not easy.
Also, when you quote numbers be sure to give us the units, we have to translate between SI/metric and American units and can easily get confused.
Best, Paul
Thank you so much for your reply. I will talk to my doctor and get these tests done.
It seems like the main thing that helps against vomiting is not eating fructose or other sugars. I usually drink tea with honey and apple juice all day and would eat lots of soft fruit (banana, papaya, avocado) because I thought that was easiest to digest. Recently I noticed that I do ok with meals of fish and veggies but awful anytime I include grains or sweets. I don’t have diabetes, but its the main cause of gastroparesis so there has to be a link with sugar consumption. I’m going to try and figure it out and will keep you posted 🙂
Yes, fructose avoidance is very important if you have a small intestinal infection! Fructose will just feed that infection.
You’ll have to experiment with starches like rice. Sometimes low-carbing works best, sometimes the starches help (due to improved mucus generation and immune function). Fats should be beneficial for you, and coconut oil might help against the infection.
Best of luck!
Hi, I’m just nagging you again about the Kindle version? 🙂 Thanks and happy holidays.
Dear Suzan, thank you! Glad to have your help pressuring Paul. 🙂
Happy holidays!
Paul hi,
Pierrette & I are a husband and wife team also and our love of Perfect Health is well documented Our site is devoted to Perfect Health for many reasons.
Thank you for being there and sharing all your knowledge.
We would love to spread the info from your book on our site.Do you have an affiliate link?
The next year can be crucial for Perfect Health all over the world.
We are coming out with our book in the New Year.It is not scientific but “people” based.
Thanks
Pierre & Pierrette
Thee Quest For Perfect Health
Hello Paul and Shou-Ching,
I just finished reading your book on Jan.1 2011 and began the Perfect Health Diet that same day. Thank you for sharing all of this wonderful information,
I am planning to create a blog and track the progress of my health. Like my sister, DeNon, I have tested positive for Lyme Disease. My symptoms have not been as debilitating – I experience a constant agitation in my calves and under intense physical exercise they seize up quickly and I often sense a heaviness and fog in my forehead that makes me feel extremely tired. I took a 3 month course of Doxycycline which seemed to work quite well but 3 months later (beginning of Dec 2010) my symptoms all came back.
I have to figure out what my next course of antibiotics will be but I feel confident this diet will put me on the right track towards health and allowing the antibiotics to be more effective.
Also, I would like to get a Before Diet Health Snapshot of where I’m at now to compare after a few months on this diet. Besides the below things to test that you had mentioned in a previous post to someone else would you recommend anything else to have tested?
250HD
TSH
White Blood Cells
Serum anion gap (Na + K – Chloride – CO2)
Lipids – HDL LDL Triglycerides
Thank you,
Darren
Hi Darren,
Welcome! I’m very sorry to hear about your Lyme disease.
You should do some research on which antibiotic protocols work best for Lyme. Usually a combination protocol is needed and it may require more than 3 months. You might also read up on the protocol for C. pneumoniae at http://cpnhelp.org and check out some of the experiences there; many posters there have Lyme and you may have similar experiences to some people who have other pathogens.
You are right that antibiotics will be most effective if you are on a good diet and well nourished, so I am very glad that you are starting our diet.
Also, intermittent fasting, protein restriction, and other tactics to promote autophagy as discussed in Step Four of our book will be helpful. Fasting may be difficult to tolerate at first, but as you recover it will become progressively easier.
Regarding blood tests, the 25OHD and TSH are the only ones I consider really essential. The blood cell counts have some diagnostic value for unknown infections, but you seem to have a solid diagnosis for Lyme, so that won’t really affect what you do. The others I mentioned only because most doctors do those routinely as part of annual checkups. So if you get copies of the tests from recent checkups, you can calculate on your own your serum anion gap or peruse changes in lipids. Lipids I see mostly as a matter of encouragement, since they almost always improve as the diet is improved. In general, higher HDL and higher total cholesterol are beneficial against infectious diseases.
You might want to track antibody titers against Borrelia burgdorferi and perhaps any other possible co-infections. Many Lyme patients also get infected with babesiosis or HGA and it’s good to check at least once for this. (C. pneumoniae, Mycoplasma, etc. are also possible.) Antibody titers usually won’t affect what you do (how you feel is a much better guide) but if you have health insurance then it might not cost much to track titers and the information might come in handy.
Please let us know your blog address and keep us posted!
Best, Paul
Any update on when a Kindle version will be available?
Hi Mark,
It’s now my top priority, I’m working on it today in fact. I’ll have an update end of month.
Best, Paul
Received my copy of the book yesterday and I believe the layout with studies not relegated to footnote status is a great idea – it definitely is encouraging me to read them! When you create the kindle version, I wonder how much linking you could do to abstracts?
I enjoyed reading the scientific breakdown of how each mammalian diet corresponds to a similar macronutrient usage profile in their body. A nice way to think about why it’s OK for a ruminant to eat so much grass and seed.
Hi Matt,
The Kindle footnotes will have live links to Pubmed. I have to figure out some layout issues.
I also love being able to glance at footnotes while reading, so we were not going to use endnotes!
Hello Paul and Shou-Ching
This is probably redundant as you have gotten nothing but kudos for your book but still I wish to register my appreciation. What I particularly admire is the detailed and balanced treatment of the medical research without the all-to-common credibility destroying dogmatic certitude. Your approach provides room/reasons to experiment intelligently which in the end I think most will end up doing. Again thank you.
Morris
Thanks Morris!
Is it possible for you to notify us when the Kindle version gets released? Thanks so much, I’m looking forward to reading your book!
Hi Anna,
I’ll announce it on the blog, but I’ve recorded your email address, Anna, and will send you an email.
Best, Paul
Hi Paul and Shou-Ching,
I ordered your superb book about a month ago. I knew it would be an enormously helpful resource, and indeed so it has proved to be. I have various questions and comments, but these can wait, –I have an urgent problem. As you appear to have encountered reflux problems yourselves, perhaps you have suggestions for my wife, who looked primarily at Robillard’s book–but we are pretty stuck. Here is her summary to him:
My GERD started about 7 years ago, sometimes occuring with stomach ache. Endoscopy (3 times) was always negative. I took a PPI for 6 years, but stopped 6 months ago as it didn’t help any more. I continued to take antacids. This January I started a low-carb diet (net carb: 25g). I haven’t eaten grains or sugar. The only starches I ate were some raw and cooked vegetables (and some very occasional pieces of chocolate). Bloating thankfully stopped immediately, but the other symptoms of the disease gradually got much worse: bitter taste in mouth, difficult swallowing, burning throat. Weakness and stomach ache are present as well. All this has become so serious that I cannot work during the day. and it looks like I will now have to abandon the diet. One tentative thought is that perhaps eating a lot of cheese could have caused the problems, but this seems unlikely. Perhaps carb restriction was too radical and should be introduced more gradually? It does not feel to me like the solution either.
Many thanks
Hi donat,
I have to do a blog post on GERD, since it’s such a common problem.
Briefly, I believe the problem is in the small intestine, not the stomach, and “reverse peristalsis” shoots chyme and sometimes bile and pancreatic enzymes back up the stomach and esophagus.
GERD can have many causes, but they usually involve a combination of infections / gut dysbiosis, malnutrition inhibiting gut healing and proper immune defenses, and food sensitivities.
These go together: infections create a leaky gut which lets food proteins enter the body creating food sensitivities; malnourishing diets predispose to infections and slow gut healing.
To start with I would focus on micronutrition. Two kinds of nutrients are especially important: the immune supporting nutrients (D, C, selenium, iodine, magnesium, copper, multivitamin, NAC) and nutrients supporting cellular replication (B6, B12, choline) since intestinal cells have only a 3 day life and are constantly being replaced. Your wife should pretty much take all of our “essential” and “therapeutic” supplements (http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?page_id=1066) except the melatonin.
For choline it would also be good to eat 3 egg yolks a day plus 1/4 lb beef liver per week.
For macronutrients, only 25g per day carb is too little, you need glucose for both immune function and mucus creation. Try to get 50g per day glucose, but zero fructose. Rice syrup is I believe the easiest way to take it, that is pre-digested and quickly absorbed in the intestine, so it leaves the least for whatever pathogens she may have. Rice is almost as good, but chew it well and mix it with saliva in the mouth before swallowing.
Then exclude any foods that commonly produce food sensitivities or allergies. Unfortunately this includes dairy proteins, so cheese should be excluded for a while. Clarified butter /ghee is the only safe dairy food. Also beware of nuts, possibly nightshades, egg whites, and any other common food allergens. After the GERD is gone, try re-introducing these one by one to see if they’re tolerated.
Also, avoid alcohol.
Finally, read our bowel disease series and think about ways to improve gut flora. Probiotics; lemon juice to help solubilize biofilms; digestive enzymes with a focus on polysaccharide/carbohydrate digesting enzymes; antimicrobial foods like coconut oil.
There are other possibilities, including autonomic nerve dysfunction which can also occur due to infections, but this will resolve most cases of GERD and is a good start.
Please give your wife my regards, and have a happy Valentine’s Day!
Best, Paul
PS – Shou-Ching also suggests eating slowly, thoroughly chewing food and mixing it with saliva; that will help digest food toxins before they reach the intestine. And avoiding carbohydrates at night – food in general for 3 hours before bed if you can. Then the irritation will occur while you’re standing instead of lying down.
Wow, Paul, such a comprehensive and helpful reaction and so fast. We are both extremely grateful. It really has already made a difference, if only in outlook so far, –maybe we can have a late Valentine’s today as yesterday was clearly just a deeply GERD day for us.
Some of your suggestions (eg. re: choline and glucose) we could figure from your book, but even here your authoritative message makes a word of difference compared to our (quite often conflicting) guesses as to which factor is important and which less so. We did not think of allergies, and your message makes us reconsider that dairy may have been a crucial problem. We thought of micronutrition but not at all seriously enough. Your theory placing the crucial problem in the small intestine makes the importance clear.
For what it’s worth I became convinced years ago that the problems had little to do with stomach acid, and it was probably due to a combination of whatever caused bloating and weak esophagal function. Your input puts this in context and really clarifies the way forward.
Thanks again from both of us
Your wonderful post about the GERD problem makes me write another message on a different matter. If I am overtaxing your patience, please feel free to ignore this altogether. I wonder if you looked into how very relevant your approach might be specifically to the zillions of kidney patients, (–perhaps especially, but crucially not exclusively, to those with the metabolic syndrome).
Years ago it turned out that I have polycystic kidneys and a fairly advanced (stage 3) kidney disease. Reading around I discovered that some of the tentative treatments of this condition tend to target cellullar pathways centering around IGF-1 and mTOR, essentially the same pathways that calorie restriction (CR) appears to downregulate. So I was doing CR for some years until last year I came across Cyntha Kenyon’s work on carbs and Fontana’s paper( PMID: 18843793) suggesting that low protein (that, as a kidney patient, I was doing anyway) is crucial even under CR for lowering IGF-1. So I put these together: maybe it is low adequate protein and low carbs that I crucially need with this noncancerous but in some respects cancer-like disease. But now should CR be added for safety (for mTOR decrease and also for AMPK increase which might directly decrease cyst growth, PMID: 19095655) or is CR redundant ( PMID: 18599606 ) or maybe even contraindicated (PMID: 18267211,PMID: 19954950)? Anyway, I somewhat tentatively abandoned CR for a moderate calorie high fat diet with low carb and low adequate protein. You can imagine how excited I got when I heard of your book, from which I really learned an awful lot. So if you have any comments or advice on any of this, it would be most gratefully received.
Hi donat,
Thank you for that comment, actually on this topic you are educating me rather than the other way around. Thanks for the pubmed links!
I follow a protein-restricted low-carb diet, as I think this is best for immunity against parasitic bacteria and viruses.
I don’t believe in calorie restriction — that inevitably makes for a too-skinny body that lacks reserves. Low-carb and low-protein achieves all the benefits.
It sounds like you’re on the path I would recommend!
Best, Paul
I forgot to mention the very mTOR/AMPK relevant Simpson and Raubenheimer paper PMID: 20157561, which tends to support (strongly in spirit, though only weakly for mammals)your position that we seem to be converging on here wrt CR.
Thanks again for all your input