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Book Review: Jordan Rubin’s “Planet Heal Thyself: The Revolution of Regeneration in Body, Mind, and Planet”

This book was reviewed by Brittany, one of our Wellness associates. This book is available for free with any purchase of a Get Real Product. 

This is not a book I would typically read. Personally, how-to books have always seemed pretentious to me, and Jordan’s (stare-into-the-depths-of-your-soul) stare is something I would avert my eyes in the book store. I stand corrected. I couldn’t put the thing down.

My knowledge of Rubin before reading this was not too vast. I knew that he was the founder of Garden of Life, a huge natural supplement company that I am constantly recommending to guests (and take myself). Recently, his new line of supplements, Get Real nutrition has just hit the market. He started his own company, literally from the ground up. By farming organically and restoring acres of topsoil, he was able to make vitamins for him and his family by fermenting and sprouting the already nutritious food he was growing. By stepping away from the huge company, which has good intentions but is too wasteful, I think he will inspire many to become more conscious consumers.

In this book, he frowns upon agribusiness, but respects the farmers who are stuck in this system, who have to buy their own food from the supermarket instead of their own farms. He frowns upon gluten, not in the way I would typically suspect. I love my gluten. Love. It. He makes a good point on moving away from monoculture, and by eating more diverse grains (which happen to be gluten free) it paves the way for more demand in biodiversity and healthier topsoil. Another thing he frowns upon is GMO derived products. I was ready to hear the same old story on GMO’s, but he makes a good point about bacteria in the gut. The SAD (Standard American Diet) is already terrible for good bacteria to thrive in our guts, which is very important for immunity, digestion and mood (to name a few). When GMO products enter the picture, antibiotic resistant genes found in GMOs destroy even more good bacteria. This is something to consider, however I will never pass up a home cooked meal at a family gathering, just because it has genetically engineered organisms.

It is easy to want to “out-natural” our peers, but our degenerative lifestyles need to change. If Jordan Rubin can do it, with a wife and six children (4 of whom are adopted), then so can we. As he says, we can pay the farmer now or the doctor later. The whole idea is to reconnect with our earth, even if it’s just walking barefoot on the grass or sautéing some chard in your next meal. When considering paying for supplements, which many contain isolated vitamins, consider this: it takes 24 steps of isolation to get the vitamin c in an orange, into the isolate form, known as ascorbic acid. This is how disconnected we are from our farmer, our food, and our planet. Read this book if you are in need of some inspiration to make the world a better place.