In a world where millions of people are suffering from multiple forms of degenerative disease it is a tragedy that so few really understand the connection between the soil and the body's health. Most people have been raised on manufactured foods and are at least two generations removed from any kind of work with the soil. Before the Industrial Revolution, if people avoided infections and accidents, they often lived long, healthy lives and died peacefully in their sleep. What did our ancestors know about food and health that we do not? Why is each generation suffering from degenerative diseases at earlier and earlier ages? What do we need to know to really heal ourselves? From The Soil To The Stomach offers an illuminating look at these questions and outlines a path to sustainable medicine.

We live in a world where millions of people are suffering from multiple forms of degeneration, wide-spread ignorance about Mother Nature as well as the world we live in, and very few survival skills. The risk is that we may not survive should anything arise to threaten or disturb our modern and very fragile way of life. The tragedy in all of this is the loss of food traditions as well as natural tools and techniques for restoring health and a sense of well-being. These tools and traditions were based on an understanding of our connection to Mother Earth, knowing how to use real food, the willingness to engage in physical work or exercise, and regular fasting and detox to clean out the body. People went to great lengths to find and collect the foods they needed to produce healthy babies and maintain full function right up to death. Before the Industrial Revolution, if people avoided infections and accidents, they often lived long, healthy lives and died peacefully in their sleep at advanced ages. What did our ancestors know about food and health that we don't? Why is each generation suffering from degenerative diseases at earlier and earlier ages? What do we need to know to really heal ourselves? Getting Well From the Soil to the Stomach offers an illuminating look at these questions and outlines a path to sustainable medicine. "European missionaries carried the white man's diet around the world with them, becoming a potent wedge between people and the feeding traditions they had evolved over thousands of years. Everywhere they went, disruption of indigenous lives followed. People who depended on the continuation of their food tradition for maintenance of their high level of immunity were forced out of their sustaining routines, into schools and churches, and onto barren, dead soils. They were fed Western foods right along with Western religions. The result was confusion, disease, psychological malaise, and death everywhere the missionaries went. "Today we do not have missionaries to contend with, we have marketing departments. A great deal of misinformation has been generating by marketing programs designed to get sales moving for a product. Once the misinformation gets out there, we build on it, creating a labyrinth of wrong turns in terms of our diet. If we do not correct these, we simply will not survive."

Affecting 80% of the population, leaky gut syndrome is the root cause of a litany of ailments, including chronic inflammation, allergies, autoimmune diseases, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, diabetes, and even arthritis. In order to keep us in good health, our gut relies on maintaining a symbiotic relationship with trillions of microorganisms that live in our digestive tract. In Eat Dirt, Dr Axe explains that what we regard as modern improvements to our food supply – including refrigeration, sanitation, and modified grains – have damaged our intestinal health. In fact, the same organisms in soil that allow plants and animals to flourish are the ones we need for gut health. When our digestive system is out of whack, serious health problems can manifest and our intestinal walls can develop microscopic holes, allowing undigested food particles, bacteria, and toxins to seep into the bloodstream. This condition is known as leaky gut syndrome and manifests differently in every individual. In Eat Dirt, Dr Axe identifies the five main types of leaky gut syndrome and offers customizable 30-day plans for diagnosing and treating each 'gut type' with diet, lifestyle, and supplementation. He explains that it's essential to get a little 'dirty' in our daily lives in order to support our gut bacteria and prevent leaky gut syndrome, and offers simple ways to get these needed microbes, from incorporating local honey and bee pollen into your diet to forgoing hand sanitizers and even ingesting a little probiotic-rich soil. The premise is simple: identify your gut type, learn which foods to eat and to avoid, incorporate your daily dose of 'dirt', and make simple lifestyle changes.