As we navigate our unique path through life, we show the weather of our journey through our body, as well as our mind. Stories teach, sometimes, better than science.
In the last few decades, issues about health, subjects like changing the wrong lifestyles of people around the world are being constantly debated.
New ways to combat serious health issues are being propagated through books, podcasts, YouTube videos, Instagram reels and
other social media forums.
Maia Sutherland’s Metabolic Mayhem is one such effort.
Maia writes in a conversational tone. It is not a rule book of do’s and don’ts. Maia ‘invites you into her life across countries, kitchens, crises and breakthroughs showing how metabolic flexibility isn’t about perfection, punishment or fear.
It is about curiosity, it’s about listening,’—as an endorsement in the blurb puts it.
The first part of the book reads like a travelogue and is enjoyable. Maia deals with her travels in India, Thailand, Switzerland and Italy. She, along with her mother, has been visiting India every year for the past 25 years and has forged a close bond with people in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh as well as some families in Delhi. Maia writes with empathy about the people, food and cultural ethos of the countries she has been visiting.
Maia gets down earnestly to educate the reader about Ketones, Ketosis, a Keto diet, etc. in detail in the second part of the book. The author and her mother are passionate about the Keto diet and have been following it for years now. The author’s claim that this diet is a panacea for all ills is however hard to accept. Fasting is an important component of the diet under consideration. The author can’t stop waxing eloquent about fasting which she, her mother and her brother have done successfully and for a long time. Maia highlights that in many cultures worldwide, fasting is a given during some periods in a year like the Ramadan fast in the Muslim world, Lent among Christians and the monthly Ekadashi fast practiced by many in India.
Maia Sutherland is a qualified Acupuncturist and has done extensive research on the factors that are responsible for derailing our health and how to set it back on track by just altering our patterns of eating. She argues that a little tweaking in lifestyle can ensure good metabolic health. She has discussed at length about hormones and their effect on our bodies, especially on women.
If the book had dealt only with what is essential for regaining our metabolic health, it would have been great. The author, in her enthusiasm to open the eyes of the people to the various ills besetting the world, has chosen to write about medical practitioners’ ignorance regarding the basic relationship between the right diet and a patient’s health, the mindless prescriptions doled out by doctors, the short time spent on consultations with patients and a myriad other complaints. The author also laments the hold of the Pharma companies on the medical profession and the consequences on the public. From marketing of harmful packaged food to media advertising, to entice young, impressionable minds, have all been discussed at length. In order to hold the reader’s interest, the contents needed to have been pruned drastically.
Having said that, it must be mentioned that the author has not talked down but talked to them on the importance of good health. At every step she says ‘one size fits all’ is not correct and that each individual has to evaluate what is most suitable for him/her.
Jaya Krishnamachari is a freelance writer and multilingual translator.