The Healthy Bones Plant-Based Nutrition Plan and Cookbook

A unique nutritional guide and cookbook—with over 100 delicious recipes—that can help both women and men of any age maintain optimal bone density and prevent osteoporosis.

Can you have healthy bones while following a diet of more, mostly, or entirely plants? Is lower bone density an inescapable price even young people must pay for choosing plant foods?

Dr. Laura Kelly, a specialist in precision medicine for bone health, hears these questions from patients and colleagues who cite studies showing that as a group, vegetarians and vegans can have lower bone density than do people who eat animal food. In The Healthy Bones Plant-Based Nutrition Plan and Cookbook, Dr. Kelly puts these questions to rest, offering readers the same expert guidance she provides to her patients who are on a plant-forward or vegetarian diet, ensuring they have a plan to meet their nutritional needs for healthy bones or working toward reversal of bone loss. She explains why people on plant-forward, vegetarian, or vegan diets sometimes struggle with low bone density; identifies the environmental factors that can influence bone health; and explains how to minimize the risks while setting out the steps anyone can take to restore, improve, and maintain bone density.

As the authors of The Healthy Bones Nutrition Plan and Cookbook, Laura and Helen Kelly specialize in explaining science to nonscientists, and this book is a must-have for anyone who is giving plant foods a bigger share—or a full share—of their daily diet. The authors guide readers to learn about the wide variety of plant foods and how to select, prepare, and cook with them, as well as best food combinations in order to achieve optimum bone health.

The Healthy Bones Plant-Based Nutrition Plan and Cookbook breaks new ground by including:

• Complete information on the abundant nutrition that plant foods offer and an explanation of how plant foods alone can help to strengthen the skeleton.
• An explanation of exciting research discoveries regarding gene expression and the use of genetic testing to help those struggling with bone loss. The new sciences of nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics allow practitioners to understand how a patient’s genetic profile contributes to bone density and how detailed nutrient and food prescriptions can either prevent or treat osteoporosis in an elegant and efficient way.
• The reasons why bone strength and density decline with age, and the type of nutrient interventions that can help restore turnover balance.
• How to meet and overcome the challenges to nutrient bioavailability posed by choosing a fully plant-based life.
• A discussion of the A to Z of bioavailability of nutrients most important for bone health, from calcium to Vitamin K2, and how to release the nutrients in plant foods from the antinutrients that can lock them in undigestible forms.
• Over 100 recipes created by gifted vegetarian chef Jummee Park that feature delicious and diverse combinations of vegetables, fruits, grains, mushrooms, nuts, beans, seeds, edible flowers, and spices.
• Tips on establishing a pantry and several example meal plans.
• How to use an online nutrition calculator to craft your own delicious plant combinations that supply needed amounts of complete protein, iron, and vitamins A and B12 for whole nutrition.

The Healthy Bones Plant-Based Nutrition Plan and Cookbook is a unique nutritional guide and cookbook that can help both women and men of any age maintain optimal bone density and prevent osteoporosis on a plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan diet. The book’s full presentation of the science of bone health, along with a generous helping of recipes, follows the example of the Kellys’ first book to inspire confidence in and enthusiasm for making the changes required to embrace food as medicine for bones.