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An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Text Copyright © Maria Borelius 2019
Maria Borelius asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN 978-0-00-832155-0
eBook ISBN: 978-0-00-832156-7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
FOR RITA AND ANNIE, PATHFINDERS. SISTERS.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
– T. S. Eliot
CONTENTS
THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT MY JOURNEY
5. SALMON AND LINGONBERRIES
6. GUT FEELING
7. BREATHE
8. GLOW
9. BLUE ZONE
10. AWE
11. BLISS
12. PEACE
13. ROOTS
14. ONE VAULT AFTER ANOTHER
15. THE JOURNEY TO AN ANTI-INFLAMMATORY LIFESTYLE
16. SOFT START
BREAKFAST RECIPES FOR AN ANTI-INFLAMMATORY SOFT START
Smart, Good-Looking Smoothies
Classic with a Twist
Rita’s Seed Bowl
17. THE THREE-DAY CURE
Breakfast Smoothie
18. MY NEW LIFE IN THE KITCHEN
BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER AND SNACKS
Jessica’s Pancakes
‘Bread’
African Curry
Veggie Box
ANTI-INFLAMMATORY SAUCES
Creative Pesto (or Gustaf’s Sauce)
Harissa
Sauce Xipister
Caper and Dill Sauce
Emily’s Tahini
DRINKS
Lisa’s Bulletproof Coffee
Healing Water
Greger’s Morning Tea
Blue Zone Tea
Emily’s Great-Skin Tea
Power Matcha
THIS IS WHAT I AVOID
THANK YOU FROM THE AUTHOR
REFERENCES
LIST OF SEARCHABLE TERMS
About the Publisher
THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT MY JOURNEY
At the age of fifty-two, I was experiencing menopause symptoms, back pain, fatigue and a general feeling of melancholy about my life. I felt that everything was beginning to go downhill.
But after just a few months with a new lifestyle, my life had changed. I was happier, stronger and pain-free – what had happened?
Through a series of remarkable coincidences, I realised that I had stumbled on something completely new – anti-inflammatory food – that could cure and prevent illness and even mysteriously put the brakes on ageing.
That’s how my journey of knowledge began, a journey during which, filled with wonder, I began to research this new landscape and discovered that it encompassed much more than diet. The contours of a whole new lifestyle emerged, and the clues came to me from many different people, each one amazing in his or her own way.
I encountered, among others, an innovative and inspiring fitness model in Canada; a professor in Lund, Sweden, working at the very forefront of research; an Indian health spa with a punishing enema treatment; a prehistoric hominid in Addis Ababa by the name of Lucy; one of London’s most visionary dermatologists; unusually long-lived members of a religious sect in the outskirts of Los Angeles; a Danish TV celebrity who turned out to be fifteen years older than I thought; a gut group in the English countryside; a top geneticist at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, with a weakness for riddles; a hip-swinging yoga instructor at a New Age meeting in California; and an ethereal detective searching for human wonder.
Each of them has played a role in this drama.
And so has my own experimentation. I have poked around among omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, gluten, lactose, meditation, bone broth, Ayurvedic nose diagnosis, HIIT training, yoga, sunsets, inflammation markers and spirituality apps. I have set out filled with curiosity but have often encountered failures and had to find a different path.
Step by step, I’ve felt my way forward as I worked to solve the puzzle of how low-degree systemic inflammation causes illness and what we can do to make ourselves stronger, happier and healthier.
All of this has resulted in a five-point programme to bring out the best version of all of us, a programme that combines everything I’ve learned with the conviction that a lifestyle has to work