When Dr. Akil Palanisamy faced a debilitating illness during medical school, he was prescribed bone broth. The Ayurvedic practitioner working with him at the time knew he was a vegetarian who had renounced meat a few years earlier. But she saw bone broth as necessary to nourish his depleted body and rebalance his energy. Torn and in desperation, he turned to the story of the Buddha, who had embraced the "Middle Way" -- living by neither indulgence nor deprivation -- after an extreme form of asceticism had left the Buddha weak and near death. Dr. Akil reached a similar turning point. He started with bone broth, and later experimented with meat again. A family medicine doctor, author, and educator at the forefront of the food-as-medicine movement for the past 20 years, Dr. Akil is referred to "a unique triple threat in the field," combining expertise in functional medicine, Ayurveda, and the Paleo diet and ancestral lifestyles.