Diet Health Books

Much better than it gets reviewed here. Focuses exclusively on Hypoglycemia.
bought it at a bookstore. Great book.

Excellent guide for people who suffers the hypoglycemia condition. Covers everything you should know to live a full live.

This was a high quality product that arrived just as promised. Great shape for used and very prompt. Highly recommended seller!

I ended up selling the book; the information was duplicate of what I already had.

If any of you were the same as me you learned out that you had hypo and the doctor said it's a lot like diabetes so go get a diabetes book and follow the diet. I think the medical field is ill informed about hypo and could take a good lesson from this book. Hypo is a complicated disorder and until you know a lot about it it is hard to control. Hypo for Dummies gives you that knowledge you need. Keep in mind that the writers are practicing eastern medicine physicians, so some things they offer a regular physician of western medicine might not.

This book is a great place to start with though and it gives you the information you need to get started and to possibly follow up with a doctor knowledgable in hypo. I definately recommend the book!

I can absolutely not say enough good things about this book! My 3 yr old daughter is allergic to eggs, milk, potatoes, bananas, and peanuts. I can't use the typical "egg substitute" that you buy at the store because it contains potato starch. And other egg substitutes often don't work with baked goods. However, this book uses regular ingredients that you can buy at most grocery stores.(I substitute soy-based products where dairy is present, i.e. milk, butter, yogurt.) But the kicker is--they taste pretty much the same as regular. In fact, for a couple of these recipes (the chocolate chip & the sugar cookies), my husband increduously asked me if these were safe for our daughter! :) I have made chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, white cake, ginger cookies, and pumpkin bars. Every one of them tasted SO MUCH better than everything else I've tried. I've never had an allergy cookbook that I could find more than one or two recipes that worked right and tasted good (and that was after trying dozens). So far in this cookbook, I'm 5 for 5! If you have a egg-allergic child, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book.

My grandson is very allergic to eggs and after looking at a lot of books about allergies we found this one. My daughter and I love this book and use it all the time. My grandson's sweet tooth is complete thanks to this book.

My sister-in-law, who was recently diagnosed with an egg allergy, found this book very helpful!

My 3 year old son is allergic to eggs as well as peanuts and tree nuts. Although I have found some recipes I like, and most importantly he likes, I struggled to find cake recipes that tasted great, were moist, and didn't sink. My cake frustration ended when I tried some recipes from this cookbook. I made the Silver White Cake with buttercream icing for his recent 3rd birthday party and everyone loved it. It looked great and tasted great. Also, many of the recipes in this book give you the option for adding or not including nuts. I've made a few of the cookie recipes and they've all turned out well too.

This Book is Fantastic! We use the recipes in this book all of the time and it has been so helpful for my son who is egg allergic. I get asked all of the time; 'do you have that recipe?' and every Christmas I am asked to bring the chocolate cake because the whole family loves it! Thank you so much for writing this book! It has been a lifesaver!

Great book! It gives a lot of information about what foods are making us sick and what foods to eat to be healthy.

I had heard two different radio interviews with the author and have kept an eye open for this book ever since. I'm surprised a 2nd Edition has not been released. Some of the opinions may seem radical but with so many physical and mental health problems that have no popular answers, it's good to look at some of the alternative views, and this book has them! From an increase rise in fatal food allegies like peanuts, latex, etc. to the rise in violence and poor decision making, all changes in the world must be looked at and why not start with our diet?
I would like to know what the auther has learned since the book's publication and how has the scientific community reacted to this book but other than that, I give this four stars as a must read.

You know, this book isn't at all what I was expecting...I rather got the idea in my head that this was another book like Fast Food Nation, and to some extent it was. This book was really about feeding yourself (as a potential parent) and your children the best foods and discussing the damage done by improper eating on unborn children and then on what we feed our infants and children as they grow up. This book succeeded where none has before in making me feel like the worse parent ever for not breastfeeding any of my children and for feeding them both formula and baby foods (I did make some of my own of those, but I also liberally used jars of Gerber)...I also have fed my kids lunchables, Kraft Mac & Cheese, and all the other myriad of foods that this book says are liable to impair my children's brain development. According to Simontacchi, I have, without even really trying, set my kids up for emotional problems as kids and teens and for other larger problems as they grow into adulthood...and none of them can be corrected at this point. This book was a real eye opener in that regard, I see where it is coming from, but at the same time, this book puts a foul taste in my mouth because it smacks of that same "woman as a potential womb" at all times until she is no longer able to conceive children, and that combined with the four or five chapter long constant trouncing of my choices for food for my children...I came out of the feeling like the scum of the earth as a parent.

There was a lot of good info in the book, so I am glad that I read it and I would recommend it, especially to those women (and men) who are actively trying to have children. The advice, I feel, is solid...I just don't enjoy feeling like I've done nothing but mess up royally and there is very little I can do to "fix it." It was a little depressing, especially given that some of the NEVER eat foods are foods my mom grew up feeding me. There were no lunchables when I was a kid, but my mom loathed cooking and I grew up on boxed food like Hamburger Helper, Mac & Cheese, and any other box type meal that needed minimal things added to make a meal. I can see some of my own "problems" in the book and see that diet as a child, teen and early adult contributed to it. At this point, all I can do is take the message to heart and work to make the rest of my kids childhood more nutritional.

A review of The Crazy Makers, How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children, by Carol Simontacchi

By Gregory Ziegler
Professor of Food Science
Penn State University

Rational thought is not what you will find in The Crazy Makers, How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children, by Carol Simontacchi. Instead, what you will read is a quasi-scientific, religious polemic against "food manufacturing." The book's thesis statement is that "diet is the one major change in our culture over the past century that has altered the physical state of our brains and, therefore, altered the state of our minds."

The religious nature of the book is evident from the very beginning, where in the Acknowledgements Ms. Simontacchi thanks most of all her "Heavenly Father, who designed the most wonderful food, perfectly suited to nourishing our brains and our spirits. We have turned aside from Your providence and tried to manufacture our own. How foolish of us."

I must come clean. I am the Director of Penn State's Center for Food Manufacturing, and some would consider me a shill for the "food industry." However, my critique of this book should not be construed as a defense of food manufacturers, but as a guide to those who would like to separate rational thought from opinion.

Though a "board-certified clinical nutritionist," Simontacchi apparently does not know that neither cholesterol nor phosphatidylserine are fatty acids, that glutathione is not an amino acid, or that phytic acid is not a protein. Glutamic acid is a non-essential amino acid building block of proteins. Non-essential means that while we need glutamic acid to build proteins, our body can make its own and, therefore, it is not required in the diet. Mono sodium glutamate is the sodium salt of this amino acid. Simontacchi refers to MSG as an excitotoxin, and writes that "glutamate, is embedded in other ingredients commonly added to baby food," but fails to inform the reader that these other ingredients are proteins or that glutamic acid is by far the most common amino acid in human milk casein.

Is glutamate natural asks Simontacchi. As natural as mother's milk. Might it be harmful in excess? Yes it might. But the idea that something natural may also be toxic goes against Simontacchi's basic assumption of "natural goodness." In the lead-in to chapter 6 Simontacchi quotes Isaiah 55:2, "Why do you spend money for what is not bread." Yet the gluten proteins of bread are about 35% glutamic acid (in the form of glutamine), and says Simontacchi, "[G]rain allergies are one of the most common sources of depression." (More on bread later.)

Glutamic acid is heralded as "brain food" in the chapter "Feeding the Autistic Brain."

While appearing scientific in approach, Simontacchi shows obvious distain for proper scientific methods. She states emphatically that the "influence of a high-sugar diet on brain chemistry is enormous," despite the fact that contradictory "meta-analyses" of the research on the issue were published in both the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of the American Medical Association. She refers to these meta-analyses simply as "a review article," and then presumes to "balance" the argument by quoting an article from the South African Medical Journal. The title of the article she uses to assert the effect of sugar on behavior - "Is butter bad for you?" But then she has already warned us not to believe the experts, and "that virtually everything written about nutrition in the mainstream press is wrong." Does sugar affect the brain? Forget science, "just ask Miss Redman or any schoolteacher. Ask mom."

The section "The Current State of Our Minds" appears to be a litany of Ms. Simontacchi's greatest fears and anxieties. Much of what is written is unsupported by data. She quotes Harvard Medical School professor Ronald Kessler as saying, "The trends are sufficiently impressive to fuel speculation that upward trends in mental illness might exist," [emphases mine] and then follows that with the statement "[W]ithin our current mental health epidemic." How did a speculation of what might be end up an epidemic?

Even when the data contradict her assertions - "[R]ates of violence seem to be easing off" - Simontacchi persists in spinning it to meet her expectations - "But the U.S. surgeon general is not letting his guard down." "Even more bleakly," violent tendencies have not lessened over the past fifteen years (nor have they apparently increased), and arrests for aggravated assault "declined only slightly." Definitely a glass-is-half-empty perspective. "Skyrocketing," "growing trend," "taking on major proportions" and "growing numbers" are all phrases used to hype the problems without substantiating data. Simontacchi cites little primary scientific literature, relying instead on secondary references, many of which are not credible.

Simontacchi's lack of scientific integrity is demonstrated when she cites the "Pottenger" study as evidence of the harmful effects of milk pasteurization. Dr. Pottenger's cats became ill due to a lack of the amino acid taurine, which resulted from too little meat in their diets. Simontacchi fails to tell the reader that cats fed on raw milk only fared worse than those on a combination of meat and pasteurized milk. Pasteurization is a mild heat treatment intended to destroy the living cells of potential human pathogens. Along with improvements in hygiene, milk pasteurization probably did as much as anything to improve human health in the 20th Century.

While condemning pasteurized milk as a "highly processed dairy food," Simontacchi seems to encourage the consumption of tofu, despite the fact that many more steps are required to manufacture tofu from soybeans. These steps include heating to temperatures well in excess of those required for milk pasteurization. Furthermore, tofu contains the same phytoestrogens that Simontacchi says make soy-based infant formula even worse than milk-based products. And the magnesium in tofu? Magnesium chloride, technically a food additive.

This begs the questions, what is "processed" food, and why are "manufactured" foods "chilling." Does cooking a meal at home in a manner similar to pasteurization result in a "highly processed" food? Manufacturing simply means to be made from raw materials by hand or by machine, so a home baker is by definition a manufacturer. The Eucharist is a manufactured food, bread does not exist in Nature, and so is the "protein breakfast drink" (likely loaded with glutamic acid) that Simontacchi suggests for the adolescent breakfast.

Like similar polemics on the topic, the book is replete with nostalgia for a bygone era when we all just picked food fresh from our backyard Eden and is heavily laden with inflammatory language, but adds an evangelistic tone. "The epidemic of autism is just one facet of a nation that has lost its moral way." Simontacchi dismisses reports by the Centers for Disease Control and the Institutes of Medicine finding no link between mercury in vaccines and autism*, insisting that it's a matter of "common sense."

So what's the harm in Ms. Simontacchi dismissing the best science and expressing her opinion? It diverts our attention from investigating other more likely causes of our problems. For example, while Simontacchi does mention in passing that physicians often recommend a strict gluten-free and casein-free diet for autistic children, she never discusses the potential relationship between autism and Celiac's disease. Could it be that she can't imagine such a thing could be caused by whole grains, one of God's most wonderful foods?

Nutritionists like Simontacchi once told us to substitute margarine for Mother Nature's butter, a recommendation we have now come to regret. Now they are telling us to eat lots of whole grain. "Whom are we to believe?"


* Since 2001, with the exception of some influenza (flu) vaccines, mercury-containing thimerosal is not used as a preservative in routinely recommended childhood vaccines.

The premise of this book is that the standard Western diet, full of processed food and lacking in nutrition, has a negative effect on mental health. I found it an interesting hypothesis and was looking forward to learning about the evidence that would support it. Unfortunately, I found the book so terrible that I gave up reading it after the introduction and the first chapter.

The book was not as well-referenced as I would have liked. There were many statistics (mostly quite negative, to prove the point that Americans are screwed up and their lives suck), but not all were clearly referenced. Some were misleading, such as a statistic from 1981 that was discussed as if it represented the current situation, although the book was copyright 2000. Other statistics seemed like they could be misleading also; I would have to check the original sources before trusting them.

There were a few religious references, nothing that I found objectionable, but I am cautious when people start talking about religion because some religious people are not very strong in their science.

The author mentioned that in her clients' food diaries, "It was not uncommon to see a seven-day food diary containing twenty-one meals with almost no vegetables, no fruit, no protein, and no water." The "no protein" comment puzzles me, as it's my understanding that most Americans get way more protein than they need.

While flipping to look at the endnotes, I saw a "healthy" recipe in the back for cream puffs that included butter, eggs, and general-purpose flour. Those don't register as particularly healthy ingredients to me.

In the endnotes, I saw a reference to a telephone conversation with Sally Fallon, the president and treasurer of the Weston A. Price Foundation. This organization discourages processed foods and believes that animal fat is necessary for good health. I agree with them in giving the thumbs-down to processed foods, but the evidence I've seen has convinced me that animal-based foods are not only unnecessary but harmful to human health. Thus, seeing a reference to Sally Fallon makes me a little suspicious about the author's conclusions.

The "About the Author" information said that Carol Simontacchi was "currently pursing her Ph.D. in Brain Nutrition from the Union Institute." I looked up the Union Institute (I'd never heard of it before). Currently, Interdisciplinary Studies is the only Ph.D. they offer, with a concentration in Ethical and Creative Leadership, Public Policy and Social Issues, or Humanities and Society. None of those are even in science, no less something as specialized as Brain Nutrition. A quick internet search turned up a bio of Carol Simontacchi related to her appearance as a guest on a radio show on December 29, 2007. It says she earned a Master of Science from Columbia Pacific University (another school I've never heard of) and doesn't mention anything about a Ph.D.

There might well be some good information in this book, but I had so many concerns about the credibility of the author and the evidence presented that I was not comfortable accepting the information. I decided it wasn't worth my time to read the rest of the book.

I love giving this book to my "soon-to-be-retired" friends. It is a fun, informative, balanced look at the issues people face when they retire. I get tons of thanks everytime I give it to a friend.

What I love about the book is that it does not take the topic so seriously that it scares the reader, and yet, is not too casual about serious issues that the reader will be facing.

A great balance!

I gave this book to my dad and he LOVED it. It was a fun read that reminded him that he is not alone in dealing with retirement. He liked the sense of community that came with reading the book. I recommend it as a great gift for a newly retired person.

It was a birthday gift for a friend who is retiring. She loved the book!

This is a fun book to read...would have been a little more interesting read with information placed amongst the testimonies but I enjoyed the book.

A friend of mine is now at retirement age, but she is hesitant to retire because she doesn't know what she wants to do with herself when she stops working. To give her some ideas, I bought this book despite the criticism by a number of the other reviewers. My logic was that reading short blurbs about what others were doing with their retirement might give my friend some ideas.

My friend read through some of this book and then never picked it up again. She found it boring and lacking in the insight that I had hoped it would deliver. However, my friend really liked How to Retire Happy: The 12 Most Important Decisions You Must Make Before You Retire by Stan Hinden. No, the Hinden book didn't give her any new ideas about what to do with herself, but it did help her to plan for the day that she does retire. If you are choosing between the books, based on my experience, I would recommend the Hinden book.

Glenn Gaesser, Big Fat Lies (Gurze, 2002)

Do yourself a favor-- find this book and read it as soon as possible.

The first two sections of this book show a study in selective reasoning by the medical establishment. Gaesser provides a mountain of evidence that all we've been told by the insurance industry, the medical industry, and the fitness over the last half-century or so regarding weight loss is a lie. We hear some of it now and again on the news, especially how low weight is linked to osteoporosis, but you've never seen this much of it together all in one place. Gaesser's position is that exercise, not weight, is primarily responsible for a person's health, and that "exercise" as we know it today (high-impact aerobic exercise) is not the be-all and end-all foisted upon us. All of which points out why overweight and obese people should be reading it (and popularizing it), and they are its target audience to be sure, but Gaesser makes a lot of noise about the normal- or underweight unfit, too.

The first two parts of the book are the theory, the third part is the practice. Gaesser provides a simple, easy-to-follow exercise regimen suggestion, infinitely customizable for the average person, and dietary suggestions without ever proposing a diet per se; his goal is to steer us towards eating healthier rather than rationing out what we can and can't eat. Again, the thin will benefit from following his guidelines just as much as the overweight. It's all common sense, of course, but he does point out a number of things that may surprise the average grocery shopper (for example, the actual amount of fat to be found in whole milk, which is staggering).

The book's only real flaw is stylistic; Gaesser, not to much surprise, has adopted the medical-jargon use of "overweight" and "underweight" as nouns rather than adjectives, and it's enough to drive the average stickler up the wall. It is certainly not, however, enough to put anyone off reading this. It may be the most important book you read all year, and should go on the short shelf of sacred books next to Peele's The Diseasing of America. **** ½

Read this book before you try one more plan to get thin. It helps you see that, for most people, losing weight is an aesthetic decision, not a health one. You can look at yourself more kindly, realizing that you are not ruining your health, unless you actually do have a weight related condition. You can look at other big folks more kindly- be honest; you know you judge others!- realizing you have no more idea of whether they are unhealthy than their thin counterparts-as if it was any of your business! But, really, the facts helped to loosen the hold this topic had for me. There are other books that go farther with appearance acceptance, but this one is a great start to feel confident it's really okay to go there!

I learned the truth about both Weight Tables and Diets, as well as the importance of Nutrition and Exercise. In this book, Dr Glaesser explains the historical context of the American Weight Tables and their formation by Met Life Insurance Company. His extensive research has shown that people with higher weights can be fit and sometimes even fitter than the ones that actually fit into the prescribed weight tables. For me this is a startling finding. I am relieved to learn that Glaesser recommends allowing our bodies to equilibrate around our natural set point rather than yo-yo dieting to try to attain a weight that we have been taught is optimal. In depth discussions of good vs bad types of body fat are also informative and further make Big Fat Lies a good and instructive read.

I'd love to have a case of this book so that I could gift one to every health care professional who has made snap decisions on their patients based on visible fat. Well, I guess I'd need more than a case of them, wouldn't I... because that tendency is far too prevalent.

I am a healthcare worker, and have long had a love/hate relationship with my fat body. Yes, I do think obesity exacerbates preexisting illnesses; but I don't believe fat causes illness in and of itself. Looking at comparative studies of people who are of moderate weight and even thin who have the same dietary and exercise patterns would be a more useful guage than immediately assuming that weight loss will magically make health problems disappear. Many times, it doesn't.

Recently the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that claimed that weight loss could extend your life by a (staggering) five to nine months. Wow. Whoopee.

What if being overweight could be healthy? Apparently, it's not the pipe dream the majority of the world and researchers would like us to think. In Big Fat Lies, Glenn Gaesser unlocks the myths about obesity specifically the biggest of them all "obesity kills". Glenn is a graduate of the University of California and taught at UCLA and the University of Virginia so he isn't just blowing smoke up our fat butts.

He feels the obsession of a person's weight needs to be dropped mostly because weight loss is no guarantee for improved health. With his book he hopes to reshape your thinking on the various aspects of body weight and health, I think he will. Obviously, some facts are unquestionable if you eat only bad food and don't exercise you're in trouble. But overweight people can be strong and healthy; sometimes stronger and healthier than their slim counterparts.

With simple truths and simple facts Glenn explains how our expectations of body weight have been directed by insurance companies, the diet industry (30 billion plus industry), the fashion industry and of course media appeal. He thinks we should be focusing on metabolic fitness instead of weight. He discusses in great detail his views on metabolic fitness.

Glenn succeeds in taking the focus off weight. Instead he sheds light on the importance of physical activity over "exercise". The purpose of the physical activity is not to lose weight but to be healthy by moving. Lo-Carb-ers will not be impressed with the Nutrition for Metabolic Fitness section but I like how he encourages adding instead of taking away. According to him "No foods are strictly off limits."

A lot of what's discussed are the studies ignored over the last 20+ years showing body fat is not the problem. "Fat in the arteries and fat on the body are different and not necessarily related." Study after study becomes a bit tedious after a while but it is still good to know there's more to the studies than "obesity kills." For sure this book won't appease the die hard skeptic but for those of us who are obese, eat our fruits, veggies and continue a daily bout of physical activity, at least we know for sure it isn't all in our head. We're healthy.

I'm sure when you are finished reading Big Fat Lies you'll have a different view on the role of fat in your life. Pun intended. Reviewed by M. E. Wood

Although this is a fairly short book, it is very informative and it is easy to read. Most of the information in the book, I already knew about (I've done a lot of research on the band) but, If you haven't done much research yet, this is the book to read. Or if you have family members/friends that want to know more about the band, this would be a good choice for them to read. I have had the pleasure of meeting Jessie, and she knows what she is talking about! She is no nonsense and just wants to make sure everyone succeeds and that the band is the right choice for them. This is a wonderful book, and again its not complicated and anyone would be able to understand it. If you are even considering getting the Lap Band, I would read this book.

This is a very good book and people who are thinking of doing the lapband should review it. Also people who are not doing lapband should also read it as it gives a lot of information about what to expect etc. This is a very good informational tool

If you are thinking about or have recently had the lap-band surgery it is very informtive. I still pick it up and read it as a reference guide and I'm 6 weeks post-op. It has helped me alot.

I had lap-band at Northwest Weight Loss Surgery Center where Jessi Ahroni works. She is a no-nonsense person that tells it like it is. This book is a must read for ANYONE that is deciding if Lap-Band is for them, those who have made the decision AND for their family and friends. I am one of the lucky ones that has been able to work with Jesse as well as read her book. This gives the up front approach and gives you so much information that you want and need to know. I have had HUGE success with my lap band. I was banded 5/22/07 and am down over 100 lbs at my 6 month mark. It's do-able, it's a great decision for me and this book can help you decide if it's right for you. Leigh Bergman

I didn't gain any new information or tips on dealing with the lap band. This same information I have received from my doctor and off the internet. I think it would be good for someone who didn't know anything about the procedure.

Easy to read and really full of useful information done in a wonderful and passionate style.
It gave me a solid grounding in the how and why of aroma. Plus it is great fun to read!

This book is a very authoritative treatment of the subject, but that's not what makes it great. Aftel's passion for her subject, conveyed in lyrical, sensuous writing, is incredibly contagious.

Essence & Alchemy was a really wonderful adventure in reading. From the history of perfume to the process, old and new, involved in extracting essences, to the follow-along steps to creating your own perfume, I found this book to be entertaining and informative from the first page to the last. The comparison between perfumery and alchemy was insightful. The illustrations were charming and fun. I learned a lot and was engaged the whole way through! Highly recommended to any fan of unusual nonfiction subjects.

I bought this book for information on how to make natural perfume, and was not disappointed, but what makes it so compelling is the elegance of the writing. Very evocative, really steeps you in the world of fragrance.

This book is the best concise description of how to make perfumes an and colognes. Mandy Aftel loves her subject and is a real expert, and it shows.

If you are interested in making colognes, perfumes, soaps or lotions, buy this book. Or if you are just interested in perfumes and the different essential oils, also buy it.

Highly recommended!

I thought I knew how to handle high cholesterol, but this book taught me stuff I didn't know I didn't know. Besides a good treatment on self-help options, it has a nice overview of different cholesterol-lowering drugs that gives me the language to be able to discuss these issues intelligently with my doctor. She writes in a friendly, accessible style but still goes into fairly good detail about specific items that are easy to skip if they don't pertain. (For example, I thought her advice on how to handle a cigarette addiction was great, but I don't smoke.)

In my last physical exam, my blood tests showed that I have high cholesterol for the first time in my life. I wanted to learn about high cholesterol before my appointment with my doctor to discuss treatment. I read several books on the subject and found this one to be the best! Dr McGowan explained what cholesterol is in terms I could actually understand. Besides that, she covers all areas that affect your cholesterol level with suggestions on how to lower the bad cholesterol and raise the good cholesterol. Specific topics covered include: Diet, Supplements, Exercise, Quit Smoking, and Medications. After reading and studying this book, I feel ready to discuss my options intelligently with my doctor. I wish there were more practical and down-to-earth books on this subject....like this one. Most books about cholesterol read like they are written for doctors and scientists instead of the common people like me.

Mary McGowan,M.D., well known and highly respected expert on the treatment of lipids, previously wrote an extremely helpful book titled: "Heartfitness for Life".(Read the customer reviews for that book!). Among the many areas she covers are treatment for homocysteine, for which many physicians don't bother to test, and for LPa,which is "badder" than the "bad" cholesterol,LDL. Too many physicians have no idea what LPa is, and some actually argue against testing for it, as they have no idea how to treat it. In this her latest book, she adds additional information on lowering LPa. The book is full of new, clearly explained practical information. I can't recommend it too highly, for anyone, beginner or long time learner having concerns about their lipid status. It should be required reading for cardiologists, internists, and family physicians, who could use this book as a resource for their patients, and in many cases for themselves.

A wonderfully down to Earth and sensible book. Lots of tips for everyday things you can easily do. Very helpful and useful! I highly recommned this book to everyone.

Food is such an integral dynamic of our lives that we should all at least consider its impact on our bodies. In a modern age of fast food, uninhibited consumption and the cosmetic manipulation of basic commodities we truly need to reflect and refresh our blitzed minds with regard to what is truly good and that which is actually causing us considerable harm.

Ann Marie Colbin does this with methodical and systematic gusto. From the basics of living systems, the inherent energy fields and forces in foods, balance, quality and quantity, and to modern diets, wholeness, food preparation, diets, and food as medicine. Importantly, she concludes that we can employ our natural wisdom of foods to bring a valuable balance between our mind, body and spirit.

Food and healing is a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between good health and the quality of our consumption. This book is one amongst many in a new wave of scientific and natural dietetics that correctly identifies the source of many modern illnesses with the food that we eat. Colbin is objective and knowledgeable in her approach and advice, and I cannot recommend this book enough. Much of the information she offers is of a practical nature, and her seven criteria for food selection is a good example to follow; buy food that is 1)whole, 2)fresh, natural, real, organic, 3)seasonal, harmonic, 4)locally grown, 5)traditional, native, 6)balanced, nutritious, 7)delicious.

Bon appetit!

This book is incredible. I liked it so much I bought a copy for my mom and a friend. So much information, yet still easy to comprehend. Understanding why we crave certain things, learning to listen to your body, and learning how to eat in a way that is enjoyable AND health supportive. Great book, I highly recomend it.

When I first borrowed this book from my acupuncturist/naturopath, I didn't think I'd ever actually get through it. But what I found was that I ended up reading it like a novel -- fascinated to learn about foods the way she presented it.

For example -- it really helped me to undertand the effects of sugar in a new way. Sugar in small amounts creates individuation and sugar in large amounts creates alientation. Also, Americans eat about 20 times more sugar than we did 100 years ago, and the average juvenile delinquent does 40 times more. And when the juvenile delinquents had sugar removed from their diet and replaced with fruits and vegges, they violence reduced and they began falling into the range of normal.

I used to keep it in my cube at work, and refer to it to offer suggestions to handling ailments. One time a guy at work cancelled an appointment because of a migraine. So when he made it in a few days later, we went through the book to see the cause an found some foods he had eaten a day or so before the migraine. He came to me 9 months later and said he had not had a migraine since.

This book provides a great model for understanding how diet can be used to help balance us from a physical, mental and emotional perspective.

Thanks Dr. Colbin!

I just borrowed this book from a friend, and Colbin covers everything--there were several pages I xeroxed before returning it. It doesn't propose any specific philosophy, rather it evaluates the effects of different foods on the body. She incorporates Chinese and ayurvedic philosophy also and details macrobiotics. I am vegan, and I especially recommend it for vegetarians since it explains how to balance your diet, making sure you get enough calcium and the essential B12. Colbin emphasizes all-natural foods and listening to your body. I'm gonna buy a copy when I get back to the states. Enjoy!

This remains one of my favorite books on eating for health. Annemarie offers sensible, and do-able guidelines, not rules, and a lot of information to mull over.
I go back to this book over, and over again.
I also recommend her cookbooks. Healthy, delicious, easy to make dishes, with
simple ingredients.

After years of struggling with overeating and overweight, and thousands of dollars in therapy to try to understand the struggle, this book simply and clearly helped me understand the source of my "problem". Eating is a defense, a comfort and a way to escape from the present moment. Why is the present moment such that we need to escape from it? Because of the constant berating of our egos and the stream of negative self-talk we torment ourselves with in every moment of our lives. How do we stop it? Replace it with positivity and love. Invite the spirit into this process, and you will find a whole new world for yourself. I did actually lose weight with the help of this book, but more than that I for the first time understood that it was not lack of will-power that kept me stuck in my pudge, it was my belief that I was undeserving of love. This book is on the older side, relatively speaking, but still powerful today. My only real disagreement with this book is the author's adherence to the idea of the "birth trauma". I personally don't buy into this theory, but for the author, it was apparently necessary in her realization of the ideas that make her book ring so very true to me.

I have been suffering from compulsive yo-yo dieting for sixteen years. I was at the bookstore looking in the self-help section for anything that could stop the insanity in my head and my compulsion with bingeing and dieting. The title of this book caught my attention. The information inside is invaluable. After reading a few pages I tried to find the publishing date. 1982!!! I had a feeling it wasn't written currently because it is so completely honest and straight from the heart. No worries about being "P.C." here. The majority of the book is affirmations and ways to change your way of looking at food.

I wish I could tell everyone about this book. If you are in any way obsessed with food, please give this book a try and then drop by your local Overeaters Anonymous meeting. The two together have changed my life.

This book is not just shallow, it is the usual rehash:

On page 33 it says:

1. Thought is creative and thoughts produce results.

[Thought is creative? What the h? Why in the world does that matter? Why bring that up? Why not say, "Thoughts are made in your head". Who cares? And "thoughts produce results" duh! Why state the utter obvious?]

2. It is not what you eat that can hurt you. It is what you BELIEVE about what you eat that can hurt you.

[Wrong, if you eat poison you will be hurt by it unless you have built up a tolerance for it, and that only works with certain poisons. Try eating a titanium chair and see if your teeth survive. I doubt believing the chair will fit in your mouth and be nutritious will really cause that to happen. But try it if you want. Or how about eat Oreo cookies and imagine it tastes like lemons? How about pretending hydrogenated fat won't clog your arteries if you keep eating it everyday in large amounts?]

3. Therefore food is not "fattening" by itself. [Bull, see above and take my tests then.] The thoughts you have about foods are what make it fattening. No, a food contains fat if there is fat in it, not because of what you believe is in it, and it's going to make you fat if the content contains to little fat or the wrong proportions of fat etc. Our minds do not change reality, it can only act in it.]

a. A study done on people weighing precisely their desired weight showed that all of them could eat anything they wanted to without any concern or worry.

[And what study was this? The one you invented with your creative thoughts? The author makes no reference to this study, I wonder why. And why even bother, if what you believe is automatically true, why bother with references to studies? Show me any study where a group of people can eat aluminum powder, ricin, acid, gobs of salt and the hottest pepper in the world, and sewage, and not get sick. Furthermore, NOT EVERYONE GETS FAT! Of course if you have a group of people who have a high metabolism who eats whatever they want will not get fat because they poop it out immediately. Furthermore, did the study account for exercise? Show us the evidence!]

b. They could do so because all of them had one thing in common. They all had the thought that they could eat whatever they wanted and whenever they wanted without gaining weight. "I never gain weight" is simple enough.

[You heard it! Just believe that you won't gain weight and you won't, of course! The solution to the problems of the world is our beliefs! Well then, believe money into your wallet, believe you are the smartest in the world, believe you've got the highest paying job, believe there is world peace. BULL!]

4. Actually, our true nourishment comes to us from the light of God, not from food.

[Okay, light eating time! Where can I get some edible light.]

5. Any physical technique, such as fasting or special diets, works because your mind believes it will work. [Check it out I'm believing I am thin and I magically just got thin right now, really, I'm not kidding, lol.]

8. You must diet from negative thoughts about your body and food and yourself. [Cool, all you ugly beer-bellied women out there trying to get hot rich husbands, imagine there is nothing wrong with your appearance and that they will marry you for your imaginary good looks, really, it'll work all the time.]

Thankfully, Sondra Ray's brilliant "The Only Diet There Is" does not contain a word of advice about food. There's enough of that to be had elsewhere. However, the affirmations in it provide a marvellous technique for self-discpline and stabilization. You can also apply these techniques to other situations.

The "diet" is basically one of love, based on forgiveness and of complete acceptance of youself. Only when you forgive yourself can you deal with the rest of your life and not be stuck in the past.

This is a book that I regularly dip into. It's fabulous stuff (although I don't buy into the Christian bit or the birth trauma - but you can just take the useful bits and bypass the bits you don't need.) I'm not a New Age person, but have found this to be a useful and flexible book. It will not replace dieting, but it will help you to clear your thoughts and trust your higher self to make the right choices.

Through its excercises of love and forgiveness, I have indeed never been as beautiful as I look today. People notice and have been asking for the secret. Yet, even when that was all in my mind when I first began reading it, soon weight lacked importance at the sight of the major goodness you can achieve by the perfect state of mind that the book implies, such as also gaining remarkable health, better and enhanced relationships with everyone, extending happiness all around you. You may also forsee the possibility of dealing with other issues, like smoking for instance. When I began Sondra's excercises to the reasons my inner self was hiding to prevent weight lose, I just couldn't believe the answers I found in myself.