Customer Reviews

The Complete Book of Food Counts- 5th Edition

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Corinne Netzer's COMPLETE BOOK OF FOOD COUNTS delivers even more than it promises, in a very handy 4" wide by 7" tall by 1-3/4" thick size that is easy to carry along to work, restaurants, and shopping.

This book has at least 10,000 name brands, restaurant foods, and basic foods in it and includes calories, carbohydrates, protein, sodium, cholesterol, fat and fiber for each food. Netzer has managed to pack it all into an easy-to-read and easy-to-use format. PHENOMENAL!

This one is definitely a keeper and the best I've found!

I bought three other references (one that was supposedly a fat counter, another an all-in-one refernce and the other a cholesteral guide) at the same time I bought Corinne T. Netzer's COMPLETE BOOK OF FOOD COUNTS. If I had gotten Netzer's book first, I could have saved a lot of money because I didn't need to buy the others. Not only is Netzer's book complete and more comprehensive than the others, it is less expensive than any of the others, too!

Since this is such a useful book, it would make a great gift for anyone on your list. They needn't be on a diet or be a "health nut" to be happy to have an up-to-date and useful reference!

Together with a calculator, this book is indispensable in monitoring one's intake of the major macronutrients, etc. I first heard of it at the website of Dr. C. Everett Koop after learning how many grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat and fiber I should have every day for my age, height, sex, frame size and activity level, and I am glad that I was able to find it on this website and buy it. Despite the fact that under Fat only the Total number of grams of fat for each food item is listed rather than this as well as the number of grams of saturated (bad--cholesterol-raising) and unsaturated fat which is information I need from time to time, it gets five stars because it is so comprehensive and well organized. Not only does it list many unprocessed foods, but also many packaged and processed foods as well as fast foods, and its size and format enable the reader to find out what he need to know quickly and easily (and just about anywhere that he happens to be). Because I had had high cholesterol and need to watch my intake of saturated fat as well as total fat, I did buy another book here which does provide that information, The Food Bible by Judith Wills which I also recommend if you can buy two on this subject. However, I wouldn't want to be without this one especially since it is so complete and includes such a wide variety of foods in such a user friendly manner. It is been especially helpful to me in keeping my weight under control ( I am female, 5' 3 1/2" tall and I am just plain unhappy if I weigh more than a pound or two more than 107--which, with this book at hand, does not happen--it is NOT always necessary to count every calorie-just getting an idea of the number of calories in the foods that one eats on a daily basis can help one to exercise enough portion control so that problems don't arise in the first place. This book is the best resouce that I have for that). Highly recommended for implementing a healthy, balanced diet!

I found this a very frustrating book because it gives counts for volume measures of foods, but not very often for weights of foods. If you don't want to jam your yam into a cup measure to figure out its count, but want to weigh it on a scale, forget it. No by-weight counts for many (most?) common foods, e.g., apples, flour, oranges, yams. (There was a count for a 2.8 oz. carrot! Geez; mine was 3.7 oz.--hard to estimate.) Also, if you cook from scratch and don't visit fast food palaces, you will get sick of crawling through listings for lots and lots of fast and prepared foods (which probably have current counts on their labels anyway). Measurers, ball-parkers, and fast food folks may be happy. I wasn't.

I am extremely disappointed in this book, and there has not been one other item on Amazon.com where I have completely disagreed with almost all of the other reviews to this extent.

If you have eyes and you can read and you have a pantry full of food with labels on it, then you do not need this book! It seems the only food in this book are brand name foods that have all the same information ON THE LABEL that is in this book.

The book supposedly contains brand name items and generic, but in my experience, I would say the book is 95% brand names and 5% generic. By generic I mean food like apples, greens, milk, baking chocolate; I could not find any listing for fudge, red velvet cake or things like hot and sour soup. All I was expecting was a ball park figure of fat and calories as I realize these foods could vary based on preparation methods, but instead I have nothing to go on. For hot and sour soup, for instance, I looked up Chinese (there is no listing for Chinese), soup, ethnic foods (there is no listing for ethnic either), H for hot etc so I am sure it is not in the book.

There are listings for some Fast Food restaurants, but you could easily find the same information on web sites. I didn't really need this information.

From what I can tell this book serves no purpose other than to save you a trip from your kitchen to your pantry or refrigerator or freezer where you could just pick up the item and read for yourself what contents are in it.

It was money wasted for me.

This book tells the grams of protein, carbs, fat and fiber as well as the milligrams of cholesterol and sodium in a stated portion of a given food. Both general and brand or restaurant specific foods are included. The author includes a diverse range, from fast food chains to natural food brands. There are foods in here I'd never thought of in my life (canned squid?!) What you do with the information is up to you and whatever eating plan you may be on. Straight, comprehensive reference.

I expected the book to be full of useful information, and it is, but it's not clearly or conveniently displayed. If you wanted to know a portion of something on a continuing page, you needed to turn back to see what the original portion was. It was not that easy to read and it didn't give any kind of intro so you know what to be looking for, what your daily caloric intake should be, how to figure it out, etc. I was used to another book I have by Doctors Natow and Heslin called "The Fat Counter". But it's old and I wanted a new one. Unfortunately, "Food Counts" was a disappointment and I plan on going to Borders where I can be sure of what I'm buying. The reviews totally fooled me and you didn't have the option of "looking into" this book via computer. Why is it so hard to find a book that gives you the calorie content of a plain GRILLED chicken breast, cherry tomatoes or typical BAKERY MADE piece of chocolate cake, NOT Pillsbury or Duncan Hines, and a York Peppermint Patty, etc? I don't need to know the caloric content of items that already have it written on the packages. Waste of space. Waste of my money for this book.

I just bought the latest edition of this valuable resource, my third upgrade of the book in the past 8 years. As an adherent of the Atkins diet, I wouldn't be without the information this provides me on the carbs, fat, and protein in my foods. It lists sodium and calories too, in case you want to know those. Seldom have I looked for a grocery-store food that isn't listed (I don't eat at restaurants much, so I can't attest to how comprehensive its data is in that area). If you want to know what your food is providing in the above areas, this is definitely the book to which to refer.

I HIGHLY recommend this book for any diabetic (Type I or II). With this book and a calculator, you can calculate the carb content of just about any food you come across.

This is most useful for people who carb-count as opposed to follow a strict diet, but anyone will benefit.

(Carb-counting involves estimating the carbohydrates in the food you're eating and taking the proper amount of insulin to cover it. With practice it's possible to achieve EXTREMELY tight control without having to worry about any special "diabetic diet" -- I know I couldn't live without it ;-) )

This book is probably fine for those who have absolutely no health risks. But for those of us who need to know sugars as well as total carbs, saturated fat as well as total fat, and soluble/insoluble fiber, it's not there. It's also really heavy on convenience foods--which have more info on their labels than you'll find in this book. You're better off on the internet.

I am a physician in private practice, and I subspecialize in bariatrics (weight management). All of my patients are given a copy of this wonderful reference when they begin my program, and it has proved to be extremely helpful.