Customer Reviews

The Cosmos in a Carrot: A Zen Guide to Eating Well

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

The premise starts off nice. Healthful eating.
But from there she goes 'Earth Goddess' wacky.
"Cholesterol is like SUVs" they clog up the highways and arteries. ???
"Cows will not eat genetically modified corn' [given a choice].
In America all the cows corn is genetically modified.
Talks about eating organics but then makes it evident that she does not know what organic is.

In some areas she just makes up stuff, citing no source or study. Kind of a friend of a friend once told my friend that.........

There may be a few nuggets of wisdom in this book. However digging through the misinformation, statements that come out of nowhere, forcing the results to equal Buddhism, it was just plain irritating. Their is more bad information in here than good.

I'm Buddhist and a certified nutritionist, so I thought this would be an interesting linking of the two.

It wasn't.

The book promises, "The Cosmos in a Carrot distills the best of Buddhist wisdom, nutritional information, and health advice "

It delivers on none of it's claims.

The Buddhism is shallow, at best.
The nutritional information is wrong.
The health information is a handy cut and paste from web sources.

The strange thing is, she does not appear to have read her own sources. Source information (when available) does not nessisarily support her point.

The book reads more like a Freshman paper. Lacking understanding of the subject and a superficial understanding of what she writes about.

Mindful eating is one of my writing topics. I wrote "Eating the Moment" in 2008. So, you'd think, I really shouldn't be supporting competition, so to say, but I don't operate like that. If I like the book, of course, I am going to say so. So, I am researching for my next project and I stumble upon "Cosmos in a Carrot" and, after about an hour with it, I have this thought: if I had read this sooner, I would not have tried to publish my own "mindful eating" project (which technically originated around 2000 but I didn't get around to submitting it until 2007, a year after "Cosmos in a Carrot" was written). I am not going to evaluate the nutritional guidance offered in the book because it's not my area of competence (I consider "mindful eating" a "how to eat" rather than a "what to eat" genre). But I am truly impressed by the Buddhist part. I see another reviewer slammed the book saying the "Buddhism (in the book) is shallow." Well, how deep can it expected to be from a "mindful eating" alternative to dieting? After all, the goal of mindful eating genre is not to turn a reader into a Buddhist but to offer a reader a Buddhist/Eastern take on eating. This book certainly does that.

Morever, "Cosmos in a Carrot" - in my opinion - accomplishes another extremely rare thing (when it comes to Buddhist-inspired "mindful eating" genre) - it strikes the sweet spot of moderation (and Middle Way) in explaining the Buddhist ethics of mindful eating. A typical "mindful eating" book - and I've had a chance to review a few - tends to idealize Buddhist eating ethic. "Cosmos in a Carrot" doesn't do that - the author manages to offer the big picture of Buddhist eating ethic without over-attaching to culture-specific details. That's a huge accomplishment. With this in mind, I highly recommend this book - at least, as one of several readings on the matter, which is really the way to go anyway. Prospective reader: grab yourself half a dozen of mindful eating books - this one, something by Susan Albers, by Jan Chozen Bays, by Linda Craighead, and pick out what works for you. I wish you well.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., author of Present Perfect, Lotus Effect, and Eating the Moment

Combining the sage advice of Zen and the wonderful insight of ways to best heal and help our bodies, this author does an awesome job of bringing us suggestions for both our bodies and souls. With sections like "A Mindful Diet" and "What Would Buddha Eat?", I was able to learn so much about the healthier ways to live in the flow.

Actions like drinking more water, reducing salt, and avoiding coffee are all great ways to get more centered within ourselves and I was also pleased to see right at the front "The Five Mindfulness Teachings" that can transform us into a place of giving and receiving. There are interesting charts and pictures throughout and I was left feeling like I had a starting point, a road map to help me live a peaceful existence inside and out. I would recommend this enlightened how-to to anyone who has the desire to live a calm and more balanced life. Thanks Carmen, for showing us the way.

Too often, books with a New Age bent dissipate into cliches, but Cosmos in a Carrot was surprisingly well written. The author has a sense of whimsy and humor that makes the topic soar, even in fact-heavy passages about nutrition.