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273 of 276 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good as a starting point and adjunct to his Diabetes book, August 13, 2005
This review is from: The Diabetes Diet: Dr. Bernstein's Low-Carbohydrate Solution (Hardcover)
This is a book for food for Diabetics, especially type II. The recipes and methods follow Dr Bernstein's other book (The Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars - which I highly recommend from seeing it actually work on on my mother and my spouse).
First things first: There have been other reviewers who seem to not only to have missed the point that this is for *diabetics*, but also have an axe to grind with snarky comments about "low carb taliban". Thats an idiotic thing to say when uncontrolled carbs are the very things that are killing the type II diabetic with uncontrollable blood glucose levels. This is not some flavor of the month to be glib about - this is a lifestyle change to treat a life threatening disease.
There is no cure - you will have to change your life; Dr Bernstein is quite clear about that. And Diabetes is all about rules you must use to control your blood sugar. It all begins with your food. Control your food intake and you will enable control of your blood sugar. And thats is where the "strict" and "forever" come from. Regardless of how snarky some people wish to be about it, this is a choice between eating that cinnabon and dying of diabetic complications, or moving along and realizing that you are making a trade-off: the carbs for your health. Either you control your diabetes or you will die from it.
There have been comments made about the "outlawing" of Splenda (and Equal as well, had that the review bothered to read further), but this applies only to the *powdered form*. Dr Bernstein instead recommends Stevia if you wish to use a powder, or the *tablet* form if you wish to use Equal or Splenda. In fact, the tablet form of Equal is what Dr Bernstein writes that he himself uses.
All the facts: dieters should note that many of the artificial sweeteners in the dry form you find in those blue or yellow or pink packets actually contain sugars other than sucrose in order to provide bulk and avoid bitterness. Read the label in the grocery store and you will see that is the truth about a vast majority of the powdered forms, especially things like dextrose.
Beware of poeple who cavalierly and foolishly dismisses the presence of those substances, even though they are sugars! This causes me to seriously question whether that such people did much more than skim the book to reinforce thier biases. I urge people to go browse this book or the reviews for the other Bernstein book (or other sections of the book as published online at Dr Bernsteins web site).
Back to this book now that some common erros and misconceptions have been pointed out:
The recipes in here fit very well into almost any low-carb diet. But unlike the typical "Atkins" recipes (which some people use as an excuse to have a bacon-grease free-for-all), they also take into account protein and fat content to a much greater extent. There is a lot of difficulty in coming up with a menu that keeps your carbohydrates in line with Dr Bernstein's inescapable "Laws of Small Numbers", but this cookbook is a great starting place.
The recipes do not use many exotic items, and are reasonably easy for an experienced home-cook to prepare. There is a lot of "flavor" in these dishes, so, unlike some other low-carb diet plans I've had, there is no need to eat with your fork in one hand and the tabasco sauce in the other.
However, after a while, even these recipes will get "stale" if this cookbook is all you are using. There are not really as many recipes as most other low-carb cookbooks. But by examining how this book put together the proper amounts of protein and carbohydrate, proper portioning, and the proper types of carbohydrates, you can readily take other low-carb recipes and menus and adapt them to fit into the Bernstein Diabetes Solution. For example I was able to adapt many of the recipes in Carpender's "500 Low-Carb Recipes" and "15 minute Low Carb Recipes" books with little trouble at all.
Bottom line: For the casual dieter, there are probably easier ways of doing that, but for the diabetic, this is the gold mine. This book, along with the main "Solution" book will be invaluable for those working with their doctors to implement their own personalized "Diabetes Solution" to control and achieve normal blood sugars.
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154 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book can SAVE YOUR LIFE!!!!, April 5, 2005
This review is from: The Diabetes Diet: Dr. Bernstein's Low-Carbohydrate Solution (Hardcover)
This book will save your life!!! Yes it is possible to "normalize" your blood sugars! I follow this plan and it has worked! My gestational diabetes converted to the real thing in 2002. I was put on the conventional ADA diet (220 carb a day!) and quickly found I could not keep my blood sugars in range on this diet. In frustration I read everything I could to research this disease. I had worked as therapist in a rehab hospital long enough to see hundreds of diabetic patients suffer strokes, heart attacks, kidney disease, amputations etc. I had a healthy fear of this disease!!! In short, it kills. This book explains how Dr Bernstein suffered as a Type I diabetic for years until he -through trial and error- figured out what foods to eat to normalize blood sugar. I now eat low carb as Dr Bernstein recommends and have never felt better! The website for the book is www.diabetes-book.com. The forum on this site is exceptional for recipes and support for following this program. I have so much admiration and respect for Dr. Richard Bernstein. He's not out to make a buck...no low carb products/gimmicks. He became an MD to teach other diabetics how to 'normalize' their blood sugars and works only with diabetic patients. I recommend this book to every diabetic person I meet!!! To Dr.Bernstein I say thank you, thank you, thank you!
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110 of 110 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Easy-To-Use, Well Written Guide to the Grail of Diabetes, December 26, 2004
This review is from: The Diabetes Diet: Dr. Bernstein's Low-Carbohydrate Solution (Hardcover)
If you've read Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, which I and a lot of other readers believe is the "gold standard" (as someone put it) for diabetes treatment, but found it a little technical, The Diabetes Diet is the book for you. This is Dr. Bernstein's program distilled to its essense.
I had heard about it from his web site, and ordered a copy before it was published. Even though I read Diabetes Solution (both editions) I did not realize that Dr. Bernstein was the FIRST diabetic to monitor his own blood sugars (and his account of how he stumbled on his program is pretty funny--he thought exercise and not diet was the key).
I got the book about three days ago and have already read it cover to cover and tried some of the recipes. The chef is a genius. She runs a restaurant but has a son who is a type 1 diabetic, so she knows how to cook for a diabetic, but she also really knows how to cook--or create, or whatever--she's an artist.
We had people over for dinner and I made the veal with fennel and mushroom cream sauce and the green bean recipe and people raved over the food so much that I had to write down the recipes for three of my guests. I've had people ask for recipes, but never had THAT happen before (not a single one of them was a diabetic or low-carb dieter).
Despite what seem so far like fantastic recipes (I tried the turkey and stuffing recipes for Christmas and they were WONDERFUL), the book itself is easy. Dr. Bernstein lays out all the information very clearly without a lot of the science that is in Diabetes Solution. The science is good, but sometimes it's a little overwhelming and you just want to say, Okay, fine, but just tell me what to do. Dr. Bernstein does that in this book very clearly and does it really well.
As usual, he debnks a lot of myths and explains exactly why, for example, the glycemic index isn't worth much (there are many of them, they don't agree on what food should be what number, etc.).
For people who want to cut to the chase and start his program to get their blood sugars into normal ranges--without knowing all the ins and outs of why--this book is perfect. It'd be great for people who just want to eat a tasty, low carb diet. As a companion to Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, it's worth it for the recipes alone, but it's much more than that.
While the book is called The Diabetes Diet, it could also be used by anyone who wants to eat healthy and avoid diabetes. And with the endless rise of diabetes around the world, that's a lot of people. Dr. Bernstein treats lots of overweight people--people not technically diabetics--and helps them avoid the awful side effects of diabetes.
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