Customer Reviews

The Essential Green You: Easy Ways to Detox Your Diet, Your Body, and Your Life (Green This!)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In her third book in this series, Deirdre Imus tackles the "greening" of us as individuals. From cosmetics to soaps to foods..everything has been researched and is well-documented without being overly pushy or completely non-understandable. Her down-to-earth approach at highlighting the influx of chemicals into our daily lives is enough to make even the most steadfast non-believer take another look- a hard look.

Imus advocates natural healing, earth-friendly and chemical-free products and a vegan diet, but she isn't pushy in her viewpoints. She explains in simple text what benefits these things play in her life and how one can take parts and pieces of that to incorporate into their lives. In each chapter, she lists the "worst offenders" and gives suggestions for alternatives (i.e, nix this mascara or this snack food and try this instead). It is easy to skip around in chapters to look something up on the fly, but it is just as simple to read the book cover-to-cover (as I did) and feel like you had a week's work of reading in one sitting. Very informative.

Overall, the entire book is about choosing. We can't do everything. In fact, some of us can only do a little bit due to cost, but we can start making some better decisions in the hope that the government and the companies who make this product will start paying attention.

Without being pushy or overwhelming, Dierdre Imus takes readers through a wealth of choices for healthy living. She explains the hazards of choosing food, household and personal care products without first being an informed consumer. In this era of economic belt-tightening and of so many toxins in available products, ignorance is far too costly for all of us.

Ms. Imus has an engaging, personal writing style, as though she is talking to a friend. And she offers lists of the bad choices, giving reasons why they are harmful, as well as lists of better choices in all the areas she covers. And she is thorough! I was glad to find, for example, names of cosmetic companies I hadn't heard of before who offer beautiful products I will enjoy trying.

The whole book is like that --- a fascinating look at the wide and ever-growing group of safe and health-enhancing products that are every bit as good as more familiar commercial products, and are also price competitive.

Interesting to read and invaluable to use as a reference. Highly recommended!

This book was a good idea but poorly indexed. You can find all the bad stuff, names of people and names of diseases, but if you want to find out what vinegar is used for, or baking soda, forget it. This book has the instructions for different cleaning methods and what to use, but they are buried in the book! I was happy to get the info, but disappointed that I had to read all of her politics and stories to get the information. Deirdre, if you read this, please update the index and publish it for free on your website as well as adding it to your book!

I think that if we all read this book, keeping it on hand until it's common knowledge, we would be a much healthier and happier society. And the health industry as we know it would change to the benefit of the human race rather then the drug companies that are counting on us to get sick. And the big food manufacturing companies who want us to get hooked on their toxic cancer causing foods. Live long, live healthy is what this book is about. And do it for the same amount of money that you are spending right now when you go to your local grocery store. I personally learned so much, the light bulb went on and I'm now embracing this new lifestyle and loving it. This BOOK is going to be a present that I buy over and again to send to my loved ones, Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Baby Showers, etc...It's the gift of life!

Admittedly, I'm an Imus groupie and every time Diedre or Don Imus recommends something that I can afford, I'm right on it! This is Diedre's best book and is fully researched with great suggestions--my favorite segments are foods and cosmetics. The web site for cosmetics she tells us about is awesome--worth the price of the book alone! I won't be converting to some of the items mentioned--I'm in my seventies--but have already tried other things she touts and I haven't been disappointed. This lady is an expert in her field--when Diedre speaks, I listen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You won't be sorry you bought this book.

A review of the book: "The essential green you - Volume Three."
by Gerald T. Westbrook

1. Introduction
This is my third book by Dierde Imus (DdI) that I have reviewed. As usual, I looked for the index. Eureka, Ms. Imus has included what appears to be an excellent index in her third book. Perhaps she received so much criticism for not having an index in Book one and Book Two, she decided she had to include one for Book Three.

As a means to try to estimate the utility of this index I selected three terms that I was interested in from Book Two. The terms, and the comments from the Index are listed below.
* Asthma - Page 102 - Most fragrances contains highly volatile allergens that are a recognized cause of autism.
* Autism - Page 141 - Mercury is a potential cause of autism - - according to a National Institutes of Health study of June, 2007.
* PCBs - Page 27 - This was a surrogate for BPAs. They both have a double benzene rings, but the couple is different. And PCBs contain between 2 to 10 chlorine atoms. In any event one of the recommendations from the index on cooking fish, was to boil, bake or grill it, as the fat--which contains most of the PCBs and dioxins--drips away.
All of the above impress me as pretty useful information. So this Index passes that simple test of credibility.

It also has a very good Table of Contents, as did Book Two. However, Book Two was organized into parts. I will do that for Book Three.

Part 1 Introduction.
African Proverb.
Acknowledgments.
Chapter 1 Take Charge of Your Health.

Part 2 All about food
Chapter 2 Eating Green.
Chapter 3 The Power of Produce.
Chapter 4 Out of the Box: Snacks & Processed Foods.

Part 3 All about body care and appearance.
Chapter 5 A Greener Clean: Personal Care Products.
Chapter 6 Not So Pretty Makeup.

Part 4 All about fashion.
Chapter 7 Green Your Style: Eco Fashion.

Part 5 All about Medicines.
Chapter 8 Jagged Little Pills: Medication.
Chapter 9 New Kind of Medicine: Alternative Health.

Part 6 Conclusion.
Chapter 10 Buy Green, Eat Green, Be Green.
Appendix 1 Favorite Vegan Recipes From the Imus Ranch.
Appendix 2 Buying Green: A Web Resource Guide.

I will comment briefly on Parts 1, 2, 3 and 6.

Part 1 - The African proverb:

"If you think you're too small to have an impact,
try sleeping in a room with a mosquito."

This tiny proverb is superb. It is inspirational, and it is a fit with a series of books (One, Two, Three and Silent Spring) where mosquitoes are important. Also in a recent trip to Prince Albert National Park, which was an outstanding visit, with one exception: mosquitos. I had forgotten these bugs tend to increase in number as one moves north and we were attacked mercilessly, even inside a beautiful cabin at a high quality lodge. So it is even harder to sleep in a cabin with thousands of these "dive bombers."

Part 2 - All about food.
DdI recommends, if you are going to read only a single chapter in this book, this is it. She argues strongly, in the opening paragraph, for a plant based diet. Since my favorite food is beef I moved to that section immediately. Ouch! She argues that "an animal-based diet is at the root of why we're all so ssick." She goes on to state that red meat is one of the worst offenders. The first problem is that 8o percent of the cattle are raised on feedlots under, where the goal is to get the cows as fat as possible, as soon as possible. They are usually fed high calorie grains, such as corn, even though their stomachs were "designed" to eat only grass. This leads to many health problems, which in turn leads to the use of high amounts of antibiotics.
These huge feedlots and industrial dairy farms also create an enormous contribution to our environmental problems. One feedlot, with 10,000 cows, produces 500,000 pounds of manure per day. On a macro scale, "livestock waste is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, outranking cars." I suspect that claim is too strong. This is a very complex subject and deserves to be treated with a level of caution.
Further as much as 95 percent of our exposure to dioxins (a class of highly toxic chemicals) comes from meat and dairy consumption.
This book provides a huge number of tips for four groups.
* Beef & Dairy: 5 Best Bets; 3 Better than Nothing.
* Pork: 3 Best Bets.
* Poultry & Eggs: 4 Best bets; 1 Better than Nothing; 5 Don't Fall For.
* Fish: 42 Avoids; 29 Safe to Eat Once a month; 28 Safe to Eat.

Part 3 - All about body care and appearance
The comments and concerns in Chapter 6 about Not So Pretty Makeup reminded me when I was a youth, I used to kill time by walking through department stores: sporting goods, tools, clothing etc. I would have to pass by the cosmetic counter on entrance and I would see this clerk, who looked like she was the "best customer" for her products. She looked ill. She looked ghostly. The products were not doing a thing to help her appearance, and maybe were doing a lot to hurt it, and her health.

Part 6 - Conclusion.
I had rated Book One as a four star book, and Book Two as three stars. When I started into this book I had a preconceived idea that this trend would continue to the two star level. However, the reverse has happened. Due to the inclusion of a fine index and a fine Table of contents, plus a superb proverb and much valuable information on nutrition--albeit some unhappy information about beef, that will cause me to re-think my diet--I'd rate this book in the four star category.

This is like my bible, I refer to it for EVERYTHING!!! In fact, my book came apart and the pages separated from the spine because I've read it THAT much!!! Dierdre Imus compiled everything you would need to know in order to live a healthy, "green" life into one book and even included references on where to go and what/how to do it!!! It is an easy read...if you only have a couple mins to sit down, you can gain a wealth of information just by reading a page or two! I have ADHD and for me it is difficult to concentrate on reading a book, but for some reason I was able to read this book easily and more than once! I love how she is not afraid to express her viewpoints on various subjects. We need more people like her in this world (and more books of hers)!

I waited a month after reading this book to comment because I wanted to use a lot of the same products Deidre uses. (I feel like I can call her Deidre because I've been a fan of Imus in the Morning for decades and have so enjoyed her husband's antics and comments about his lovely wife, Deidre, and her appearances, which should be more often, please:-)

I loved this book so much!! It is small enough to fit in your purse and read on the train, waiting in line, or by your bed to read over and over, so full of information that each of us should want to memorize. I have received the majority of her personal favorite products and I couldn't be happier with the results of ALL of them. Our 3 rescued pups even enjoyed John Masters' organic doggie shampoo and I was so happy to use a non-chemical bath product on the little darlings.

My most favorite product is John Masters organic pomegranate facial nourishing oil. It has worked wonders on my face in 2 weeks time!! Little wrinkles are gone and where my face used to get shiny before, now it stays a matte finish all day, which is amazing since I'm putting OIL on it.

I am checking off in the book every product I've received and they all have 5 stars by them. You can't go wrong reading and listening to this fabulous woman who walks the walk~ we all should get behind her and aspire to reach her level of clean living.

Deidre is full of information about becoming green. I would like to become more green with my food and cosmetics. And this book will tell you how and what to buy to get you started. I can't wait.

Years ago when someone said you were green, it meant uninformed or not too smart. Green today means quite the opposite. Green is being very informed about what we eat, our environment, and living long healthy lives on a healthy planet.

Everyone should have this book. It's easy to read and understand. A great resource book. She include several websites to further your education and helps point you in the right direction.