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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chocolate Musings by the Seattle Psychic Examiner, January 1, 2010
This review is from: The Healing Powers of Chocolate (Paperback)
Ounce for ounce, dark chocolate has 19 times the amount of antioxidants as blueberries. It contains 2 times the amount of those cancer-fighting chemicals found in red wine and 3 times found in green tea! Who knew? It is indeed a superfood. The ancients knew this and so does Cal Orey. Her new book, `The Healing Powers of Chocolate', is a testament to that which all of the rest of us know merely by a discriminating palate. Her recipe for the writing of this book using the ingredients of eye-opening facts, fascinating subjective observations and superb culinary formulas weave together that which is pure success. She blends all the delectable informational flavors together so well in this work that I felt as though I was blanketed in chocolate mousse for the mind.
Read my article for Cal's new book on [...]
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As If I Needed a Reason to Love Chocolate!, January 2, 2010
This review is from: The Healing Powers of Chocolate (Paperback)
Cal Orey has done it again! She's delivered another fabulous "Healing Powers" book (the others are The Healing Powers of Olive Oil: A Complete Guide to Nature's Liquid Goldand The Healing Powers of Vinegar: A Complete Guide to Nature's Most Remarkable Remedy only this time, it's on a subject near and dear to many hearts (Valentine and otherwise)- chocolate! Orey takes us on a wonderful Willy Wonka adventure in discovering America's greatest chocolates while extolling the virtues and health benefits of the delectably delightful indulgence. In this book, Orey traces the origin of chocolate, from bean to bar, from centuries ago to the present day. In creating this informative and fascinating book, she interviewed America's top chocolate makers and chocolatiers, nutritionists, medical researchers, and chocolate lovers to find out how this ancient "food of the gods" can prevent and fight common ailments and diseases. And she indulged in chocolate (all types, shapes and in a variety of dishes) from the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, Deep South and even Ireland...
You'll love this book, devour it quickly and go back for seconds! A wonderful gift, but a must have book on every kitchen shelf as well - don't miss it, you'll never eat chocolate the same way again!
Here's what others have said:
"The right kind, the right amount of chocolate may just save your life."
--Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., author of New York Times bestseller The Fat Flush Plan
"Fine chocolate is about taste, style, and integrity, and fine chocolate is the medium for our message. It is delightful to find an author who understands all this!"
--John Down & Joe Guiliano, founders of Christopher Norman Chocolates
"Chocolate is a taste of divine ecstasy on Earth. It is our sensual communion. Orey's journalistic style and efforts share this insight with readers around the world."
-- Jim Walsh, founder of Intentional Chocolate
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25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Unreadable, February 23, 2010
This review is from: The Healing Powers of Chocolate (Paperback)
I have to admit that I didn't finish reading this book. I made it to page 167 of 294 (the last 60 of those pages are recipes and places to buy chocolate). It is so poorly written that I just couldn't read it. My initial impression was that it needed a good editor, but after the first couple of chapters, I realized that what it really needed was a good author.
There is very little original writing in this volume. Most of the material in it was previously published in Ms. Orey's previous two books. It is obvious she merely copied and pasted passages from those books into the manuscript with no regard to narrative flow.
She uses tables of information lifted directly from other sources (with proper attribution) without any discussion. The most egregious fault I found was her description of a tour of a chocolate factory. She was unable to make the tour, so she used the notes of a friend who did go on the tour. Just the notes in raw form, again copied and pasted into her manuscript.
Some of her writing reads likes notes also. I found it very jarring to encounter sentences that were grammatically incorrect or that had no point. She tells the same stories over and over, each time as if it were the first time that the story has been used.
Her tracing of the history of chocolate is marred by her lack of geographical knowledge. Countries wander from Central to South America and back again, depending on which page you are reading.
As for those "healing powers", she is correct in citing the trace nutrients found in chocolate. However, reputable scientists have pointed out that they are found in such minute quantities that you would have to eat 25 pounds of chocolate every day to gain any benefit from them. Ms. Orley smoothly skates past this little detail by recommending a "dosage" of 1 to 2 squares of dark chocolate per day as part of a healthy diet (she recommends either the Mediterranean diet or the French diet) along with regular exercise. She neglects to mention that it is the diet and exercise, not the chocolate, that is providing the health benefits.
She lives in the San Francisco area and takes us on a tour of the chocolatiers in that city, breathlessly describing their incomparable chocolates, recommending that readers choose those chocolates rather than chocolates from anywhere else. She then goes on to admit that she eats plain old Hershey's Dark Chocolate. From Pennsylvania.
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