Customer Reviews

The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Resource for Healthy Eating (Compass)

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, Ok not quite but almost! A few months ago my teenage daugher and I were diagnosed with numerous food allergies and told to follow a rotation diet. A life long vegetarian, it was an almost overwhelming to be told I could no longer eat soy, eggs, pinto beans, kidney beans, avocados, etc. And my daughter is not allowed any legumes as well (nor sugar either).
Clearly the protein was going to be a challenge (we really dislike flesh foods of any kind) but then I read the guidelines for the rotation diet itself and quickly discovered the extreme limits of my food knowledge! Sure I had heard of (but never cooked) quinoa and flax but amaranth and yautia? Not. And even if I could find where to purchase these items, how would I prepare them?
Both our weight and our attitude dropped signficantly in the first few weeks. Then we "modified" the guidelines and found ourselves physically sick again. Luckily for us, my husband purchased this book on a trip to Dallas. While I was skeptical about it's holding my interest as an actual "read through", I found it quite engrossing from almost the first page.
Not only do I now know what to do with the foods on a rotation diet list (knowing that yautia is similar to potatoes means I can now make a favorite soup that otherwise I would have passed over) but because the index is brilliantly organized I can easily look up say "warming foods" and adjust my internal thermostat rather than the whole house which made my husband doubly glad he had bought it! The same for high BP, colds, cancer, you name it.
And I can relax about the protein issue as well knowing which foods on "our list" are highest in protein instead of just choosing those foods with which I might have previously been most familiar. I bought a copy for my mom for her birthday and she can't put it down either!
If you are really interested in preparing a variety of healthy foods no matter what your current state of health might be, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It might not save your life but it will certainly liven up your meals no matter what kind of diet you follow!

This is an excellent reference for any cook who wants to know more about whole foods, including grains, vegetables, fruits, etc. Rebecca is a very kind, warm person, and her personality shines through in this book.

The contents include both Western scientific knowledge about the proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals contained in foods, as well as their properties from an Eastern perspective, including Ayurvedic and Chinese Traditional Medicince. Rebecca draws from all of these traditions to present the wonders of whole foods. You may buy it as a reference but I guarantee you will browse just for the pleasure of it!

Any book by Rebecca becomes a food bible for me. I trust her research, her training, her life experiences and her instincts about food. This Encyclopedia helps me cut through the marketing hype around natural foods. Besides being so informative, it's a darned interesting read as well! Friendly, charming and reminiscent of all things good, wholesome and healing. My young son and I love her old-time recipes for such things as tree sap gum and acorn meal. This book is a trustworthy guide to making food choices. It belongs on anyone's shelf of tried and true natural health classics.

This book indeed does what its title promises-- it's a fairly comprehensive review of whole foods. It tells you how to select each type of food (veggies etc), and incorporates some useful information from ayurvedic tradition and chinese medicine. However, it only has a few recipes. In many cases, you close the book feeling educated on a certain food but still have no idea how to eat it. The other problem I have with it is that sometimes it comes off as alarmist (i.e., don't use re-boiled water when making tea because it has lost its optimal oxygen). A good reference book but I wouldn't run my life by it.

Sometimes, the trick with books of this nature is being able to find the information you are looking for quickly and easily. There are a number of other books on the market that contain much the same information as this book does (in more detail) but what sets The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia apart is its remarkable ability to simplify the key information down to the most essential basics. Elson Haas' Staying Healthy With Nutrition for example, is an excellent resource but at nearly 1000 pages it requires a bit of digging to get to the specific information you need. The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia is always the first place I check for the basics before researching more specialized, detailed sources. It's to natural food what Ephraim Katz' Film Encyclopedia is to film...namely, the best resource for concise, general overviews.

The author is very good about providing cautions of possible adverse issues with certain foods. For example, the author discourages the use of canola (rapeseed) oil, overconsumption of raw, uncooked flaxseed due to possible toxins and a concern with rancidity of pre-shelled nuts and seeds. Some health food books can get a little carried away with championing the alleged health benefits of foods without posting any warnings about potential mis-use.

One should note that this book does not contain information on any animal products.

This book is a great reference to foods and current dietary practices. Being a proponent of Weston Price's research on diet, I was pleased to find that the informationin this book is very much in line with that information.

The book is laid out in alphabetical order, listing each food discussed, and describing how to choose and use it in one's diet. I was quite pleased with how comprehensive and wide ranging the information was. The cover states that it includes information on Ayurveda, Western nutrition, and tradidtional Chinese medicine, and the book lives up to that promise very well.

I have grown tired of all the fad diets and cookbooks that are perpetrated by various economic interests, and this book is a breath of fresh air. My only complaints are the near total lack of information about animal foods (which the book does not even pretend to include, so that is okay), and the "incomplete" information on soy. I have serious issues with the soy industry and some of the goings on therein, and personally avoid soy products of any kind like the plague. The soy industry has been behind campaigns of disinformation about healthy oils like coconut, and I do not trust any information that comes from those quarters. Much of what is circulated in vegetarian circles about the history of soy use in the Orient is distorted. Yes, it was in the Yellow Emperor's book as one of the 5 sacred grains, but it was never eaten as a food by humans until it could be made safe by fermentation, and then seldom in amounts greater than a couple tablespoons a day as flavoring (until the influence of the modern soy industry, that is). It was used as a rotation crop to fix nitrogen in the soil until fermentation was discovered. That is a part of the history that seems to get lost in the telling.

Wood does have caveats against certain soy products, thank goodness, and her blindness to the dark side of soy is the only complaint I have about the entire book. The rest, including the use of coconut oil and butter, seems to me to be right on the mark. I wholeheartedly recommend this book as an additional reference to Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions," and Ron Schmid's "Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine." It is a very good reference to the vegetable, grain, and fruit foods available.

I would like to take off 1/3 of a star for the soy stuff, but feel that the rest of the book is so good as to merit an overall 5.

I just love Wood's new book-I always get so much out of anything she writes...I couldn't ask for a better treat than to have such a goldmine of information all neatly organized and easy to reference as with The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia. I love the little boxes with various stories, and recipes,etc, that she included. These really fill the book out, making it such an enjoyable read...a new treasure with every page turned. In the past I have used Paul Pitchford's 'Healing with Whole Foods,' (also great) in much the same way I do this new book--referencing it everyday with every meal, but find Rebecca's book to be so wonderfully concise, and more easily referenced. Anyone looking to expand their horizons, and cultivate genuine awareness about their lifestyle/ eating habits should own this book.

An excellent reference for those who enjoy cooking a lot at home. Though not a cookbook, it's very valuable if you're just starting to learn to cook for yourself, or for moderately experienced home chefs who want to branch out into unfamiliar territory. I've learned a great deal about storage and handling of foods I was afraid to buy before reading this book. Also, I particularly like the details regarding the nutritional benefits of every food item. For those who want learn the nutritional benefits of foods beyond garlic and olive oil, this book is for you as well.

I was aware when I bought this that it wouldn't be quite what I wanted: I was looking for an encyclopedia of staple foods with basic background information, nutritional information, purchasing and storage guidelines, and general cooking recommendations, etc. I knew this would be much more New Age-y than I wanted, but it seemed to be the nearest thing available. (I guess I'll have to compile my own.) I do like it and will keep it, but will be looking for other sources to supplement it.

There is a lot to like about this book, but I wish the author had conflated less the nutritional and mystic properties, and given more concrete information. The book is actually less informative than it appears because it fails to provide any solid basis for the statements it makes about foods' properties, even nutritional properties that should have been easy to quantify and qualify. It's often vague about the food's properties and not clear if the attributed benefits are physical or metaphysical. (I will not comment on her information regarding mystical properties because that is not what interests me.) As an example: She notes that beans are filling and relieve constipation but doesn't finish the idea and add that it is because **they are good sources of protein and fiber**. She finally does mention that they are high in fiber, but it's a paragraph later and she doesn't really connect this to their health benefits.

I also would have to question some of the stated benefits: I'm not sure I'd eat a lot of blackberries to alleviate diarrhea. I'll agree that blackberries may have nutrients that could do so, but I suspect that they would be overpowered by the fruits' fiber, with potentially uncomfortable results. My gut feeling is that that there is some hyperbole at work in the descriptions--many of the foods sound like miracle drugs. I absolutely agree that eating well promotes better health, but it can't save everybody from every ailment.

For the most part, I ignore the "information" that isn't what I need, which isn't really very troublesome but does leave gaps.

This is an excellent book for learning more about produce and other whole foods. She even includes some not so healthy foods and justifies her reasoning for them to be advised against. The book has useful information on how to find, select, store, and prepare food items and how they can impact the body. She includes Ayurveda and Oriental nutritional comments for most foods. Also, in the begining she has a short section on the basics to one of the best ways of eating up to date.