Customer Reviews

Nutrition for Life

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

 

 

It's about time a book was written clearing up all the confusion about what to actually eat. It's the only book that I've read, and I've read them all, that provides an honest and accurate assessment of 45 of the most popular diets. It taught me exactly what I need to eat to be healthier, happier, feel better and live longer, not to mention information on almost every medical condition, and how we eat impacts each specific medical condition. It's like a one volume encyclopedia, with everything you need from birth to reach a ripe, healthy old age. I bought a copy for my friend who has a young children, my grown daughter living on her own in NYC, and my 79 year old Mother. There's something for everyone in this book, and one of the best parts is how incredibly user friendly it is.

This book is for people interested in improving their overall life style. This is not a diet book with predetermined meals and strict guidelines on dieting. This is an educational helpful guidebook for those who have done the strict and sometimes drastic diets and want a more balanced rational alternative. The authors include reviews of some of the popular diets.

Although, this book does not contain that many recipes, it does contain directions on healthy food preparation. Dr. Hark and Deen do give recipe examples and covers nutritional guidelines for each age group, including pregnant women and new mothers. It is nice to know there are nutritionists who believe that people are capable of thinking and acting for themselves rather than needing very restrictive instructions.

The only criticism I have is that the weight table does not take into account body types, which does change the weight table range.

For sure now, five times a day I will be eating fruits and vegetables. NUTRITION FOR LIFE admits that being overweight can be a big problem, and that high blood pressure (defined on page 214 as greater than 140/90mmHg) is one problem that is directly related to having a body mass that overwhelms the cardiovascular system often enough to make cardiovascular disease the number one killer in North America. I am old enough, heavy enough, male and interested enough in the future to notice that whole grains, nuts, seeds, and dry beans are supposed to be good for this condition. The word "Potassium" appears five times on page 220, which also has a chart showing serving sizes, like three and a half oz. (100g) cooked meat, for The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). Sticking to this diet is supposed to be effective enough to reduce "diastolic blood pressure (the lower measurement of blood pressure, taken between heartbeats when the heart is relaxed) by up to 5mmHg," (p. 220). The DASH diet is effective for people with high blood pressure that ranged from 140/90 to 159/99mmHg. If I exercised more, my blood pressure might drop to that range someday, right?

The Food Analysis charts at the end of the book start with grain, and a cup of cooked bulgar has only 151 kcal but 8.2 grams of fiber, so making a bowl of Tabbouleh according to the recipe on the whole grain bulgar cracked wheat package (keeps best refrigerated or frozen) I bought today seemed like a nice experiment, using my imagination and baby spinach leaves because I did not have 3 cups finely minced Parsley. I'm sure people eat this stuff because I have gone to restaurants that had a bowl bigger than any of mine in the salad section. Even Parsley, freeze-dried, is on the food chart with 4 kcal, though a quarter cup does not have a gram of anything tabulated. The index on pages 328-335 helps locate foods in the chart. Trying to find why bananas would be my ideal food is not easy just using the Index, unless I look up blood-sugar levels, which is also a problem for me, and the glycemic index does not say anything about bananas. I want the next page, about soluble fiber, gut flora, and the feeling of fullness caused by fiber-rich foods. This tells me what page to look for to learn how a high-fiber diet helps prevent diabetes. The Diabetes Meal Planner on page 249 suggests half a medium banana at breakfast, yogurt for a snack in the morning, but "If you would like a small glass of 100 percent juice, skip the fruit." As a final try, the index has a few entries for potassium (K). Men and women need 3,500mg per day. Good sources include potatoes, spinach, and red meat, but bananas might give me enough potassium to help lower and control blood pressure. Bananas also have chromium (Cr), which "helps insulin bind to its receptors on the membrane of body cells, which then allows for the sugar glucose to move into the cell where it is used to produce energy for the cell's needs." (p. 65).

In the section of the book on vitamins, there is a picture of bananas with the caption:

"Bananas A particularly good source of vitamin B6, bananas also provide folate, potassium, and soluble fiber. They are best eaten ripe--when the skin is speckled brown." (p. 55).

This book is a great nutrition resource. It has sound information, presented in an attractive way. It also has segments dealing on pretty much every life stage or conditino you could want to know how to eat better for, including recipes. Good buy!

This is good for those who don't really know much about nutrition and want to start anew. For anyone else who's already learned the basics but wants extra information, see if this is at your local library first. I was disappointed.

A lot of information in this book is more than 20 years behind the current research data in nutrition. For example, it advocates 30% fat diet, that level of fat is shown to be dangerous and cause diseases. For people who are interested in updated knowledge in maintaining health and reversing disease, please refer books "Eat to Live" by Dr. Fuhrman, "China Study" by Dr. Campbell, and books by Dr. McDougall, Dr. Ornish, etc.

I am really surprised that a book with so much inaccurate information could be published by two doctors. They obviously didn't do much research. Here are some of the grossly inaccurate statements made in the book.


"Fruits and vegetables are fat-free, low in sodium, and provide....."

Almost all fruits and vegetables have some fat in them and it is plenty of fat to maintain good health.



"...so eating three balanced meals is the optimum way to achieve a healthy diet."

Grazing at whole foods in small amounts has been found to be the optimum way to eat.



"With the exception of soy and soy products, plant proteins do not provide the full complement of amino acids, and must be combined with other foods if they are the sole source of dietary protein."

Food combining is a theory from a 1971 book "Diet for a Small Planet" that was dis-proven, and in 1981, the author recanted and revised the book which eliminated the protein combining theory. Also, soy is not the only plant with all essential amino acids. Lentils, pinto beans, quinoa, hemp and other plant-products contain all essential amino acids.


"Because of the limitations of vegetarian diets, careful planning is needed to avoid nutritional deficiencies that can otherwise occur."

This is repeated over and over again, but ignores the fact that most Americans eating a Standard American Diet are significantly more deficient in a variety of vitamins and minerals than most vegetarians.



In addition to these few inaccuracies I found, the book recommends a lot of highly processed crap! Cheese, yogurt, sour cream, pasta, breads, sherbet, etc. This book is targeted at people on very unhealthy Standard American Diets who eat fried, highly processed, meat based diets and attempts to get them to eat less unhealthy, but I wouldn't say the advice in this book promotes a truly healthy diet.


2/3's of Americans are overweight because of reading the kind of advice in this book. Very outdated and poorly researched.