This excellent new book by medical doctor Steven Pratt pulls together a lot of recent nutritional research in an easily digestible format by focusing on the fourteen most healthy foods, the foods which can be grouped with these fourteen to provide variety, and some basic methods for preparing these foods. This is a presentation to the layman of scientific results. By it's nature, this leads to simplifications and potentially misleading statements. My biggest concern with any book of this type is that it is overstating its case. There is no question in my mind that eating these 14 foods (and avoiding worthless foods) will improve your health. The book is very careful in not quantifying potential gains, but it does come dangerously close to making medically unfounded statements. One I detected is the suggestion that eating cholesterol-reducing foods such as oats and cabbage family vegetables will remove the need for drugs to reduce cholesterol. When I posed a similar question to my physician, he kept to the medically sound albeit very conservative line that the tendency of the body to produce cholesterol is genetic and keeping cholesterol within safe levels for me requires medication, probably for the rest of my life. This is a case study of why books like this tend to overstate their cases. Response to improvements in diet is determined by one's genetic makeup. What works for some may not work for others. The bottom line for the skeptic's view of this book is to take all the statements on benefits from these foods with a grain of salt. They may be right for you, and they may not.
Having made the skeptic's case for this book, I turn to the advocate's case.
...
The advantages of the book's simplifications is that you can cruise your megamart with these fourteen (14) foods at the top of your list and focus on those products which are on the list or are allied to the items on the list. While I am not a clinical scientist, I am an informed layman, having developed information systems for medical professionals for 35 years. With those credentials, I believe that eating these foods will, in the long run, be better for your health than not eating them.One of the best aspects of this book is the list of `sidekicks' to each of these fourteen foodstuffs. Having been a big fan of green vegetables from way back, the list of sidekicks to broccoli is positively erotic, including my favorite Brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnips, and Swiss chard. The only food without a sidekick is tea. Sorry, coffee doesn't make the list. Another favorite sidekick is peanuts. Nuts are on the list, but peanuts actually makes the list because it's a legume, like beans, and not a nut. A little misdirection there.
The best thing about this list is that, to my mind, only three of these foods (oats, soy, and yogurt) are uninteresting. I personally find all the others to be range from being pleasant (broccoli, salmon, spinach, pumpkin, tomatoes, beans, and turkey) to being positively delightful (blueberries, oranges, tea, turkey, and walnuts). One great thing about the tasty foods such as blueberries and walnuts is that they can brighten up the taste of the bland stuff (oats and yogurt especially).
With the warning that I am neither a medical nor a nutritional professional, I believe this book tends to raise questions about the currently very popular low carbohydrate diet doctrines. I say this not because many of the foods on this list are high on the devil's list of low carb advocates, but that high carbohydrate foodstuffs are often the best of mates to some of these foods. Two famous pairings are beans and rice and berry jam and bread.
The book contains a very nice section of recipes by a very talented and recognized spa chef. They are all very tasty looking and the notes to the recipes contain a lot of hints, such as the most nutritious varieties of sweet potatoes and the method for making yogurt cheese. But, I will probably never make any of them. Instead, I will file away all of the food combinations and use them when I select recipes from other cookbooks or improvise recipes on my own.
If these fourteen foods represent a `kosher' or best selection, it would be nice to see a selection of `parve' foods. That is, foods which fall into a neutral to good category. Two prime candidates would be olive oil and red wine. The book mentions and recommends both and is wisely careful in citing wine as a beneficial food. This interest is addressed to some extend with the Lifestyle Pyramid which endorses whole grain products, healthy fats, and reasonable portions of red meats and eggs.
In spite of the opening skeptical paragraph, I believe this is a delightfully promising book which gives easy to follow guidelines without oversimplifying things too much. For those who are not already fond of spinach and turkey and tomatoes, I recommend they establish a relationship with a good book on Italian food and start with turkey Florentine (turkey and spinach) and vegetable lasagna.
With a list price under $25, I recommend this book to everyone.
