Customer Reviews

SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life

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4 star:		(22)
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2 star:		(3)
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This is an excellent reference work for your personal health
library. The author describes strategies for maximizing
antioxidants in the diet by eating blueberries,pumpkin and
strawberries. Isoflavones may be found in soy-based foods.
Fiber and B vitamins may be obtained from beans. Vitamin D
may be added to yogurt to potentiate the calcium added to the diet. This work contains many superfood menus which are easy
to interpret and reproduce for your eating pleasure. A main
theme of the book is to provide badly needed nutrients by
eating a variety of foods which introduce antioxidants and
fiber into the body. This will help deal with the natural
inflammation which many middle age people find difficult to
manage. i.e. gut inflammation, irritable bowel syndrome etc.

I was never much of a cook, but I have always been interested in getting my family to eat healthy foods, and this book has shown me how easy it is to do just that. The 14 foods listed as "Superfoods" are delicious, and the authors include numerous "sidekicks," or foods that offer the same or similar benefits. After just one month of preparing foods using the recommendations in "SuperFoods Rx," everyone in my family has experienced significant health benefits--my husband's cholesterol level plummeted, and lifelong digestive problems have disappeared. Best of all, everyone from ages six to fifty LOVE the meals (one favorite is a stew I invented that contains turkey, carrots, cabbage, canned tomatoes, beans, spinach, onions, cubes of firm tofu and/or whatever else is on hand; I use Goya "cubitos" and seasoning for a delicious broth). Nobody wants sugar cookies anymore, now that we can go to the fridge anytime and enjoy luscious cultured yogurt with blueberries and diced walnuts, fresh watermelon--even some yummy dark chocolate with a pot of green or black tea. The possibilities are endless!!
Diets do not work--they are temporary, often based on absurd principles, and only perpetuate an unhealthy obsession with food. As the authors point out, what is needed is a permanent change for the better in eating habits for the entire family. Considering the obesity crisis in this country, such a sensible and practical approach could not come at a better time.

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.

This book is an excellent summary of the latest research from the past few years about the benefits of certain foods like salmon and spinach. The things I like about this book are: 1) no product is being sold - The author doesn't make supplements or creams or anything the way that Perricone (The Wrinkle Cure) does. 2)The book only promotes whole foods, not supplements 3) there are excellent recipes using the 14 superfoods 4)The book doesn't focus on the "dont's" just the "do's" 5)It isn't a difficult program to follow.

This is a great book for learning about the health benefits of certain foods and getting the inspiration to eat them.

I suppose if you are new to the whole superfoods theory this might be an okay start. However, I've read too many other good authors' works to have gone through this book and not say anything. The information is dated, at times misleading and inaccurate. I have three of this authors' Superfoods books. I should have bought only one prior to the other two. If you want to truly educate yourself, start with "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth" by Jonny Bowden, then try "seasonal food" by Susannah Blake, "The Food Substitutions Bible" by David Joachim and "the new whole foods encyclopedia" by Rebecca Wood.

This is a great book about foods that are packed with life enhancing properties. The idea that some foods are better than others is not new, but there are some foods, it turns out, that are especially beneficial and we should make a concentrated effort to include these tasty foods.

The book discusses the difference between macronutrient type of analysis (protien, carb, fat...) and micronutrient (antioxidants...) analysis and shows how some foods are loaded with healful micronutrients while others are not.

The book describes the main superfoods (beans, wild salmon, broccoli, blueberries, tea, ...) AND importantly many substitutes or related foods to these super good ones.

There are menus, shopping lists, nutrient analysis, and overall great down-to-earth discussion and information. An excellent and simple but elaborate guide to the SUPERFOODS we have heard so much about but before this book didn't know what it was all about.

I also can't recommend enough a remarkable book about authentic wellness called "Effortless Wellbeing". Where has this book been been all my life was all I could say after reading it. Simple, to the point, includes simple mental and physical exercises and various ideas that produce wellness naturally. Amazing reading, and a great addition to the purchase of "Superfoods Rx". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I found Dr. Pratt's book informative, practical, and a good reminder that I should include certain foods in my daily diet. Since I started practicing a healthier eating style 6 months ago, several pesky chronic health problems have been greatly reduced or disapppeared altogether. One fringe benefit was the loss of 30 pounds in that time. I put the diet together myself because I find most health "experts" to be extremists - recommending diets that aren't edible or too difficult to bother with. I found Dr. Pratt's book about 4 months into my diet, and while his book is not some sort of health "bible," he takes an even-handed approach and recommends things that are healthy, easy, and doable. And many of the recipes he provides are quite tasty.

Some of the other reviews I read here remind me how much I appreciate a reasonable health author like Dr. Pratt. The nitt-picking pretentiousness of most health "experts" is more than a little off-putting to me. If I had to listen to them rather than Dr. Pratt, I'd be drowning my sorrows in a McDonald's supersized fries right now!

This book should be mandatory reading for every American. You shouldn't be able to graduate high school without reading it. Hell, health insurance companies should send you a free copy when you enroll in a new plan!

A couple of years ago, I discovered that I suffered from severe allergies to dairy, eggs and wheat. I'd had eczema my entire life, but not one single doctor in 28 years ever mentioned it was probably caused by food allergies. (The nutrition-wise personal trainer I had at the time was the first health professional to ever suggest I investigate dairy as the source of my chronic inflammatory/autoimmune illnesses!)

Anyway, old habits die hard. My version of avoiding allergenic foods was to get the chicken nuggets at McD's instead of the quarter-pounder with cheese, which does remove the wheat, eggs and dairy, but then there's still a nice fat helping of oil and other nasty elements in those foods. I was limping along trying to change my diet. Try reading labels on processed foods in your average supermarket and see how hard it is find one without wheat or dairy. It's nigh well impossible. You'd be astonished how many places refined flour is hiding: vegetarian soups, oat-based cereals and every TV dinner ever made.

Then, one day, while at the local Borders, shopping for my dad for Christmas, I spotted Superfoods Rx. I guess I picked it up for two reasons: (1) I'd been hearing about "superfoods" in the media and figured I should try to understand them, and (2) the cover. That beautiful cover is so tantalizing and delicious I practically wanted to eat it! Many props to the food designer or the cover designer or the photographer or whoever put together that cornucopia of lovely food. Little did I know then, though, that picking up a book with pretty cover could improve my life so much!

After "digesting" Superfoods (hee), I've learned to love good food for the first time in my life. I have learned how to truly nourish myself--and genuinely gratify myself with food in a way that's simply impossible with Hostess Cupcakes and their ilk! My cooking skills are picking up quickly, and I never go out for expensive lunches at work anymore, because I've always got my homemade boxes of spinach salad with avocado and grapefruit, bean-lentil-onions-and-tomato soup, or a healthy serving of salmon sashimi from the local Japanese market.

My eczema has receded almost entirely. I no longer have bags under my eyes that make me look 15 years older. My skin looks frickin' fantastic, actually. I have fewer mood swings, and very few food cravings, because I just eat responsible, reasonable-sized portions all day long: a handful of apple slices here, a few rye crackers with almond butter there. (Most of the superfoods are also high in filling, satisfying fiber.)

I now keep a list of all the superfoods (from this book and the "sequel" Superfoods HealthStyle) on my fridge. And I buy as much fruit as I can carry home and/or afford from the nearby produce market that I now patronize weekly.

Superfoods is one of the best-written, smartest, most understandable, realistic and potentially transformative books written in the food and health category in a very long time. Get it today.

P.S. Once you've read Superfoods and HealthStyle, you might want to check out http://www.whfoods.com/, which is kind of like graduate-level superfoods studies.

This book helped me turn my life around.

I was eating terribly, no energy, 60 lbs over weight with a family history of diabetes, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's. Dr. Pratt did a great job of making the science of nutrition accessible to me. I am really committed to the idea of using food as a preventative to keep me healthy.

I was leafing through this book in the book store and I thought it was so great I bought it in hard cover (I've since bought another copy for my parents). Since overhauling my diet by elimating processed food, reducing sugar, eliminating fast food while trying to eat at least 10 different super foods every day - I feel AMAZING. I've lost 50 lbs since July (7 to go!) and I have so much energy. It's a huge difference in how I look and feel.

So, Dr. Pratt - I don't know if you read these reviews, but you changed at least one life. Thanks.

7 years ago I moved to San Diego and was a ophhtalmic technician for Steve in his La Jolla practice. He was always stressing nutrition to his patients and to us. It felt like mom trying to get you to eat your veggies. In 1999 I was an overweight single mother overwhelmed by life and never really considered the direct correlation of what kind of energy-if any-that I was or was not getting from the junk that I ate. I remembered Steve telling a patient who wasn't thrilled with the foods on some of the liturature that we frequently distributed to our patients, he told her "if you can just commit yourself to 6 months of eating really healthy I promise it will never be tough for you to do it for life and you will feel so much better". I thought it was just another "trick" to get her to eat right.

Low and behold there is something to all this super food stuff! Years after leaving his practice and getting fatter and fatter I finally decided it certainly couldn't kill me to commit 6 months to it. Five years after working with him or even seeing him those words still rang in my head. This book wasn't out yet but I was armed with tons of his litrature abd ready to commit myself.

I went from about 240 pounds to 130 and have maintained it for two and a half years with little or NO effort. I feel fantastic, I have energy for the first time in my life, I am totally staisfied when I eat and have since learned to be quite a cook. I am actually far more obsessed with food than I ever was, but now I am obsessed with how I can use it to make myself and my family healthier. I get almost giddy everyday thinking "what can I make today!?" as silly as that sounds, it is true.

Make the commitment to live longer, stronger and with more energy than you have ever had before. I feel younger at 30 than I did at 20. Thanks Steve!!! I am finally eating my veggies like a good girl, took me 5 years to do it but I finally did it and you were right all along!