216 of 221 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
bah...never pay real money for a glorified brochure, May 11, 2004
First off, my credentials: I lost fifty pounds on this diet. This is a review of this guide, not of the diet.
The beginning part of the book gives a brief, peppy rundown on the diet itself. It has some good information, but the tone is irritating. The phrase 'doing Atkins' may be colloquially understood, but it sounds amateurish and is heavily overused. No opportunity to pimp Atkins brand products is passed up. The result had me on edge by the time I began reading the actual shopping guide, and then it got worse.
The useful parts are those dealing with raw foods, ones that don't involve 'branding' (that's corporate newspeak for "ramming the product name into your head and keeping it there," folks): fruits, basic meats, cheeses. Gouda is gouda; tofu is tofu; beets are beets. Unfortunately, even these parts suffer from some degree of measurement inconsistency.
If you're going to compare nutritional facts from item to item, you have to use the same size portions for each item in a class. It is no good referring to 1/2 cup of most vegetables, then switching to 'half a baked potato' or 'two tablespoons'. Sure, the reader can convert, but isn't that why I bought the book? Pick a half cup and stick with it. Or an ounce. A ton. I don't care, as long as it's consistent, and the book's measurements are often so inconsistent as to be impractical for reference.
Where the book really begins to go south is when it comes to any form of 'branded' food. Atkins Nutritionals, or whichever branch of the Atkins empire put this out, has naturally listed Atkins brand products first in every category. Okay, fine, we're big kids and can read past this obvious shill; but even so, a lot of the other name brand products evaluated are going to change as the market reacts. That's going to make a big chunk of this book obsolete. Plus, the obvious placement of Atkins brand stuff first leaves a lingering suspicion: how did they choose the brands for the book? I can't find a lot of them on my local shelves. Is it possible that the ones chosen were those that would look undesirable relative to Atkins brand products? I don't know; I'm not a professional nutritionist or supermarket chain buyer. All I know is that the array of choices sure makes the Atkins stuff look like the best in every category. Funny how that worked, eh?
The problem with low-carb dieting, at this writing, is that our food providers have decided to brand a lot of their products with the 'low-carb' label, as if merely saying so will make it so. The guide states, correctly, that this stems from a lack of regulation. A balanced, professionally written guide would have been a great step forward; the message urged upon the reader from nearly every page of this book--"Just buy ours!"--is a step backward.
Like any sales brochure, this should be free. Don't pay $7.50 for it.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a great help for the low-carb shopper, September 19, 2009
Although I've been on the Atkins Program before, I was still in the dark on what to buy when I was at the store. Eggs, meat, cheese, etc. for sure, but I wasn't aware of a lot of the other stuff I could employ in my Battle of the Bulge. This guide names names and gives good advice on whether or not you should buy it, even if you are allowed to employ it in your program.
One question I have is: I noticed it was published in 2004. Is some of this info still valid? Have there been updates or revisions since 2004? Nevertheless, it is a handy addition to my arsenal.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My go to guide!!, October 29, 2011
This is exactly what I use in place of labels that may have huge serving sizes and you need a conversion either up or down because the carb counts are more exact than the product labeling due to the fact that products are only required to list the count if above 1 gram by the FDA. This may not be the newest version but for general info especially on whole foods, it's great. Also contains counts of foods not recommended but for side by side comparison you can see just how much you may have been eating before. Bought several of the Atkin's books together but use this one everyday and the most as reference.
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