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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2008
I was excited to find this book, which I suppose made my disappointment with the amount of axe-grinding it contains all the greater. Let's just look at one thing--the authors' antagonism to vegetarianism.
On p. 28, the authors write, " Vitamin B12 deficiency has been found in breast-fed infants of strict vegetarians" and cite something that pretends to be a study: [Vitamin B12 deficiency in the breast-fed infant of a strict vegetarian.] Nutr Rev. 1979 May;37(5):142-4. Well, I went and looked this up at PubMed, the NIH's database of all articles published in peer-reviewed journals. And guess what? It's about ONE PERSON. The author didn't even deign to sign his name to it. It looks like some kind of anecdote that was written up and sent in. Not good. Certainly not proof that breast-fed infants of strict vegetarians are vitamin B12 deficient. But let's move on. Maybe they have something else to back up the other somewhat inflammatory statements they make about vegetarianism.
According to the authors, when Hindus moved from "unsanitary" India to "sanitary" Britain (their words) in 1979, they came down with pernicious anemia in droves because their food was no longer full of bugs, as it was back in the Old Country. What is their proof of this? Something called Nature's Way, 1979, 10:20-30. This appears to be a popular magazine instead of a peer-reviewed journal, and once again, no authors are listed.
Later, on p. 29, the authors make the statement that "Strict vegetarianism is particularly dangerous for growing children and for women--and men--during their child-producing years." What do they offer to back up this statement? Nothing. No reference of any kind.
The authors go on to attack the cultivation of grains and legumes as "a far more serious threat to humanity" (yes, really!) than raising cattle because, according to them, growing these plants "depletes the soil." I guess the authors don't know that legumes fix nitrogen from the air and are typically grown as a green manure. They also state that grains and legumes "require the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides." Apparently these authors have never heard of organic grains and legumes.
The authors do cite valid articles, but many of them are more than 20 years old, which is the Pleistocene when you are doing research. This does not even to touch upon the occasions when the authors cite articles they themselves have written to back up their arguments. That is not okay.
I should have known better than to buy a book with the words "political correctness" in the title. This phrase has become the general term of abuse for every self-serving, axe-grinding argument for the past two decades. And so it is here.
The authors of this book apparently intended readers to be impressed by the very fact that they used citations. Maybe they figured nobody was going to check any of their references and we would all be bowled over by their very presence. The authors need to understand that citations to garbage make their work garbage. When they lie like this about one thing because they apparently really, really, really want to make a particular point, they undermine everything else they have said.
Too bad. This could have been a really neat book. I gave it a few stars for the recipes.
On p. 28, the authors write, " Vitamin B12 deficiency has been found in breast-fed infants of strict vegetarians" and cite something that pretends to be a study: [Vitamin B12 deficiency in the breast-fed infant of a strict vegetarian.] Nutr Rev. 1979 May;37(5):142-4. Well, I went and looked this up at PubMed, the NIH's database of all articles published in peer-reviewed journals. And guess what? It's about ONE PERSON. The author didn't even deign to sign his name to it. It looks like some kind of anecdote that was written up and sent in. Not good. Certainly not proof that breast-fed infants of strict vegetarians are vitamin B12 deficient. But let's move on. Maybe they have something else to back up the other somewhat inflammatory statements they make about vegetarianism.
According to the authors, when Hindus moved from "unsanitary" India to "sanitary" Britain (their words) in 1979, they came down with pernicious anemia in droves because their food was no longer full of bugs, as it was back in the Old Country. What is their proof of this? Something called Nature's Way, 1979, 10:20-30. This appears to be a popular magazine instead of a peer-reviewed journal, and once again, no authors are listed.
Later, on p. 29, the authors make the statement that "Strict vegetarianism is particularly dangerous for growing children and for women--and men--during their child-producing years." What do they offer to back up this statement? Nothing. No reference of any kind.
The authors go on to attack the cultivation of grains and legumes as "a far more serious threat to humanity" (yes, really!) than raising cattle because, according to them, growing these plants "depletes the soil." I guess the authors don't know that legumes fix nitrogen from the air and are typically grown as a green manure. They also state that grains and legumes "require the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides." Apparently these authors have never heard of organic grains and legumes.
The authors do cite valid articles, but many of them are more than 20 years old, which is the Pleistocene when you are doing research. This does not even to touch upon the occasions when the authors cite articles they themselves have written to back up their arguments. That is not okay.
I should have known better than to buy a book with the words "political correctness" in the title. This phrase has become the general term of abuse for every self-serving, axe-grinding argument for the past two decades. And so it is here.
The authors of this book apparently intended readers to be impressed by the very fact that they used citations. Maybe they figured nobody was going to check any of their references and we would all be bowled over by their very presence. The authors need to understand that citations to garbage make their work garbage. When they lie like this about one thing because they apparently really, really, really want to make a particular point, they undermine everything else they have said.
Too bad. This could have been a really neat book. I gave it a few stars for the recipes.
