How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss by Michael Greger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Let me preface this review by saying that Dr. Greger is my kind of nerd. I've been a fan of his books and NutritionFacts.org since I first became vegan four years ago. He is a consummate researcher who always leads with the best available body of research to support his claims and suggestions. I love his snarky, sometimes corny deadpan humor and his ability to take otherwise dry nutrition science and shine a light on the most exciting tidbits. How Not To Diet, like all of his other books, embodies all of this. Dr. Greger begins by fleshing out the causes, consequences and solutions to America's obesity crisis, laying the blame squarely in the lap of the meat-heavy, highly processed Standard American Diet. He then proceeds to flesh out the characteristics of an "ideal" weight loss diet - one that is safe, effective, health-promoting, and easy to adhere to. Once this foundation has been laid, Dr. Greger provides a list of (safe!) tips and tricks that can help further boost weight loss. He then ties it all together in a summary chapter, which can serve as a standalone TL;DR (too long, didn't read) for anyone who doesn't have the time to sit and wade through all of the information. While this book is geared towards those looking to lose weight, it can also serve as a beneficial resource for anyone looking to improve their health. It's also a great read for people who are interested in nutrition science. Every time I picked this book up, the nutrition geek in me would emerge, wide-eyed and child-like, excited to learn another fascinating piece of information. I took my time with this encyclopedic text so as to really savor each morsel of knowledge. This was absolutely necessary because the man gave us a veritable buffet of scientifically-backed information. Greger himself advises to treat this book as a reference, and the well-organized chapter structure makes it very easy to do just that. I have nothing but high praises for this book and would recommend it to any and everyone. View all my reviews
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Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by T. Colin Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Does any of this sound familiar?: "That has too many carbs," or "I need more protein to build muscle," or "I need some vitamin C, I feel a cold coming on." If so, then you're familiar with the concept of nutritional reductionism. It's when the constituent parts of foods - macronutrients, micronutrients - are considered more important than the whole food itself. This concept is a result of nutritional science's discoveries about the health benefits of certain vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Bolstered by a supplement and food industry which has sought to capitalize on these discoveries by selling these constituent parts individually, our concept of nutrition and proper eating has been seriously skewed. This is the argument made by Dr. T. Colin Campbell in his book Whole. That we've become so obsessed with carbs and fats and proteins and vitamins that we're unable to see that the real magic lies in the whole food itself. Of course, as this is a follow-up to his acclaimed China Study, Dr. Campbell is specifically discussing the nutritional power of whole plant foods. He argues that much is lost and a lot of confusion abounds in the public discussion of nutrition when we reduce foods down to their individual nutrients. Chock full of cool information about foods (who knew that apples were so fascinating?), Dr. Campbell aims to steer the conversation about nutrition and health towards the notion that it is the whole fruit, the whole vegetable, the whole grain, the whole legume, and inevitably, the whole diet that matters most for health outcomes. This book rejects the complicated, commercialized rhetoric of nutrition science in favor of something much simpler, and much more intuitive: to improve health, eat a diet based primarily on plant foods in their whole, unadulterated forms. That's it. This book was a pivotal, foundational text for my own whole food, plant-based lifestyle. I recommend it for anyone seeking to improve not only their knowledge, but also their relationship with food. View all my reviews
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars "We may believe that we make informed decisions about food choice, but we cannot do so if we are oblivious of the ways food companies influence our choices." For most Americans, the acts of choosing, purchasing and consuming food occur on auto pilot. While it may seem that we're making conscious, educated decisions regarding the foods we eat, this may be more illusion than fact. Nutritional misinformation and confusion abounds, and we've got the health outcomes to prove it. But how did we get here? In Food Politics, Marion Nestle tells the story of how politics have influenced the way we eat. Nestle delves into a variety of tactics used by the food industry in order to create a regulatory environment favorable for business. She provides ample evidence to show how our collective understanding of nutrition has been shaped more by what's beneficial to corporations than what's beneficial to our health. This book is an excellent summation of how the politics of food has evolved as industry has grown. Nestle also does a great job of showing how the decisions made by food companies, legislators, advertisers, and health professionals directly impact the choices consumers make when it comes to food. Though it's been almost two decades since its original publication, Nestle's pointed criticisms towards the unholy alliances between corporations and government remain relevant. I appreciate the fact that rather than simply throwing a bunch of problems at us, Nestle calls upon her expertise to provide recommendations for tackling the problems plaguing our nutritional landscape. While much of it remains unheeded, Nestle's suggestions are a solid blueprint for how we can create a society that promotes and supports healthy lifestyles. View all my reviews
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a story about addiction and greed. It's the story of how Americans (and inevitably the rest of the world) became unwitting pawns in the never-ending corporate quest for profits. It's about much more than how salt, sugar, and fat have been manipulated to make food more addicting. If you've ever looked around and asked yourself, 'how have we become so sick?', the answers can be found between the pages of this book. It's very well written and thoroughly researched, laying bare a lot of insider knowledge regarding exactly how processed food products have been invented and marketed to consumers. This can be a very empowering read for those who are still unaware of the harmful nature of much of what is sold to consumers as food. It can help one to take a closer, more critical look at the things that have become second nature and even ritualistic, from the foods that we choose to eat, to the frequent, mindless ways we've come to consume them. It's quite a shame that in spite of the damning nature of much of the information contained in this book, not much has changed. However, in the continued fight towards educating and empowering consumers to wrest back control of their nutrition and ultimately their health, this book is a powerful resource. View all my reviews
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend." - Wendell Berry The best thing about this book is its simplicity. It is not a diet book, and can even be classified as an anti-diet book. It is not a difficult text on nutrition science. It is as it claims to be: a defense of food. Food untouched by the unscrupulous capitalist aims of food corporations, free from the reductionist trappings of science & gov't-backed "nutritionism", and free from the pressures and prescriptions of well-meaning yet often misguided health officials. Michael Pollan's suggestion for better health and better life is simple: eat a diverse diet, rich in real, whole foods in their most natural state. No calorie counting, no minimizing food to their nutrient parts, no removing & refortifying or any of the other questionable methods of modern agriculture. Just clean, whole foods. Pollan's aim isn't to solve heart disease or hypertension or make a prescription for addressing obesity. He isn't even solely addressing the sick. He's talking to all of us who have been led away from the foods that our bodies need for optimal health, who have fallen victim to the perpetual need for cheap, fast, convenient food. He calls upon us all to truly examine our relationship with food, not just in a nutritional sense, but also within the context of family, culture, and ancestry. View all my reviews |
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February 2023
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