Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets Review

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(More customer reviews)This is so much more than a simple raw food cookbook or commentary on raw food diets. I was surprised at the amount of information packed into this book. It has all sorts of nutritional information and easy to read tables on just about anything you can imagine relating to this way of eating. Here are just a few titles of the tables included: Research summary of the effects of cooking on phytochemicals, Calories, protein, fat, carbohydrate and water in raw food (6 pages long), Fatty acid composition of selected foods, Vitamins in raw foods, Minerals in raw foods, Vitamins A,C,E,K, and D: adult dietary reference intakes and intakes on raw and high-raw diets. And those are just a few. I like tables because I can get information at a glance and compare different values so this is really a good book for me.
You don't have to be a total raw food convert to enjoy this book. Even if you're just thinking about adding more healthful raw foods to your diet, I think you'll find this book as useful as I have. It starts out with a history of the raw food movement, gives lots of scientific evidence on why it can be a healthy way of eating, and then goes on to give all kinds of information, things you've probably never even thought about, on incorporating raw foods into your diet or going totally raw. It tells you what you need to know if you do decide to take the plunge, about getting all the nutrients you need.
There is a small section with raw food recipes and another section with full meal menus which I found especially helpful. I'm not looking (yet) to totally adopt this kind of diet but I would like to add a lot more raw food to our everyday meals. The recipes are pretty easy and there are a good variety. A few that I've tried and enjoyed are: Caesar's Better Salad, Warm Red Cabbage Salad, Morocc-Un-Butter and Marvelous Muesli. There's also a section on handling raw food safely and another on food enzymes. It's all easy to read and understand.
There's a large reference section, a glossary and an index. To me, this is important because I want to know the science or studies behind statements, not just take the author at his word. This is a high quality book, probably the best I've found on this subject.

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This book contains a wealth of information on the raw food lifestyle. Nutrition experts Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina once again provide the essential information needed to safely embrace a new dietary lifestyle. As they did for vegetarians and vegans in Becoming Vegetarian and Becoming Vegan, they present the first authoritative look at the science behind raw foods. And both old converts to raw foods and new recruits alike will be fascinated with food historian Rynn Berry's presentation of the first narrative history of the rawfoods movement in the United States. More people are jumping onto the raw foods bandwagon either to lose weight, fight chronic health problems, or simply to benefit from the high level of nutrients found in uncooked or sprouted foods. Readers will find science-based answers to tough questions about raw foods and raw diets, easy-to-follow nutritional guidelines, and practical information on how to construct a raw diet that meets recommended nutrient intakes simply and easily. A section of over forty-five recipes provides dishes for any time of day and every occasion. Nutritional analyses are given for each recipe. Also included is a section on what foods and equipment are needed to get started and what raw food preparation basics are good to master. This book is a major contribution to the raw foods movement.

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Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating Review

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(More customer reviews)Review Summary: You would have a hard time finding someone in a better position to write this book. Dr. Willett is chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and he heads some of the most important long-term studies of how nutrition affects health. In this up-to-date book, you will learn what the latest research shows about how eating, alcohol use, exercise and not smoking can help you avoid some diseases and birth defects. The book also explains how to read the latest health headlines and interpret the studies they are based on in the future. The lessons are summarized into a Healthy Eating Pyramid that you will find easy to understand, apply, and remember. The book contains a lot of helpful information about how to shop for more nutritious and healthful foods, and easy-to-follow recipes. I was particularly impressed with the summaries of the data on how weight and eating relate to various diseases. The book's only obvious flaw is that it does not attempt to refine the overall research into subsegment groups like those with different blood types, different genetic tendencies, age levels, and so forth.
Review: Like Sugar Busters! this book takes a serious look at overcoming the tendency for having too many fast-absorbed carbohydrates (whether as baked potatoes or as a soft drink) overload your blood with sugars and depress your metabolism. Unlike the "avoid fat at any cost" diets, this one says to avoid bad fats (especially trans fat and saturated fats) and to use helpful fats (like unsaturated fats that are liquid at room temperature). You are also encouraged to seek out nuts as a source of vegetable protein. There is also a good discussion of the healthiest ways to acquire your protein. The beef v. chicken v. fish discussion is especially helpful. He is skeptical about the need for much in the way of dairy products (I was shocked to realize how much glycemic loading, creating sugar in your blood, is caused by skim milk), but favors vitamin supplements as inexpensive insurance. He shows that calcium supplements may not do as much as you think to avoid fractures. Exercise and not smoking are encouraged. Raw foods and ones that are slow to digest (whole wheat, for example) are encouraged among the fruit and vegatables, in particular.
The pyramid is contrasted to the one that the USDA adopted in 1992, which seems to be almost totally wrong. Apparently, it was developed based on a very limited research base. Since then, much has been learned.
I enjoyed reading about all of the long-term studies being done now to understand the connections among eating, lifestyle, and health. The next 10 years should radically revise the lessons summarized here, as Dr. Willett is quick to point out. The conclusions in this book, for example, are based on individual studies of eating, drinking, exercise and health rather than the long-term studies that he supervises and follows. So even those studies may show new things.
In one part of the book, he discusses the pros and cons of some of the popular diets. Some simply have not been tested for health effects, and he is candid in sharing what is not known as well as what is.
This book will be especially valuable to those who like to get their information from highly credible sources, especially from within the medical community. I think I'll give a copy to my physician, who has been advising me to reduce fats in the wrong way!
Although I don't consider myself very helpful in shopping for or preparing food, I learned a lot from the book about how our family can acquire better building blocks for a healthier diet.After you finish reading this book, think about where else in your life you may be following outdated information. How can you check? A good example is probably related to what you think it costs parents for children to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D. In many schools, all the costs are subsidized, and the students even get a living wage. How does that change your plans for encouraging your children's education?


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Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook Review

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(More customer reviews)Or squirrel even...this is the cookbook that you need. Originally from the 1930's, this was the basic cookbook for every housewife. It covers every possible type of food, including game meats like moose and squirrel, as well as some lost cooking arts, like knowing how to use a pressure cooker.
My grandmother and mother each owned one of these books, and it was one of the earliest cookbooks that I learned to use. It is thoroughly entertaining, and a great addition to any cookbook library. However, its biggest drawback is that it was written at a time when there were no shortcuts to cooking, and most people learned how to cook at an early age. The book assumes that the reader already has the basics down, so sometimes the directions are vague. And the recipes are not meant for our harried lifestyles. There are no shortcuts, such as using frozen foods or the microwave. They were written for at a time when women worked in the home, and cooking was a big part of their job.
For a novice cook, there are other books that are better able to give the direction that is needed; either The Better Homes and Gardens (ring-bound, black and red plaid cover!) and the big red Betty Crocker cookbooks start off with the basics and are easy to use. But if you are comfortable with cooking, and are familiar with the basics, this is really a fun book to have. You will find the recipes for all of your favorite "comfort foods"; a good macaroni and cheese, great mashed potatoes, even several different ways to serve hamburger. There are some really great cookie recipes, and when I am looking for something that I remember from childhood, I can always find it here. There is even a section on using leftovers, leftover from the lean years of the Depression. (I never knew there were so many ways to use weenies.)
And if the occasion ever presents itself when you need a recipe for reindeer and elk, you will know just where to find it.

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From the basic to the gourmet, from preparation to serving, it's all here, all presented in a clear, concise, simple manner. Includes 10,000 different rec ipes and countless food facts and ideas.

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