Nutrition for Life

by Lisa Hark and Darwin Deen

Book Overview

A physician and a nutritionist team up to provide readers with up-to-date, sound advice on healthful eating and weight loss. This bible of good nutrition features a user-friendly split-page format and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0756605229
• ISBN13: 9780756605223
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Healthy, balanced and simple...

I found this to be one of the easier nutrition books to understand. I liked the fact that there were chapters for different people, ie toddlers, teenagers, woman etc. The pictures and recipes were also very good, but yet simple.

Somewhat dull

This is good for those who don't really know much about nutrition and want to start anew. For anyone else who's already learned the basics but wants extra information, see if this is at your local library first. I was disappointed.

This book takes a very medical approach

For sure now, five times a day I will be eating fruits and vegetables. NUTRITION FOR LIFE admits that being overweight can be a big problem, and that high blood pressure (defined on page 214 as greater than 140/90mmHg) is one problem that is directly related to having a body mass that overwhelms the cardiovascular system often enough to make cardiovascular disease the number one killer in North America. I am old enough, heavy enough, male and interested enough in the future to notice that whole grains, nuts, seeds, and dry beans are supposed to be good for this condition. The word "Potassium" appears five times on page 220, which also has a chart showing serving sizes, like three and a half oz. (100g) cooked meat, for The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). Sticking to this diet is supposed to be effective enough to reduce "diastolic blood pressure (the lower measurement of blood pressure, taken between heartbeats when the heart is relaxed) by up to 5mmHg," (p. 220). The DASH diet is effective for people with high blood pressure that ranged from 140/90 to 159/99mmHg. If I exercised more, my blood pressure might drop to that range someday, right? The Food Analysis charts at the end of the book start with grain, and a cup of cooked bulgar has only 151 kcal but 8.2 grams of fiber, so making a bowl of Tabbouleh according to the recipe on the whole grain bulgar cracked wheat package (keeps best refrigerated or frozen) I bought today seemed like a nice experiment, using my imagination and baby spinach leaves because I did not have 3 cups finely minced Parsley. I'm sure people eat this stuff because I have gone to restaurants that had a bowl bigger than any of mine in the salad section. Even Parsley, freeze-dried, is on the food chart with 4 kcal, though a quarter cup does not have a gram of anything tabulated. The index on pages 328-335 helps locate foods in the chart. Trying to find why bananas would be my ideal food is not easy just using the Index, unless I look up blood-sugar levels, which is also a problem for me, and the glycemic index does not say anything about bananas. I want the next page, about soluble fiber, gut flora, and the feeling of fullness caused by fiber-rich foods. This tells me what page to look for to learn how a high-fiber diet helps prevent diabetes. The Diabetes Meal Planner on page 249 suggests half a medium banana at breakfast, yogurt for a snack in the morning, but "If you would like a small glass of 100 percent juice, skip the fruit." As a final try, the index has a few entries for potassium (K). Men and women need 3,500mg per day. Good sources include potatoes, spinach, and red meat, but bananas might give me enough potassium to help lower and control blood pressure. Bananas also have chromium (Cr), which "helps insulin bind to its receptors on the membrane of body cells, which then allows for the sugar glucose to move into the cell where it is used to produce energy for the cell's needs."

FINALLY, A DEFINITIVE BOOK ON NUTRITION

It's about time a book was written clearing up all the confusion about what to actually eat. It's the only book that I've read, and I've read them all, that provides an honest and accurate assessment of 45 of the most popular diets. It taught me exactly what I need to eat to be healthier, happier, feel better and live longer, not to mention information on almost every medical condition, and how we eat impacts each specific medical condition. It's like a one volume encyclopedia, with everything you need from birth to reach a ripe, healthy old age. I bought a copy for my friend who has a young children, my grown daughter living on her own in NYC, and my 79 year old Mother. There's something for everyone in this book, and one of the best parts is how incredibly user friendly it is.

Great guidelines for healthy living

This book is for people interested in improving their overall life style. This is not a diet book with predetermined meals and strict guidelines on dieting. This is an educational helpful guidebook for those who have done the strict and sometimes drastic diets and want a more balanced rational alternative. The authors include reviews of some of the popular diets. Although, this book does not contain that many recipes, it does contain directions on healthy food preparation. Dr. Hark and Deen do give recipe examples and covers nutritional guidelines for each age group, including pregnant women and new mothers. It is nice to know there are nutritionists who believe that people are capable of thinking and acting for themselves rather than needing very restrictive instructions. The only criticism I have is that the weight table does not take into account body types, which does change the weight table range.