Synopses & Reviews
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid is one of the most recognizable icons in America today, seen everywhere from the backs of cereal boxes to elementary school displays to graduate school textbooks. Millions of Americans try to eat six to eleven servings of grains daily, three servings of milk or cheese, and so on. You may be one of them.
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy tells you why the pyramid is wrong. Not merely wrong, but wildly wrong. And not just wildly wrong, but even dangerous. Most important, the book provides a new one in its place, a new food pyramid derived from decades of research by Harvard Medical School and Harvard's School of Public Health. In Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, Dr. Walter Willett, one of the world's most distinguished experts on nutrition, tells you why eggs are not the poison the public has been taught, and why some margarines are a lot worse than you thought. He tells you why the oil in a potato chip can be better for you than the potato, tells you what is good about nuts and bad about too much milk. Dr. Willett builds a general set of dietary guidelines that makes sense out of the welter of conflicting nutritional advice bombarding us daily -- not merely from the USDA, but from books and physicians preaching everything from banishing carbohydrates to ultra lowfat diets. He shows how none of this nutritional advice has prevented an epidemic of obesity in America today.
Based on research gleaned from the world-famous Nurses' Health Study, the Physicians' Health Study, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study -- studies that tracked hundreds of thousands of people for more than twenty years -- and supported by dozens of other surveys and investigations, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy offers eye-opening new research on the healthiest forms of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and the relative importance of various food groups and supplements. You'll learn why weight control is the single most important nutritional factor and what the three other critical factors of healthy eating are. You'll find out how to choose wisely between different types of fats, which combinations of fruits and vegetables provide the best health insurance, and how to integrate these into your daily diet. You'll even find specific advice for diabetics, people with hypertension, pregnant women, and nursing mothers. And all of it is translated into simple menu plans and more than fifty tasty recipes that make utilizing the new food pyramid a pleasure.
Unique and authoritative, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy will teach everyone a new and fun way to eat.
Review
Susan Roberts, Ph. D.
senior scientist, Energy Metabolism Laboratory, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University
Dr. Willett describes a way to eat that is both delicious and healthy. Many nutritional scientists will strongly dispute Dr. Willett's contention that our national symbol of healthy eating, the USDA Food Pyramid, is unhealthy. However, very few will deny that the prescription in this book is a good one.
Review
Mollie Katzen
author of Moosewood Cookbook
Finally we can step away from the hype and confusion of fad diets and turn instead to a solidly researched guide we know we can trust. I am grateful to Dr. Willett and his associates for making this information so clear and accessible. Throw away your other volumes; this is all you will need.
About the Author
Walter C. Willett, M.D., is chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School. A world-renowned researcher, he is one of the leaders of the famous Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Dr. Willett has won many honors, including the Mott Prize, the prestigious award of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation.
Table of Contents
ContentsAcknowledgmentsPreface
CHAPTER ONE Introduction
CHAPTER TWO What Can You Believe About Diet?
CHAPTER THREE Healthy Weight
CHAPTER FOUR Surprising News About Fat
CHAPTER FIVE Carbohydrates for Better and Worse
CHAPTER SIX Choose Healthier Sources of Protein
CHAPTER SEVEN Eat Plenty of Fruits and Vegetables
CHAPTER EIGHT You Are What You Drink
CHAPTER NINE Calcium: No Emergency
CHAPTER TEN Take a Multivitamin for Insurance
CHAPTER ELEVEN Summary
CHAPTER TWELVE Recipes and Menus
CreditsFurther Reading
General Index
Recipe Index