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Title: Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Food, Diet, and Nutrition by Andrew Weil M.D. ISBN: 0-375-40754-5 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 07 March, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.15 (116 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Misinformation Galore
Comment: America's best known medical advocate of alternative medicine espouses his ideas of what healthy eating should be for all people in this popular book. Unfortunately, despite his somewhat iconoclastic stance in medicine, he offers a very politically-correct diet for people to follow and his book is filled with misinformation and bad advice.
In the beginning of the book, Weil discusses the debate between low-fat and high-fat diet advocates. He gives a little rundown of the squabbles between Dr Dean Ornish (the low-fat camp) and Dr. Robert Atkins (the high-fat camp). He says that, "Both sides have their sets of studies to draw from." Weil tries to distance himself from the low-fat camp but, basically, his book is all about low-fat eating. Oddly enough, even though he admits that the high-fat folk have studies to back up their claims, he never delves into them.
Weil's advice on fats is to avoid saturated fats at all costs. He bashes butter on page 113, saying that, "Butterfat in the Western diet . . . is probably the greatest single contributor to the overload of saturated fat responsible for the high rates of cardiovascular disease in our societies." He offers no supporting references for these claims. If he bothered to do a little research, he'd see that butter consumption declined considerably in America during the time when heart disease rates began escalating. What Americans were eating more of during that time was margarine and processed vegetable oils--not more animal fat. (1)
He then commits a most egregious error. He rightly warns people away from trans-fatty acids but then states that, " Butterfat is also one of the natural sources of trans-fatty acids." Weil is confusing artificially generated trans-fatty acids with the naturally occuring ones in butter and cream which our bodies handle with no problem.
Nowhere in his butter bashing is there a discussion of the fat-soluble vitamins, beneficial fatty acids, or trace minerals present in butter.
In his section titled "The Worst Diet In the World," the top of the list is given to, "A glut of saturated fat in the form of cheese, butter, cream, and other whole milk products, along with a lot of beef and unskinned chicken. That will ensure that most people will develop unhealthy levels of serum cholesterol and increased risks of cardiovascular disease" (p.148). Dr. Weil obviously needs to be educated about what causes heart disease . . . and what does not. Studies have not shown that saturated fatty acids cause heart disease (2) and people will be missing out on good, healthy food by following his advice. In Weil's view, the only allowable fats are olive and fish oils, and some nuts.
In his section on protein, he makes the common, but incorrect, claim that excess dietary protein causes kidney damage and osteoporosis. He also claims that, "Traditional Inuit, who eat large amounts of animal protein along with their fat, have severe osteoporosis" (p. 106). No references are given for this lie.
On page 109 he instructs readers not to eat organ meats, not because of their cholesterol content, but because of "possible concentrations of heavy metals, environmental toxins, and infectious agents [like Mad Cow Disease]." It never occurs to him to seek out organic sources of organ meats, true superfoods that are loaded with nutrients like vitamin A, carnitine, CoQ10, and the B complex vitamins.
The book takes on an unintentional comic turn when he relates the story of a Japanese MD who switched to a mostly vegetarian diet. She claimed that a massage therapist could tell she didn't eat meat because her flesh "felt" different from a meat-eaters! Assuming the story is true, what, pray tell, is the definition of "meat-eater's flesh" and how does one "sense" it?!
In his section titled "The Best Diet In the World," he presents a very skewed version of the Paleolithic diet (a la Loren Cordain and Boyd Eaton) and an equally wrong version of the traditional Japanese diet which he claims has "less than 10% fat, very little meat, and no milk or milk products." Has he ever been to Japan? Has he ever really studied what Japanese people eat? Obviously not (3).
Of course, Weil pushes soy foods of all types in his book. He does admit that some research shows that soy's phytoestrogens might be causative or contributing factors in some forms of breast cancer, but he quickly brushes it aside and makes the usual grandiose, but unproven, claims for soy.
Dr. Weil ends up hawking what he thinks is the Mediterranean Diet, based on the questionable research done decades ago by Ancel Keys. Instead of checking cookbooks from that part of the world (which show what real people eat as opposed to what ivory-tower intellectuals think they eat), he relies on second-hand information which is very wrong.
He finishes off the book with 85 recipes. Despite his liking for olive oil, many of the recipes call for canola oil instead.
This book is so full of misinformation that it cannot be recommended to anyone. Avoid it if you want to get and maintain "optimal health."
1. S. Rizek et al. Fat in today's food supply. J Am Oil Chem Soc, 51:244, 1974.
2. G Taubes. The soft science of dietary fat. Science, March 31, 2001, 291:5513 2536-45; U Ravnskov. The Cholesterol Myths (New Trends Publishing; USA), 2001.
3. S Fallon and MG Enig. Inside Japan. Wise Traditions, 2:3, 2001, 34-42.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Information for optimal Health
Comment: Dr. Weil is well informed about the subject he deals with in this book. His belief that diet can prevent the epidemic of many diseases we see on the rampage seems to be astonishingly accurate. The increases rates of cancer can be attributed partially to the lack of many essential micronutrients the body's defense system requires. Certain types of oils and fats we are consuming could be the culprit for the western civilization heart attack epidemic. On of the things Dr. Weil made me acutely aware of is the danger of processed foods and their additives. They are amlost all deleterious to our health. Food manufactures use them for economical reasons while the health of their costumers suffer. Yes, modern medicine is a very powerful tool. My concern is that many of our expensive medical treatments would not be necessary if we would simply provides our bodies with what they need to tak care of themselves. You will hear much of what you have heard before, but now you will understand the siginifigance of it. You will also become acutely aware of many other dietary truths that will aid you on your path to better health. My only gripe is that Dr. Weil provides an obvious affinity for eastern trains of thought and much liberalism at the same time. Besides that I commend this book to everyone.
Rating: 2
Summary: McDougal Redux
Comment: I was sucked in on this one. And disappointed. This is largely evangelism; I would imagine that the program rarely fails because it is rarely truly tried. Having already tried McDougal, I am not willing to put myself through the grind that this book offers. I didn't understand that this was a virtual-vegan diet (at least for the first few months). I lost ground on the low-protein no-fat regime, and my body does better with high quality protein. I'm sure this must help someone, but I don't know who.
I wonder whether in the year 2015 we will have learned why some people can be healthy as vegans, and some people come alive when they up their meat intake and drop the grains and carbs. It will be great if we can stop the strident screaming. I can't rate this highly when it doesn't deliver.
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Title: 8 Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil M.D. ISBN: 0449000265 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 16 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and Spirit by Andrew Weil, Rosie Daley ISBN: 0375413065 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Vitamins and Minerals by M.D. Andrew Weil ISBN: 0804116725 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: 28 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Spontaneous Healing : How to Discover and Embrace Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself by Andrew Weil M.D. ISBN: 0804117942 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 04 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Natural Health, Natural Medicine by Andrew T. Weil ISBN: 0395911559 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 20 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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