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Title: Health Food Junkies : Orthorexia Nervosa: Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating by M.D. Steven Bratman, David Knight ISBN: 0-7679-0630-6 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Balanced and Thought Provoking
Comment: If one were to believe the negative reviews below, one could get the impression that Dr. Bratman recommends living on burgers and fries alone. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Although this book is clearly written for a popular audience and is dominated by ancedotes, some of which may be a bit overly cute, the author does a very good job differentiating between the pursuit of a healthy diet (which he wholeheartedly approves of) and the elevation of diet into an ideology or religion, which is what he warns against. He supports his arguments both with scientific evidence and with personal observations.
Among my acquaintances I see a wide variety of diet styles from junk food aficionados to health conscious eaters to allergen obsessed orthorexics, and I could see this book, with its truly holistic perspective in choosing a diet to maximize overall well-being, being of interest to all of them.
Rating: 1
Summary: What a [story]
Comment: Do people have "orthorexia" or is it just that 99% of north american food supply is tainted? You can hardly enter a supermarket these days without taking home pesticides, hormone laced meats, farmed fish, foods that have enough additives to keep a drug addict happy.... "Natural food" is becoming a retronym. A thing of the past. Garbage food has become so prevalent in our society that to reject such food now constitutes a "disorder".
We have become one of the most unhealthy continents on the planet. People don't care about what they eat, as long as it's affordable and tastes good.
All that said. I *can* see how seeking ONLY pure food (especially given the vast rarity of it) can become an unhealthy obsession. Needle in a haystack anyone?
Rating: 4
Summary: The cure is worse than the disease?
Comment: When author Steven Bratman, M.D., first used the term "orthorexia nervosa" in
a magazine article, he got some confused responses. " 'I would like to use
the orthorexia you describe to cure my knee pain,' one caller said. 'I've
already cut out all deadly-nightshade vegetables, grains, sugar, caffeine,
meat, and nuts. Do you think I should go on a water fast one week each
month?' "
But as most of us can guess from its similarity to anorexia, orthorexia is not
an idealistic dietery theory but rather describes a problem: unhealthy
obsession with healthy diet. "To be perfectly honest, I intended the term
somewhat tongue in cheek, as a kind of sassy way to surprise clients who were
proud of their obsession and make them think twice about it," the author
explains.
Dr. Bratman is a conventionally trained M.D. and an alternative medicine
practitioner who himself spent many years adhering to idealistic, healing
diets such as macrobiotics (a complex diet that involves balancing yin and
yang, but you cook the food) and raw foods theory (never eat cooked foods).
Other sections deal with food allergies, the zone diet, candida, supplements,
tablets and magic substances (super blue-green algae, barley magma, sheep
thyroid, pregnenolone, ciwujia, spirulina, kombucha tea, and royal jelly among
many others). He maintains respect for many of these diets. He also says,
"Food allergy treatment can be a powerful healing approach that at times
appears to reduce symptoms dramatically in practically any illness." He does
not believe alternative medicine is a joke, and has success stories to tell
from his practice.
It's just that he started seeing a lot of people with a fixation on healthy
eating who had lost their perspective and balance. Could the cure be worse
than the disease?
He also says over and over that we should not go to the other extreme and
simply eat junk. "It is certainly not the point of this book to dispute the
value of healthy diet. Proper food choices can clearly reduce the risk of
cancer and heart disease, and may be able to prevent other major illnesses of
middle and later life. This is a well-known and incontestable fact. What I
do want to point out, however, is that there is a dark side to this reality,
an unintended consequence of the emphasis on eating properly. There is more
to life than reducing cancer risk. Too often this holistic perspective is
forgotten by those who emphasize that food is the best medicine."
Just what is this dark side? "One of the primary features of
orthorexia is the feeling that we are better than others because of
our fantastic diet. Since the rest of the world does not adhere to
the God-given laws of healthy eating (as we uniquely understand them),
we can't eat with the rest of the world. Besides, a great deal of our
identity is tied up in diet." And further, "The net effect is social
isolation. The ancient satisfaction of breaking bread with a friend
is denied us; we must either bring our own bread (a concoction of
potato flour, amaranth, and spelt that only an orthorexic could love)
or eat alone. This isolation is a real emotional harm caused by
orthorexia. As my health food guru realized in Chapter 1, 'Rather
than eat my sprouts alone, it would be better for me to share a pizza
with some friends.' A good half or more of the joy of life comes
from relationships; when orthorexia interferes with those
relationships, it causes a real impoverishment of our lives."
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Title: Appetites: Why Women Want by Caroline Knapp ISBN: 1582432252 Publisher: Counterpoint Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Raw by Charlie Trotter, Roxanne Klein, Tim Turner, Jason Smith ISBN: 1580084702 Publisher: Ten Speed Press Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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