Rating: 
Summary: Great intro book
Review: Easy to read and a good book to use as a jump-off point for more specific readings catering to your individual vegetarian interests.
Rating: 
Summary: Includes information for infants, youth and adolescents
Review: First of all, I would like to thank the previous reviewer for a very thoughtful and complete review. I bought this book when my 13-year-old son asked me about going vegetarian. While I am a closet vegetarian, I would not have had a clue on what healthy, growing youth might require. What I found was a book that included sections, not just for vegetarian/vegan adolescents but also sections for: Infancy to two years: Children 2-10 years-old; as well as Adolescents Ages 11-17. This also includes appropriate warnings of what not to do for each age group. While #1-Son had not switched to a fully vegetarian life-style, we as a family have incorporated a much more healthy diet, due in great part to the information in this book. The cover says, " The complete guide to adopting a healthy vegetarian diet." I would add, " for the entire family".
Rating: 
Summary: Incomplete But Still Useful
Review: I have ample reason to be concerned about my health largely because of four ex-wives and the crazyness currently going on in my house between my bulldog (Colonel) and my current wife's annoying tabby (Bobo!). It doesn't help that I'm a beerswilling carnivore and largely a lazy couchloaf. Also complicating matters is the undeniable fact that my brooding spouse is a horrible cook and routinely serves beef-oriented t.v. dinners or worse (greaseburgers from the local fast food joint). That's where this handy tome comes in. One of the girls from the bar I've been seeing on the sly has been trying to get me to start incorporating more vegetables in our relationship (in addition to the meat) and suggested several books (not this one) to help me get started. While those books had some value, this book really told me what I needed to know about the nutritional values of various vegetarian diets and how to make up for the nutirtion I would be losing by giving up meat. It's very informative, well-written, easy to understand, but somewhat short on recipes. As I've mentioned, Bessie isn't a very good cook--even when she has cook-by-numbers recipes (which basically means, even if this book had recipes it wouldn't be of much value to her) and that's too bad. Nevertheless, this is a very informative book and has surprisingly convinced me that it is possible to maintain nutrition while maintaining an all-vegie diet. Unfortunately, the recipes in this book (and those I found in several others) have failed to convince me that any of these vegie diets taste any better than the leaves and grass in my backyard. As a result, I've scrapped the vegetarian route, started cooking for myself, stopped worrying about my health, and I'm staying away from the girls at the bar.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, even for someone who hates to read
Review: I thought that this book was excellent. I fully made the change with very few problems. I did still have an issue with low iron, but I believe that is one of the most common problems. This book was very thorough. From what foods are really good, to how much, and even how to prepare. First thought was that they seem to give very limited food ideas, but once you realize that they are creating a foundation, the world opens up and grows. Very good info on the protein myths, etc. Only thing that I found very humorous was the social situations. Yes, skip that part, if you are like me, but otherwise, they are pretty funny.
Definitely the best going Vege book there is..........
Rating:
Summary: Best nutritional based book!
Review: I thought this book was very thorough, yet easy to follow. Every recipe I've made has been very delicious. I was a vegetarian for 6 years before I became pregnant and began to eat meat for fear I wouldn't get enough protein my babe needed. I wish I had this book then, as the authors lay out precisely what you need for nourishment. My son and I now have a great reference so we can be healthy lacto-ovo vegetarians, and possibly convert my husband as well!
Rating:
Summary: Great intro book
Review: Read the previous reviews for a clear and sometimes thorough description of what you will find in this book (bypass other comments of much less value, that you will easily spot). Read on for more general and in-principle comments on the text. This book is a clear, concise, thorough, practical, no-nonsense book about nutrition. The underlying idea and the scientific ground of vegetarianism is built and reinforced as one proceeds through the book. The laudable approach is indeed to give solid reasons for a vegetarian preference, instead of freely attacking diet based on food of animal origin. The text is ideal for people who have started to change or are thinking to change their relationship with food, who have started to demolish old beliefs about food of animal origin and need a solid ground to be able to contrast negative pressure coming from inside themselves, from family members, from friends and from society. With this book you will learn in an easy, pleasant, and often funny way the chemistry in our body of vitamins, minerals, metals, proteins, essential ammino acids, lipids (fats), fibers. This is fundamental to be able to throw away old false beliefs and substitute them with the pretty obvious (once you are enlightened) conclusion that eating lower in the food chain is a habit perfectly tuned to the chemistry of our body, to the ultimate sole possible realisation that nature made (healthy) humans vegetarian. Read this book and to you it will be common sense to refuse old tests and studies made on rats "proving" that animal proteins are superior (do we really need the same protein that they need to grow their thick hair?) and to just look at a picture (you will not find them in the book, though!) of a Gorilla, our Body Builder cousin, which by the way is a vegan, or of an elephant, who rarely suffer from osteoporosis, lives a long life, has a very good memory and, again, is a vegan. A final word. This book is ultimately a guide to be healthy and energetic. But why giving up meat and keeping a little of the old beliefs and continuing with milk and eggs? Why not going for the 100% energy availability that nature is ready to give us, if we stick to the lower end of the food-chain? If you are a person aiming at an excellent health, you are missing a lot: you are giving away an outstanding health and an oustanding energy availability. A Pure Vegetarian nutrition is the complete disgregation of obsolete, wrong beliefs that, consciously or unconsciously, some people have instilled in our mind. Be in charge of your ideas about the world in and around you, starting from where it is more important: breathing, drinking, eating, moving, thinking, communicating.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent choice!!!!!
Review: This book is an excellent choice to read if you're even the least bit interested in eating properly for good health! It explains everything you need to know about being a vegetarian. I really like how it goes into great detail in each chapter about the foods our body needs and how to replace protein and dairy when restricing meats and dairy and eggs from your diet. The recipes are great! Even my meat-eating husband has liked some. The information on feeding vegetarian and vegan children is very helpful. This book would be great even if a person was still a non-vegetarian in that it explains so much about what our bodies need daily to be healthy. Recommend to everyone!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent choice!!!!!
Review: This book is an excellent choice to read if you're even the least bit interested in eating properly for good health! It explains everything you need to know about being a vegetarian. I really like how it goes into great detail in each chapter about the foods our body needs and how to replace protein and dairy when restricing meats and dairy and eggs from your diet. The recipes are great! Even my meat-eating husband has liked some. The information on feeding vegetarian and vegan children is very helpful. This book would be great even if a person was still a non-vegetarian in that it explains so much about what our bodies need daily to be healthy. Recommend to everyone!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Beginners
Review: This book is an excellent resource for beginning vegetarians who are dealing with a lot of new questions -- will this diet be adequate for me nutritionally? do I need to take supplements? what will I tell mom (hee hee)? This book tries to answer all the big questions, and does so quite admirably. It does have a few recipes at the back, which are not bad, but certainly, this is not a cookbook per se. For those looking for a ton of recipes instead of advice, I'd be more likely to recommend The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook (by Diana Shaw), a wonderful book full of tips, tricks, ingredients, glossaries, and 600 low fat recipes, many of which are adaptations of old favourites. Getting both these books would be an excellent beginning to any new vegetarian's bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: THE vegetarian book to have!!!
Review: This is an excellent book. I decided to become vegetarian a few years ago both for health and ethical reasons and this one one of the first books I bought - its remained the one I turn to over and over again - especially when friends or relatives questions how healthy a vegetarian diet is and I need to educate them. Some of the most fascinating parts of this book talk about the history of the current meat-based diet and how the government pushed it and helped market meats of all sorts to get people to buy more (to help farmers out). Also though there is great info on how much protien a person actually needs and where you can get it from - its actually pretty easy to get all the protien you need over the course of a day. Since becoming vegetarian (really almost vegan except for the eggs I get from a lady down the street who really takes wonderful care of her chickens) I've never felt better. My husband has even voluntarily made the switch as well (spurred on by a few episodes of food poisoning at the local sandwich shop). Vegetarian is the way to go and this book will give you ALL the info you need to get rolling and keep others quiet when they criticize. Bon sante and Bon appetit!
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