Rating: 
Summary: Abundant variety not boring deprivation!
Review: Eat More, Weigh Less will speak directly to all those folks who have been struggling to feel better, achieve a healthful weight and gain more energy while trying to sort through the conflicting, confusing onslaught of dietbook information. Dr. Dean Ornish suggests an eating lifestyle not a diet, based on whole, unprocessed grains, vegetables, fruits, legumes including soy, and nonfat dairy foods that is easy to follow, abundant in variety, and packed with nutrients. The book contains great recipes and cooking tips from nationaly known chefs, that are easy to follow and include nutrient information so that you know exactly what you are eating. While fat is not used in the recipes, wonderful flavor is created from the garlic, herbs, spices and combinations of ingredients. One is able to eat well and feel satisfied without indulging in high fat, high calorie foods, and without feeling deprived or hungry. The only limiting factor to enjoying this type of eating would be one's imagination! This is a wonderful resource for anyone who is pursuing good health, an increased sense of energy and well being, and an expanded repetoire of delicious recipes!
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry to Say, A Book Not Really for Humans :(
Review: Eat More, Weigh Less. In logic, it is difficult at best to prove a negative proposition, yet Dr. Ornish believes that eating more of certain foods will cause someone to weigh less. Of the 425 pages in this book, 345 of them are vegetarian recipes. The first 80 pages are assorted essays and anecdotes about the doctor's personal beliefs for changing the American Diet.
A prominent doctor at the University of Washington division of metabolism, endocrinology and nutrition commented in his seminar in 2003 that diets that are high in protein, such as Dr. Ornish's, are "not palatable," and that dieters usually are never able to endure such foods for more than two months. He and other medical doctors who specialize in nutrition continually state that a balanced diet, consisting of all three of the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and protein) is the only consistent manner in which to lose weight and keep it off while the body's biological defenses against weight loss "fight" the attempt to lower the basal metabolism setpoint. There are no categorically 'bad' foods, only bad quantities. When the body is in a ketogenic state, where necessary carbohydrates are removed from the diet and the body is dipping into skeletal tissue for survival (since the body jealously defends its fat stores), it puts the person in a state of continual apprehension borderline on the primal hunter-gather mode. And that is the kind of person I would not want to be around--nor become, based on the kind of diet presented in Dr. Ornish's book. The U of W doctor said going on a diet such as this is like holding one's breath: it can be done only for so long, then the instincts kick in and override personal willpower. When you're fighting biology, biology wins every time--no matter how long it takes.
At the beginning of this book, Dr. Ornish summarily dumps a list of over one hundred names on us, an over-the-top list of contributors and "people I'd like to thank." Professional writers are never this obsequious; they pick a few people that were most helpful during composition, and that's all; otherwise, the author is revealing a fear that he won't be taken seriously. No one would actually _read_ through such a cumbersome list!
Basically, "Eat more..." is a subtle attempt to convert those who enjoy a regular diet to vegetarians, instantly dismissing all the foods that have proven themselves capable of providing delicious, satisfying meals for centuries (p. 33): all kinds of meats including chicken and fish(!), oils (including olive oil, a supplement known to be the highest source of monounsaturated fat, and known for preserving the heart), avocados, olives(!), nuts and seeds (get out of town!), all dairy products, all sugar derivatives, alcohol, or "any commercially available product with more than two grams of fat per serving." After following such a diet, I would look like a victim of Stalag 13, a skeleton, miserable and malnourished, devoid of any desire to live. Hardly a subject to instill happiness, let alone good health. I wish that books like this would just quit being written!
I understand that many authors have their own ideas of how we should eat, but they are just not realistic. No one is really capable of building a consistent lifestyle around these diets for very simple reasons: 1) The recipes take too long to make. 2) The ingredients are hard to find in the local supermarket, and if found 3) cost just as much or more than a delicious frozen meal, fully prepared, and 4) cleanup time is increased over a ready-to-eat meal. I must heartily agree with all the lowest rated reviews of this book, for I admire their courage to speak their minds and tell the truth about the real world.
All that aside, my strongest disagreement with the author is that we are supposed to do nothing while we eat--no TV, no books, no conversations with the family. What? How is this supposed to make a meal enjoyable as the author claims? I like to read while I eat, or watch TV or a movie, or have intelligent conversation with family and friends. The author says that we are incapable of enjoying eating and doing something else at the same time. What? Sounds like "Dr." Ornish is used to solitary confinement. Okay, if that's his thing, it's certainly not the rest of us.
Food science and technology has advanced tenfold since this book was first printed. Today's prepared meals, both in boxes for supplementation with vegetables, meat, fish or chicken, and frozen foods have never tasted so good and at the same time providing necessary carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Face it, without proper balances of all the macronutrients, and not removal of fats or carbohydrates, the human diet will not be provided with the nutritional requirements capable of sustaining human life--let alone a truly satisfying dietary regimen. "Eat more..." basically eliminates the highest sources of protein from red meat or poultry or fish, even nuts, thereby throwing the body's precise hormonal and neurotransmitter balances out of whack. These crucial substances--hormones and neurotransmitters--come from the very foods we eat, so if we eliminate the foods we need to survive and feel good--well, does that explain why certain people are extremely moody, irritable, depressed or suffering from insomnia or other seemingly unexplained health problems? The book fails to mention the other side of the story, which is not only unfair to its readers, but violates the silent oath that authors and publishers have taken to present fair, unbiased and _complete_ information.
I wonder how many people are actually living off a diet like this because they truly enjoy it, and not because they only want to lose weight so they can appear more attractive to the opposite sex. What is the real motivation to lose weight, besides the dangers of morbid obesity?
For me, personally, the regular Joe, there is simply no way that I'm going to spend an hour or two after a busy day to make one meal. I'm a bachelor, and for single people this book is totally preposterous. Not to mention that the ingredients required for the recipes in this book spoil after only a few days, while the prepared meals available today have a shelf life of months or even years. The foods we buy now that the food service industry and the FDA have ensured are the safest, most nutritious and delicious foods in the world. They are even prepared so as to preserve the enzymes we need to digest them--and again, our author fails to mention anything related to this subject, so the cause for the omission is obvious. Anyone who marks that as "unhelpful" is clearly marking their own bias and ignorance, since I have absolutely no motivation to lie--nor have I found any scientific evidence to support the author's vegetarian lifestyle as genuinely beneficial to complete health.
If I were to abandon what I know is a sound diet (okay, so I eat junk food once in a while--because I like the TASTE), I would never again have a day of fun in my whole life. Give up hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and delicious salmon dinners? Lobster? Holiday treats during the Christmas season? Eggnog? Ice cream? "Not a chance, Mr. Ornish!" (sounds like a great title for a book I may write). Any impurities in my diet are purged by eating oats and grains, namely from today's delicious breakfast cereals. So when I'm 80 or 90 or 100 and still going off a red meat/sugar/processed foods diet and the vegetarians have died from improper nutrition, I will have irrefutably rejected the book's underlying premise without a word. And I'll be smiling the whole time. :)
If you look at the list of the hundreds of second-hand copies of this book that are available for a penny, that gives an accurate measure of the book's worth in the real world.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many false statements in these reviews
Review: For one, animal protien is no better than plant protien, and there is nothing unique in it. In fact, despite what that reviewer said, soy beans contain all of the amino acids in comparable proportions to meat. Not that anyone is lacking in protien. The world health organization set the RDA for protien at 5% of your calories, and they'd doubled it to allow for absorbtion discrepencies based on genetics and source. You know, "just in case". Even iceburg lettuce has over 20% of it's calories from protien. And per calorie broccoli has more protien than steak. Honestly unless you only eat potatoes, you should be getting well over what you need, and actually I think if you still ate adequate calories that there's enough protien in potatoes too..Second, vitamin B12 is not "only found in animal products". Animal products are not a reliable source of B12. Nothing is. B12 is only produced by a certain bacteria. You have to have a supplement of some sort, but so many things are fortified with B12 it shouldn't be a problem. Shouldn't, but of course it still happens. But it's in every multivitamin, you don't need much, and your body stores it for later use. And iron is much easily absorbed from plants than from animal sources anyway. So claiming vegetarianism (or even veganism) causes anemia is an out and out lie. People are genetically predisposed to anemia, and need to be careful to eat more iron than those not predisposed to it. Spinach is good, kale too, think dark and green. And if you still have a problem (which is highly unlikely if you're eating a varied diet) iron supplements are a lot healthier than eating meat, and cholesterol free. And I don't see why the american society thinks sawing open peoples ribs and moving a piece of a leg artery up to their heart is perfectly acceptable, but not eating meat is radical. Any gas you get, from eating more vegetables, is quite temporary. When I first started eating more vegetables, I had that problem, but it was because my body wasn't used to eating them. Eating raw vegetables helps too, because they're easier to digest. There's no reason to throw away your health and go to a low carb diet (it'll get you to lose weight, but won't stop you from having a heart attack or a stroke, or getting cancer like a plant based diet will) just because of gas. And a side note, nothing "ferments" in the digestive process. There are some unique ingredients, some you'll like, some you won't but you have to be willing to try, or you will end up just eating potatoes. Quinoa is a grain, it's quite good. Saffron and mace are spices, if you're grocery store doesn't sell them, I know you can get saffron at an Indian market (East Indian, not Native), though mace is harder to find. The reviewer who claimed that by going vegan means it "rules out about half the foods there are" obviously hasn't experienced the true variety of plant foods out there. There are hundreds of edible mushrooms, 10 different types of apples (that I can think of off the top of my head), at least that many types of peppers, and they all have a different taste. And those are just foods people don't generally describe. It's a pepper, or an apple, or a mushroom. There are litterally millions of edible plants out there. And most people only eat 3 animals, 2 types of cheese, milk, and ice cream. You aren't losing half as much as you're gaining, that is if you have an open mind, and are willing to try them. When your health is on the line, you should really try this "radical" diet to avoid having to take heart medications, and all those fun things, and probably eventually die of a heart attack anyway. Or cancer. Cancer I'm sure is more fun than a heart attack. Now on to the actual review :) I liked that there were so many recipies. Because the more options you're given the more likely you are to find something you like. The transition is going to be hard, you just can't give up because of a few recipies you don't like. But they are all pretty time consuming. So once you figure out which ones you like, you should make lots on your days off, and freeze the leftovers into "microwave dinners" for when you don't want to cook. I personally lost 123 pounds (which halved my weight) following his "plan" which is more like the common sense guidelines, people like to ignore: Eat more vegetables, cut your fat intake, excercise, cut your fat intake more, eat more fruit, and more vegetables. If you aren't sure if you can handle this "radical" change (it just doesn't seem that radical to me and lots of people called it that), take the book out from the library, and make the commitment to do it for two weeks, no cheating. Don't say you'll try either, because we all know when you say you're going to try you're just giving yourself an excuse to fail. You'll say "I tried" when really, you were just going through the motions. I have this feeling this review sounds condescending, which isn't what I meant at all. It just seriously bothers me when people state falsehoods as the truth, or make assumptions that aren't really based on fact. So, I didn't mean to offend. But I think everyone should make an honest effort at developping a plant based diet, even if you still eat turkey for thanksgiving. It's not an all or nothing game. The closer you get to veganism, the healthier you'll be. And this book is a good stepping stool in getting you there. If you want to save money, just buy a Vegan cookbook, make sure it has some quick recipies in it, because you'll really like to have something easy to make after a long day at work. And you'll probably end up buying one eventually anyway. I recently bought "The Garden of Vegan" by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Bernard, and while it isn't as low fat as Dr Ornish recomends, it has some quite tasty recipies, and I'm quite glad I bought it. And besides, I'm half the woman I used to be, I can induldge a little.
Rating:
Summary: My boyfriend lost weight but I gained!
Review: From a reader in Key West, FL... We both loved the diet! He loved the fact that it was vegetarian and low fat I just loved the fact that I could eat carbohydrates. My calorie count was not high, I followed the recipes in both of the books-which are delicious I might add-I felt I was actually eating less and getting full faster. I guess I'm one of those people that needs a higher protien/lower carb ratio. I highly recommend the book even though I gained a few pounds on this very low fat vegetarian diet.
Rating:
Summary: Has wonderful new life choices.
Review: Gives you a choice of how you can spend the the rest of your life! The book has very small print and is a little hard to read at times.
Rating:
Summary: Little meat to this book
Review: Here's the message: low-fat vegetarian. This book of almost 400 pages gives only 100 pages of discussion to weight-related issues, some of which teaches you to meditate. The rest is recipes that few of us would care to deal with on a daily basis. There is little substantiation to his theories and no discussion of the need for adequate protein.
Rating:
Summary: It Works
Review: I 've been following Dr Ornish's vegeterian plan and I am loosing weight and not hungry. The recipes are easy too follow and taste very good.
Rating: 
Summary: Too extreme for me
Review: I bought this book because I saw this Dr. on some talk show claiming it was the healthiest way to eat. Can you lose weight? I don't know. I couldn't stand to eat this way long enough to find out. All I can say is, it's great if you want to live like a monk, or like a P.O.W. First of all, it's vegetarian, which rules out about half the foods there are. Worse than that, it makes you go fat-free, too, which means there's another hundred or so vegetarian foods you can't have, either. (Nuts make you fat. Avocadoes will kill you. Coconut is poison. Olives are deadly. Yada, yada, cluck, cluck, cluck.) Oh sure, you can eat abundantly. Indulge in all the steamed squash you want. Luxuriate with a big bowl of wet spinach or boiled beets. Celebrate with a lump of quinoa, whatever that is. Munch an eggplant, and chew on some dry romaine lettuce, or egg white. If that's your idea of abundant eating, you'll love this. Me, I can't live the rest of my life chewing tasteless vegetables and lentils and gloppy tofu. Blech. Is this REALLY how thin people eat?? I never saw anyone eat like this, except maybe in a refugee camp. When I saw this Dr, on the talk show I thought he looked a little soft and sickly. No wonder. He's starving to death.
Rating:
Summary: Faddish, bland, dull, flatulent. All starch and sugar
Review: I endured this diet for more than six months. I lost three pounds. And was miserable. The rule for this diet is very simple. It basically eliminates every food that you have ever WANTED to eat. If you like it, you can't have it. If it tastes good, spit it out. If you enjoy a food, there is something wrong with it
.
It is extremely limiting and tedious. Nothing made with flour. Nothing made with sugar. Nothing that contains salt. Nothing made with fat. Nothing that contains meat. Nothing that contains oil. Nothing that contains seafood of any kind. Nothing with taste. The list of deadly, and forbidden foods is endless. No almonds, no avocadoes, no cabernet wine, no shrimp. Stay a way from walnuts, salmon, clams, coconut, flaxseed, pecans, and calamari. Eat no roquefort, no cashews, no sushi, no flounder, no cod, no olives, no california roll. You are not permitted olive oil or canola oil or sesame oil. (Sesame seeds are even frowned upon.) You are allowed no pecans, no mustard, no sunflower seeds, no pumpkin seeds, no Dover sole, no brook trout, no chocolate. . . You are left to a spartan regime of leaves and stems, sugary fruits, and piles and piles of sticky starches. Rice beans potatoes rice beans potatoes rice beans. . . You may dress it up with saffron and exotic spices. But it is still potatoes rice beans to me. And. . .not to be indelicate, but when consuming all this organic mulch your intestines will ferment and bubble like a pot of stew. You will pass gas every few minutes, much like a cow does. At the office, I could not sit through a 30-minute meeting without slipping out to the men's room once or twice to break wind in private. (Ornish recommends using Beano, some pill that supposedly helps this 'side effect.' Phooey.) I gave this up. I now eat low-carb. My weight is down. My cholesterol is down (and balanced) my BP is down. I am not hungry. My periodontal disease cleared up. And a no longer puff like a steam engine out the back.
Rating:
Summary: A Medically Substantiated Guide to a Healthy Body
Review: I find it interesting that a previous reader gives this book 2 stars because he or she claims that Dr. Ornish's plan is not medically substantiated. This is not, in fact, the case at all. Dr. Ornish's plan has been proven to actually REVERSE heart disease, let alone prevent it. He refers to numerous studies in this book. As for protein, well, part of the program is that you get your protein from OTHER sources than meat. Yes, it is true that you can get adequate amounts of protein and nutrients from non-meat sources. Stand back Dr. Atkins! This may seem gross, but I would rather have a clean and clear digestive system from eating high-fiber foods than one that is completely backed up by eating too much protein. Most Americans get too much protein in their diets anyway. Dr. Ornish's plan is pretty simple. You can eat more high-fiber, low-fat foods because they are designed to clean you out and give you the nutrients you need without clogging your arteries and increasing your cholesterol. While I don't find the recipes in his book to be all that interesting or all that tasty, I will say that I apply the general principles in my daily eating habits. This is NOT a diet- Diets don't work for the long haul. This is a book for the long hall.
|
