Rating: 
Summary: Diet for an ... Compulsive America
Review: As a regular visitor to Dr. Mercola's website for some time, I eagerly awaited the arrival of his book. While Dr. Mercola's big-picture objective -- weaning the average American off of poisonous food, poisoning medical doctors, and a poisoned environment -- is noble, his small-picture book renders an easy, common-sense diet too complex to follow. In Mercola's defense, neither the writer, Levy, nor Dutton editors did much to clarify and communicate his vision. The writing is stilted and humorless, the organization an afterthought. Readers will balk at the confusion between Phases and Food Plans. Inconsistencies abound: Foods allowed on one page are nowhere to be found on another. For example, oranges are allowed on the 8-meal Booster Start-up plan on page 68; yet, inexplicably, the same list (lots of duplication in this book) eliminates oranges on page 106. Without explanation, the plan itself is reduced to six meals on page 136. With better editing and organization, and fewer contradictory menus, the entire tome could have been reduced to half its size, with twice the clarity. It's a prime example of how too much information -- right down to how to cut one's bacon! -- can spoil a vital health education. If you can find a way to get past the book's choking design flaws, please do: The good doctor's prescription for real health is both impassioned and well-documented, eclipsing all other "diets" out there, past or present.
Rating: 
Summary: No Grain, No Hunger
Review: As an insulin dependent diabetic, I'm always looking for ways to improve my health. Since following the diet recomendations Dr. Mercola has in THE NO GRAIN DIET book I've been able to keep my blood glucose levels around 100. As a RN, this is one diet I feel safe in recomending to others. And last of all, as a person who loves food, I am not hungery! In fact I have to almost force myself to eat and sweets have lost their appeal!! Thank you Dr. Mercola!!
Rating: 
Summary: Absolute Garbage
Review: I have read several of Dr Mercola's unscientific remarks on diets and he has paid no attention to the global consequences of his advice. Just as crazy at the Atkins Diet which will increase colon cancer, coronary artery disease not to mention hemorrhoids and gout, this kind of nonsense will pan out in about 2010 and then everyone will realize just how ridiculous we were to even listen! I'm a physician and I know, just like Dr Spock and Dr Osche that only a vegetarian diet will make you live the healthiest and the longest and the happiest. I would love to give you more proof here but I would urge all potential 'sucked-in' consumers to do their homework and research Mercola, Atkins and all the other flim-flam artists before they buy into their latest snake-oil remedy.
It's you're choice but please ask yourselves: do you feel lucky?
Rating:
Summary: Let's go!
Review: I'm a fan of Dr. Mercola. I've had a myriad of different problems from my lungs and sinuses to acid reflux and joint problems. After being sick for an ENTIRE winter I finally decided I'd try anything...including "gasp" changing my diet. Stumbling on the websight mercola.com, I was sucked in. It just makes sense. Back when we were wandering around and evolving all we could eat were vegetables above the ground and protein we killed. Also, we didn't sit down for three meals a day, but ate when we could and when we were actually hungry. As far as the guy talking about the Japanese he must be kidding. I lived in Japan for two years and what he said is a GIANT misnomer. Sure they eat rice, but they don't eat the sweets, and ultra over processed foods like we do over here. It isn't that we eat grains so much is we don't eat enough vegetables and on top of it we eat the wrong kind of grains. Japanese live longer because they have a much more balanced point of view on life, eat more fish protein (balanced Omega-3 to Omega-6 count) and plain out eat healthier. I dare you to even try to compare the school lunches here with there. Fresh fruit, fish, milk, and a bowl of rice vs. mexican pizza and chocolate milk. Need I say more?
Rating:
Summary: Hurrah for "No Grain Diet" and Dr Mercola
Review: Finally a new wrinkle on the 'high-protein' lo-carb diet which I know works so well.
This book is written in a friendly style and tells the truth. There are 3 good eating plans and recipes and dozens of helpful tips. I learned a lot and I've tried a lot of diets. I will have to embrace some of the ideas a little gradually, but the really exciting news is that EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is included. I'd never heard of this. Here is a tool that can be used in conjunction with the diet to get at the emotional causes that made us fat and keeps us fat. Diagrams and drawings show us how to use this wonderful technique to quickly and easily eliminate the causes, allowing us to get on with getting back in great shape.
Thank you Dr. Mercola for the best news I've had in a long, long time.
Rating:
Summary: THE NO-GRAIN DIET IS DYNAMITE!!!
Review: THE NO-GRAIN DIET IS DYNAMITE!!! I've been hearing so much about low carb diets that I couldn't resist trying to find out what they're all about, and that led me to Joseph Mercola and Alison Rose Levy's THE NO-GRAIN DIET! THE NO-GRAIN DIET IS THE BEST BOOK ABOUT NUTRITION I'VE EVER READ!!! What makes it so special? Well, for starters, the two writers go the extra mile to talk about A thorough health program, not just what's wrong with eating grain, and include lots of pointers on how to live better, like with pointers about how to sleep better at night--restrict outside light!!!--and Mercola and Levy hit home with anybody who's ever drank soda or fruit juice when they go on an all out assault on sugar, which is targeted as THE ENEMY!!! THE NO-GRAIN DIET makes it simple:avoid eating foods that can easily be converted into sugar, and avoid sugar, and you'll protect your teeth and gums, you'll help prevent high blood pressure, and you might just live longer, too! And Mercola and Levy tell you in plain English how following their system will help you to lose weight, or at least, avoid unhealthy weight gain, like by preventing your stomach from becoming a bread factory! THE NO-GRAIN DIET IS DYNAMITE!!! Chari Krishnan
RESEARCHKING
Rating:
Summary: Powerful health-promoting program! Much more than a diet.
Review: I have followed Dr. Mercola's writings for several years, and he brings together in this book elements from all of his health plan (which until now, I've kept in loose file folders). Moreover, the emphasis on diet in the book is a perfect way to get immersed in what, for me, has been a life-transforming process.
I had been a strict vegetarian when I started subscribing to Dr. Mercola's newsletter, and I started by embracing his Juicing Plan and reduction of grains and sugars in my diet. His EFT plan helped in a number of areas in my life and I began exercising again. Lately I've added some animal food to my diet: mostly for more protein and Omega 3 fats (Wild Pacific Salmon, sardines, fish&cod liver oil and omega3-organic eggs)
Hypertension, high cholesterol, anxiety and depression are all problems of the past. The book is clear and focussed: it provides a great jump-start for beginners and deepens the practice of people like me. Dr. Mercola tirelessly searches and evaluates the scientific and medical literature and has a thriving medical practice. This book is a great way to connect with a truly gifted physician.
Rating:
Summary: The No Grain Diet
Review: I have been an interested participant of Dr. Mercola's website for some time now. Finding his website was exactly what I've been looking for for a long time. The No Grain Diet book is great. It is the answer to all my questions and goes beyond every other diet I've tried. I started taking Living Fuel on a Monday, received Dr. Mercola's No Grain Diet book on Friday and I'm busy now trying to figure out how to incorporate the two. Any help would be appreciated. The EFT sounds wonderful and I'm working on that now. I'm 64 years young and have been on every diet out there and managed to gain my 20 lbs. back each time. I feel optimal health is on it's way with these two products. Thank you Dr. Mercola! Gail from Texas
Rating:
Summary: Where has the concept of balanced eating gone?
Review: I found this book in the library and checked it out because I was curious about the accupressure techniques. I already knew, and had been trying, the basics of low-carb eating for several months, but had not been able to get past the cravings for comfort foods such as mashed potatoes, a steaming bowl of real oatmeal on a cold winter's night, acorn squash, brown rice, thick crusty slices of fresh organic whole grain bread, and just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. This book had the opposite effect on me from the concept it was trying to prove. It helped me to think about food in a different way. What was making me such a "bad" person that I couldn't stay with a low-carb plan? Was I really addicted to carbs like an alcoholic is to alcohol, as this book states? Did I really need to use a technique the rest of my life to abstain from foods that certain so called experts have decided are bad for us? What if there is another explanation for what has been going on for the past 20-30 years. What if our bodies actually have the ability to let us know when our habits have become unbalanced. What if cravings for real food (not junk) are actually the result of the huge increase in the consumption of processed convenience foods. I've certainly consumed my share over the years. We are, everyone of us, individuals with individual needs. The problem with each diet program that is promoted, including vegetarianism, is that only a portion of the population can thrive on it. It is just plain misleading to state that a particular way of eating is best for everyone. Could it be that the real reason a person isn't able to stay with a diet in which a part of the food chain is missing is because this person's body needs those foods to thrive? This book promotes an extreme and unrealistic plan for eating, then states that it must be used for the rest of your life to keep weight off. While I now eat mostly organic foods, Mercola takes even this a step further by stating that only grass fed beef should be eaten, that grain fed beef could make you fat. The constant reminders to only use this and not use that in his recipes was extremely annoying. The recommended foods list was confusing and contradicted itself in several places. And I was put off by the general tone of arrogance that ran throughout this book. Do we really need another "expert" making money off of people by promoting fears about food and insisting that their's is the "right" weight loss plan? Take a long look around. None of the ideas promoted by the weight loss industry have worked long term, have they. Canada has a national program guideline called Vitality. The concepts are: Eat well. (To me that means concentrate on real foods for the majority of my meals.) Live actively. (What do I enjoy doing that gets me moving around?) Think well of yourself. (Accepting yourself as you are right now is how long lasting changes have a chance to begin.) Do you think you could live the rest of your life eating well, living actively and thinking well of yourself (and others)? How about making our own choices instead of following someone else's rigid plan? Please listen to your own body. Pay attention to how you feel when you eat this or that. This is what I chose to do. Now the extra weight and inches are beginning to come off of me on their own.
Rating:
Summary: The organic version of low-carb eating, plus much more
Review: Many people, including myself, find low carb dieting a way to maintain weight and keep from getting overly hungry. But many low carb diets don't focus on the quality of the food you eat. Dr. Mercola takes a holistic approach and really reasons out WHY grains are associated with weight gain, and what a low-carb diet could look like if you believe organic vegetables and meats are important, and that artificial sweeteners may be causing you difficulties. This is a more difficult path in some ways than buying boxes of low-carb sweets and bread mixes, and eating salads from the cellophane packages. Dr. Mercola encourages green vegetable juicing (no carrots or apple) with the pulp of the vegetables stirred back in, raw organic eggs, whey protein and chlorella algae to make a green breakfast shake to start your day. This is rugged stuff. After buying a dozen fresh eggs from the farmer down the road (living in a rural area has some advantages) I dug out the juicer and hand blender and whipped up one of these pea-green smoothies. I drank it down, humming the theme from "Rocky" to get up the nerve. It wasn't delish--but I did get a burst of energy that lasted well past what would have been lunchtime. Mercola doesn't like soy (toxic to thyroids? has female hormone-like effects on men? Is this true?) and he really limits even favorite vegetables like carrots (too sugary) and beets (same deal.) However, he recommends you eat organic beef, ostrich, buffalo, organic chicken, fish, lamb. No pork. And plenty of good vegetables like dark leafy greens, cucumbers, fennel, spinach, celery, mushrooms and such. And organic eggs. This is not all bad. As you reduce weight, you can add in some fruit and mild sweets like barley syrup and maple. De. Mercola has some compelling arguments against aspartame, sucralose and saccharine. While more severe in the types of foods you can eat, Mercola claims that your health will improve. On the psychological end, he advocates "EFT" --a sort of tapping that takes about three minutes, starting with acupuncture points from head to torso, and is designed to talk you out of eating that piece of Devil's Food Birthday Cake that is tempting you in your office or the doughnut shop on the way home. Three minutes of tapping on points, or if you are needing discretion there is a shortcut after much practice, and you can hold your nose high and walk past the cheesecake. Hey --if it works, I'm all for it. I like the book for the fearsome Green Drink and the list of healthful things to focus on in your diet. Dr. Mercola always tries to support his claims, and I am a reluctant fan. We call him "The guy that HATES everything" at home, but he does like good healthy fare and reducing cravings. It's sad that grains are a no-no, but they sure make me gain weight and make me sleepy and hungry. So maybe Dr. Mercola is on to something.
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