What Color Is Your Diet?

Rating:
Summary: Going for the Red (green, yellow and orange)!
Review: At last! Not a "diet" book offering tricky schemes and cagey food manipulations but a nutritional lifestyle program based on scientific research and clinical investigations. Dr. Heber, a physician and researcher, tells us the story about the evolution and chemistry of food. He explains how our genes predict certain health and eating patterns. Why some of us hang onto fat (a survival adaptation). And what ancient man knew instinctively: how the vital colored substances found in fruits and vegetables helped us survive and how by consuming enough of the right quantities and colors today we can fight modern diseases and prolong life. Susan Bowerman's recipes are fabulous-delicious, and most importantly, easy to follow! That means even I-a notoriously uninspired cook-can serve up healthful dishes that look glamorous as well. Additionally, Dr. Heber's crayon box concept is a great way to start children on nutritious yet fun-filled paths to a lifetime of healthier choices and better eating habits. "What Color is Your Diet" is an essential read for anyone concerned about enhancing and protecting their health and the health of their family.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Weight-Loss Plan
Review: I cannot say enough good things about this book. Almost a year ago, my husband decided he needed to lose weight (his doctor had been telling him to do so for years; he was verging into diabetes despite being on Glucophage, Glucotrol, and Lipitor). My husband's one criterion was he wanted a diet that allowed him to eat frequently during the day because he didn't want to be hungry. Enter Heber's book!

Merely by increasing the number of vegetables and fruits that my husband ate, he crowded out the crap he'd been obliviously living on. He began to count calories because the results from merely eating more healthily a la Heber made him feel very positive. In six months, he lost sixty-five pounds. His cholesterol went from 220 (a number achieved with the help of those meds) to 125. He's kept the weight off five months now, but we are determined that he will be eating this way for life. We have a word in our household: Heberific. My husband's Park Avenue doctor phoned me and said: "I didn't recognize your husband from his numbers [meaning his blood test numbers]. They've never looked like this! You've added at least ten years to your husband's life, and really fifteen quality years. You are a hero!" I accepted the compliment because it's I who do most of the food preparation.

Now I go to the fruits-and-vegetable market almost every day. I too have made a game of tracking what color fruits and vegies my husband is eating (I composed a daily chart; I've noticed another reader said he did the same thing). I keep meaning to write Dr. Heber a thank-you letter but then I thought perhaps I should simply post my praise on Amazon.

I know Dr. Heber formulated this way of eating primarily to safeguard people from the major chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer) that are diet related, but this way of eating is fun and has had extraordinary results in my family. I've given this book to my parents (who are not overweight) and recommend it incessantly. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that five stars for this book isn't enough.

Rating:
Summary: Useful, healthful information
Review: The good news: Dr. Heber has provided an interesting book with apparently sound current information, focusing on the critical importance of high dietary intake of phytochemicals from a variety of fruits and vegetables. Based on my other reading in the area it would appear that his recommendations are both sound and reasonable. Oddly, the most interesting information (regarding discussion of DNA damage and cancer) is toward the back of the book, after the recipes. Content gets 4-1/2 stars from me.

The bad news (which really irritates me): There are no footnotes and virtually no references (a whole chapter may have only one or two references cited). The text (though written for laypersons) addresses complicated issues relating to metabolism, biochemistry, genetics and other scientific issues. To support his points the author refers frequently to research, studies and publications, but virutally none of these sources are actually identified (well, sometimes "identification" is provided along the lines of "a 1998 study" or "according to the NIH" -- just try to find an article or publication on Medline based on that info!) On this issue, the text gets zero stars from me.

In as complicated and contentious an area as food, diet, supplementation and preventive health, it is unforgiveable for a purported authoritative book written by a real medical scientist to omit this information (especially since all of the sources would have to be collected in the course of writing, any way). In my view, the day is long past for accepting health books in which the author (no matter how well credentialled) in effect says the reader ought to follow his advice on the grounds that "I'm smarter than you and I'm telling you to". Even if a book like this is clearly written for the general public, the topic is still a scientific area notoriously rife with dispute (not to mention having profound personal health consequences based on whose advice you follow); any critical reader's motto in this area should be "In God we trust; all others must provide data and citations".

Overall, my feeling about the book is great disappointment, since Dr. Heber clearly has the credentials, experience and knowledge to have written a book providing lay readers with much, much more information (supported by references!) from the cutting edge of nutritional medicine (without sacrificing readability), and I think he set his sights far too low.

In one note at the back of the book, Dr. Heber notes his great admiration for Barry Sears' ability to write and attract a popular audience with Sears' "Zone" books (although Heber takes issue with the premise of the Zone diet, per se). He would have done much better if he had modeled his book not after Sears, but rather after some of the first rate books for the general public offering a clear description of how real science works, such as "The Omega Diet" (1999) by A. Simopoulos, M.D., former chair of the NIH diet committee (who pretty much comes to the same conclusions Dr. Heber, but along the way also provides fascinating insight into the process of current scientific investigation regarding nutrition and public health, as well as a wealth of references to the actual source material). Another well written, extensively referenced book in this area, which I highly recommend, is "The Okinawa Program" (2001) by B. Wilcox, M.D., et al., based on the results of a 25 year longitudional study of the extraordinary health and longevity of elderly Okinawans (the Okinawa Centenarian Study).

Rating:
Summary: No gimmicks, but excellent direction
Review: We're often told to "eat a good variety of vegetables and fruit" but that's not very specific. Heber makes it specific with his seven categories, asking you to eat at least one serving from each category each day. I made a little weekly checklist that I carry with me and treat the challenge as a game. As a result, I'm eating a much greater variety of vegetables and fruit and *more* vegetables and fruit--which crowds out other, less healthful foods. A very fine book, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Weight-Loss Plan
Review: We're often told to "eat a good variety of vegetables and fruit" but that's not very specific. Heber makes it specific with his seven categories, asking you to eat at least one serving from each category each day. I made a little weekly checklist that I carry with me and treat the challenge as a game. As a result, I'm eating a much greater variety of vegetables and fruit and *more* vegetables and fruit--which crowds out other, less healthful foods. A very fine book, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Great Advice
Review: What color is you diet is a great book. Dr Heber hit th nail on the head with this one. My eating habits are forever improved. Thanks Dr Heber!!