Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating

Aimed at nothing less than totally restructuring the diets of Americans, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy may well accomplish its goal. Dr. Walter C. Willett gets off to a roaring start by totally dismantling one of the largest icons in health today: the USDA Food Pyramid that we all learn in elementary school. He blames many of the pyramid's recommendations--6 to 11 servings of carbohydrates, all fats used sparingly--for much of the current wave of obesity. At first this may read differently than any diet book, but Willett also makes a crucial, rarely mentioned point about this icon: "The thing to keep in mind about the USDA Pyramid is that it comes from the Department of Agriculture, the agency responsible for promoting American agriculture, not from the agencies established to monitor and protect our health." It's no wonder that dairy products and American-grown grains such as wheat and corn figure so prominently in the USDA's recommendations.

Willett's own simple pyramid has several benefits over the traditional format. His information is up-to-date, and you won't find recommendations that come from special-interest groups. His ideas are nothing radical--if we eat more vegetables and complex carbohydrates (no, potatoes are not complex), emphasize healthy fats, and enjoy small amounts of a tremendous variety of food, we will be healthier. You'll find some surprises as well, such as doubts about the overall benefits of soy (unless you're willing to eat a pound and a half of tofu a day), and that nuts, with their "good" fat content, are a terrific snack. Relying on research rather than anecdotes, this is a solidly written nutritional guide that will show you the real story behind how food is digested, from the glycemic index for carbs to the wisdom of adding a multivitamin to your diet. Willett combines research with matter-of-fact language and a no-nonsense tone that turns academic studies into easily understandable suggestions for living. --Jill Lightner

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-09-04
Summary: "Can't be beat for healthy, simple, and yummy recipes"

When Walt Willett came out with this book in 2001, I read it through and through and found it a voice of nutrition reasonableness that set the tone for this decade's emphasis on whole simple cooking, and away from nutrition fads.

However, as sound and time-tested as Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy has proved in its nutritional guidance (and which are excellently described in the other Amazon reader reviews), what I want to address today, nine years later, is what a treasure the collection of recipes has proved. (The recipes are not by Willett, by the way, but by Maureen Callahan.)

Eat, Drink, Healthy has about the highest percentage of surefire hit recipes of any cookbook I've encountered. I own and use many of the classic texts of simple basic wonderful cooking -- Alice Waters The Art of Simple Food, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Laurel's Kitchen (original and revised), The New Basics Cookbook. These are all great and amazing cookbooks and I recommend each highly. However, it is the 57-page recipe section of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy I find myself returning to over and over when I need renewal in my cooking enthusiasm.

These recipes are simple to prepare, healthy by definition, yet almost all have some interesting approach or ingredient that makes them delicious and different. I go to my other cookbooks when I want to be experimental, willing to try some fancy in-depth procedure, or take a chance on newness, knowing that some cooking flops are inevitable. But when I'm feeling blah about cooking, I want something that's going to be simple, that isn't going to take a bunch of hard-to-find ingredients (many of Eat, Drink's recipes can be made with what's on hand), but is going to be yummy and get me fired up about cooking, while feeling healthy while doing it -- and not healthy-dutiful, if you know what I mean. (Yes, steamed vegetables over brown rice, I'm talking about you.) I'd say 7 out of 8 of the recipes in Eat, Drink are keepers, and that is quite a high ratio, because I'm just not into spending the effort to cook so-so food.

So here are some of my favorites so far: Roasted pine nut hummus (so easy! my last-minute go-to for potlucks), Mediterranean stuffed breast of chicken (stuffing made from artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and feta, yum!), Tandoori tuna, BWT wrap (beef, watercress, tomato, red onion, cuke, with horseradish spread), spicy shrimp and peanut noodle salad, onion-crusted tofu-steak sandwich, chipotle chicken chili, spicy sweet potato fries (baked, with chili powder, cumin, and paprika). It is taking me a while to try all the recipes in this book, since I find myself cooking the same recipes over and over again because they are so great. I'll let you know what new winners I find, and let me know what you like.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-27
Summary: "simple and effective"

This book gives a clear picture of what is the state of the art in nutrition science and healthy eating. I thought I knew enough on this topic, but I realized that I was just lucky to be brought up in a Mediterranean where many of the recommendations of Dr. Willet are already heeded. Now I think I can make few corrections (whole grains for refined ones, first) and improve further my diet.

The book reads easily, it is pleasantly and slightly redundant (easier to remember) and can be read by anybody.

Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-08-12
Summary: "A Thoughtful And Academic Read"

This book does a good job of delineating the factors in planning and practicing the consuming of a healthy diet and nutritional principles. It most definitely have an academic flavor, and is the type of book that you would want to pick up to do research on the subject of health and nutrition.

Overall, I found the book informative interesting but not necessarily riveting in the detailed explanation of dietary factors from one chapter to the next.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-06-09
Summary: "Excellent buy for amazing low price"

I am happy with this buy, forgive me if I'm wrong, but my aim was to buy a brand name book. And I found it- Harvard is the brand name. Also delivery and book quality is good. Thanks

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-05-23
Summary: "A great book on nutrition."

I loved this book. It revolutionized the way I eat. Full of information and a pleasant reading. I am very picky about books, but for this one, I want to tell you: READ THIS BOOK!