Healthy Living Books Books
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Books : Apple a Day .
Rating: 
- We Design Airplanes, Therefore We Should Drink Cow's Milk?
I bought this book based on two 5 star customer reviews, and because at the time, it was 94th in books on amazon.ca. I've purchased many books on nutrition from amazon. This is the only one I sent back.
Coming from a Canadian author, I was hoping to like this book, but after reading the small section entitled "Milk and Calcium", I lost a lot of respect for this man as a "nutrition authority".
I think the author could have produced a better book if he'd written in greater depth on fewer subjects, the ones he was most knowledgeable on. Dairy foods are not one of these subjects, and his bias in their favour is painfully obvious.
He portrays the anti-dairy segment of our society as being primarily animal rights and vegetarian organizations, and claims that independent researchers fall on the side of the dairy industry for milk's health benefits.Don't Drink Your Milk!: New Frightening Medical Facts About the World's Most Overrated Nutrient( While this book is dated, the number of medical doctors recommending against consuming dairy products has continued to grow. )
He acknowledges that, "Milk stands accused of contributing to heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes, allergies, stomach cramps, diarrhea, autism, mucus production, and, get this, bone fractures!" ( He fails to acknowledge the theory that's becoming more widely accepted within the nutritional science community for why cow's milk may not be a positive contributing factor for bone health. That the milk proteins can contribute to an acidosis of the blood, pulling calcium from the bones, and negatively impacting calcium balance in the body. ) He continues, "But milk is also linked with reducing heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and of course, bone fracture."
"The anti-milk arguments often begin with the observation that no other species except humans drink milk after weaning." ( Again, he neglects to mention the rest of the story. That in Nature, no other species would ever consume the "breast milk " of another species, regardless of stage of life.) "That's hardly a compelling argument. No other species designs airplanes, develops antibiotics, or bakes bread either."
He trys to refute the Nurse's Health Study by suggesting that the nurses who were drinking the most milk, were doing so not because they liked it, but because they knew they had a genetic predisposition and/or other risk factors for osteoporosis, and believed consuming more cow's milk would help them. So, to his way of thinking, drinking more milk was largely a reflection of an overall greater osteoporotic risk in general, and therefore milk should not be singled out and blamed for the increased incidence of hip fracture seen in the Nurse's Health Study, as the extra milk was possible beneficial, but just not beneficial enough to overcome the other risks in this "self-selected subgroup". While the lead author of this study may lend some support for that hypothesis, her coauthor, Dr. Walter Willet, does not.
In this short chapter the author refers to the heavy environmental contamination of dairy as a "trace of dioxin". He acknowledges that dairy fat is a problem, but suggests we eat low-fat dairy, and also limit saturated fat in our diets elsewhere.
He doesn't get into the tumour-promoting properties of casein, the primary type of milk proteins. Likewise, he stays right away from the whole raw milk issue, or movement, and the destruction of nutrients through pasteurization. There's no discussion on grass-fed, as opposed to grain-fed cows, or any issues relating to factory farming. Although he does give brief mention to Insulin-Like Growth Factor.
Most people who know anything about nutition, know that 2% cow's milk actually contains over 30% of calories from fat. The dairy industry likes to mislead, or deceive the public by measuring "water" weight, rather than counting calories.
This author pulls a similar stunt with calcium. He boasts, " A glass of milk contains about 300 milligrams of calcium, a cup of yogurt 400. By comparison, the best vegetable source is broccoli, with about 100 milligrams per cup".
Of course he's not only wrong about broccoli being the best vegetable source of calcium, ( bok choy and kale are both significantly higher ) but he doesn't bother to mention that a cup of broccoli contains only about a third the calories of a cup of milk, and, like other cruciferous vegetables, broccoli has a far superior nutrient-profile. He does recommend broccoli in a different part of the book.
There is some comic relief with the author's explanation for why large segments of the world population are lactose intolerant. Apparently, the human species evolved hand in hoof with the dairy cow. But centuries ago, the tsetse fly spread sleeping sickness throughout much of Africa and Asia, decimating cattle populations. So, not having access to cow's milk, human populations, over time, lost much of their "natural" ability to make lactase, the enzyme responsible for lactose digestion.
While some primitive populations did thrive on diets containing some cow's milk, it's important to make the distinction that what they consumed is a far cry from what is available to us at the grocery store. Derived largely from grain-fed cows pumped up on growth hormone to increase milk production ( at least in the U.S. ), and antibiotics to ward off sickness inherent to the animal's living conditions, much of the already compromised nutrition in the milk is destroyed through pasteurization. And diary fat today contains more dioxin, and more environmental contaminates in general, than any other food North Americans are likely to consume.
The author claims that while "milk may not be a miracle food, it can contribute significantly to a healthy diet. It assuredly is not poison, as suggested by the likes of PETA".
Webster's Dictionary defines poison as, "a substance that through it's chemical action can injure or kill".
It's debatable whether cow's milk, as it's generally produced today, is actually poison, but it most assuredly is, crap.
While "milk and calcium" is admittedly a very very small portion of this book, in my eyes, the author has seriously undermined his credibility.
Do I now trust or care what he says about fluoride added to tap water?
No!
Who do I trust? If you want to know what the medical literature says about diet and health, read Joel Fuhrman'sEat to Live.
Rating:
- Fabulous, and easy reading
I've recommended this book to many of my friends. The chapters are all about 4 pages so you can put it down anytime without losing the flow. His writing style is very good: easy to read, factual, with a bit of humour to make it enjoyable. Buy it - you won't regret it.
Rating: - The truth is out there (well, in here actually)
What a wonderfully refreshing change this book is. In an age where foods or supplements are deemed essential for life one day, then toxic the next, or both at the same time, the author Joe Schwarcz explains with clarity and scientific authority just what is really going on. He cuts through the latest 'miracle food' marketing hyperbole, 'astounding' research results, and explains what the substance actually is, how it operates, and the current scientific understanding of its effects on the human system. Perhaps even more importantly, he is not trying to sell you anything, not trying to convert you to some radical 'fad' or lifestyle. All he is doing is cutting through swathes of near-hysterical media bandwagons to promote common sense backed by sound scientific evidence.
In some instances, such popular myths can acutally cause harm. The take-up of pollutants in some oily fish, for example, have been shown to occur in minuscule amounts. But detrimental health effects can occur if consumers cut out such foods since the scientifically established health benefits massively outweigh any risk that such pollutants may pose. Another concern is that all our food today is contaminated with 'chemicals'. As the author states, such statements are meaningless without appropriate context. Take the eponymous apple of the book's title. Apples contain nail polish remover (acetone), rubbing alcohol (isopropanol), and cyanide. Should we be worried about eating apples? Of course not. Context is everything. The amounts of these, and over 300 other chemicals found in apples, are too small to be of any consequence. Whatever effect the fruit has on our health is a reflection of all of these naturally occurring substances.
The material is presented logically in three main parts: "Naturally occurring substances in our food supply", "Manipulating our food supply", and "Contaminants in our food supply". You can read from beginning to end, or dip into specific chapters at random. I suspect, though, that you will have the book read in very short order. It is gripping, with each easy to read chapter being only a few pages long.
Sections such as those describing the artificial sweetener 'debate', for example, are fascinating and the results not what I was expecting at all. The author reserves particular outrage on our behalf at the 'scientific' results of so-called media-friendly 'doctors'. One, for example, fools us with her 'Dr.' status which turns out to be an honorary doctorate in humanities from an unaccredited religious institution. And yet she is influencing policy through media pickup and sensationalism, while proper controlled scientific studies graft away in the background, rarely making news unless a genuine breakthrough really has been discovered. I felt mounting outrage while reading through this, and many other chapters.
Typical of Schwarcz's concluding section is the subject of 'detox'. As the author puts it:
"Even if detox diets do result in improved feeling of well-being, their concept is flawed. The message is that our body will forgive our dietary sins if we periodically undergo a cleanse. That's not what sound nutrition is all about. Focus should be on eating in a healthy fashion all the time, not on making some dramatic alteration when a problem arises. But that idea doesn't sell nearly as well as claims of miraculously restored health by a short-term change in diet."
I couldn't agree more. If, like me, you are confused about what to believe in the field of nutrition today, how we are being massively manipulated, you absolutely must read this book. The author gives you the tools to make your own informed decisions based on genuine scientific research. Oh, and he does conclude with what he personally considers a good, healthy eating lifestyle.
I thought I was well-informed at a culinary level, not blinded by myth and rhetoric. How wrong I was. The author is to be congratulated on this superlative exposition.
- We Design Airplanes, Therefore We Should Drink Cow's Milk?I bought this book based on two 5 star customer reviews, and because at the time, it was 94th in books on amazon.ca. I've purchased many books on nutrition from amazon. This is the only one I sent back.
Coming from a Canadian author, I was hoping to like this book, but after reading the small section entitled "Milk and Calcium", I lost a lot of respect for this man as a "nutrition authority".
I think the author could have produced a better book if he'd written in greater depth on fewer subjects, the ones he was most knowledgeable on. Dairy foods are not one of these subjects, and his bias in their favour is painfully obvious.
He portrays the anti-dairy segment of our society as being primarily animal rights and vegetarian organizations, and claims that independent researchers fall on the side of the dairy industry for milk's health benefits.Don't Drink Your Milk!: New Frightening Medical Facts About the World's Most Overrated Nutrient( While this book is dated, the number of medical doctors recommending against consuming dairy products has continued to grow. )
He acknowledges that, "Milk stands accused of contributing to heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, diabetes, allergies, stomach cramps, diarrhea, autism, mucus production, and, get this, bone fractures!" ( He fails to acknowledge the theory that's becoming more widely accepted within the nutritional science community for why cow's milk may not be a positive contributing factor for bone health. That the milk proteins can contribute to an acidosis of the blood, pulling calcium from the bones, and negatively impacting calcium balance in the body. ) He continues, "But milk is also linked with reducing heart disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and of course, bone fracture."
"The anti-milk arguments often begin with the observation that no other species except humans drink milk after weaning." ( Again, he neglects to mention the rest of the story. That in Nature, no other species would ever consume the "breast milk " of another species, regardless of stage of life.) "That's hardly a compelling argument. No other species designs airplanes, develops antibiotics, or bakes bread either."
He trys to refute the Nurse's Health Study by suggesting that the nurses who were drinking the most milk, were doing so not because they liked it, but because they knew they had a genetic predisposition and/or other risk factors for osteoporosis, and believed consuming more cow's milk would help them. So, to his way of thinking, drinking more milk was largely a reflection of an overall greater osteoporotic risk in general, and therefore milk should not be singled out and blamed for the increased incidence of hip fracture seen in the Nurse's Health Study, as the extra milk was possible beneficial, but just not beneficial enough to overcome the other risks in this "self-selected subgroup". While the lead author of this study may lend some support for that hypothesis, her coauthor, Dr. Walter Willet, does not.
In this short chapter the author refers to the heavy environmental contamination of dairy as a "trace of dioxin". He acknowledges that dairy fat is a problem, but suggests we eat low-fat dairy, and also limit saturated fat in our diets elsewhere.
He doesn't get into the tumour-promoting properties of casein, the primary type of milk proteins. Likewise, he stays right away from the whole raw milk issue, or movement, and the destruction of nutrients through pasteurization. There's no discussion on grass-fed, as opposed to grain-fed cows, or any issues relating to factory farming. Although he does give brief mention to Insulin-Like Growth Factor.
Most people who know anything about nutition, know that 2% cow's milk actually contains over 30% of calories from fat. The dairy industry likes to mislead, or deceive the public by measuring "water" weight, rather than counting calories.
This author pulls a similar stunt with calcium. He boasts, " A glass of milk contains about 300 milligrams of calcium, a cup of yogurt 400. By comparison, the best vegetable source is broccoli, with about 100 milligrams per cup".
Of course he's not only wrong about broccoli being the best vegetable source of calcium, ( bok choy and kale are both significantly higher ) but he doesn't bother to mention that a cup of broccoli contains only about a third the calories of a cup of milk, and, like other cruciferous vegetables, broccoli has a far superior nutrient-profile. He does recommend broccoli in a different part of the book.
There is some comic relief with the author's explanation for why large segments of the world population are lactose intolerant. Apparently, the human species evolved hand in hoof with the dairy cow. But centuries ago, the tsetse fly spread sleeping sickness throughout much of Africa and Asia, decimating cattle populations. So, not having access to cow's milk, human populations, over time, lost much of their "natural" ability to make lactase, the enzyme responsible for lactose digestion.
While some primitive populations did thrive on diets containing some cow's milk, it's important to make the distinction that what they consumed is a far cry from what is available to us at the grocery store. Derived largely from grain-fed cows pumped up on growth hormone to increase milk production ( at least in the U.S. ), and antibiotics to ward off sickness inherent to the animal's living conditions, much of the already compromised nutrition in the milk is destroyed through pasteurization. And diary fat today contains more dioxin, and more environmental contaminates in general, than any other food North Americans are likely to consume.
The author claims that while "milk may not be a miracle food, it can contribute significantly to a healthy diet. It assuredly is not poison, as suggested by the likes of PETA".
Webster's Dictionary defines poison as, "a substance that through it's chemical action can injure or kill".
It's debatable whether cow's milk, as it's generally produced today, is actually poison, but it most assuredly is, crap.
While "milk and calcium" is admittedly a very very small portion of this book, in my eyes, the author has seriously undermined his credibility.
Do I now trust or care what he says about fluoride added to tap water?
No!
Who do I trust? If you want to know what the medical literature says about diet and health, read Joel Fuhrman'sEat to Live.
Rating:
- Fabulous, and easy readingI've recommended this book to many of my friends. The chapters are all about 4 pages so you can put it down anytime without losing the flow. His writing style is very good: easy to read, factual, with a bit of humour to make it enjoyable. Buy it - you won't regret it.
Rating:
- The truth is out there (well, in here actually)What a wonderfully refreshing change this book is. In an age where foods or supplements are deemed essential for life one day, then toxic the next, or both at the same time, the author Joe Schwarcz explains with clarity and scientific authority just what is really going on. He cuts through the latest 'miracle food' marketing hyperbole, 'astounding' research results, and explains what the substance actually is, how it operates, and the current scientific understanding of its effects on the human system. Perhaps even more importantly, he is not trying to sell you anything, not trying to convert you to some radical 'fad' or lifestyle. All he is doing is cutting through swathes of near-hysterical media bandwagons to promote common sense backed by sound scientific evidence.
In some instances, such popular myths can acutally cause harm. The take-up of pollutants in some oily fish, for example, have been shown to occur in minuscule amounts. But detrimental health effects can occur if consumers cut out such foods since the scientifically established health benefits massively outweigh any risk that such pollutants may pose. Another concern is that all our food today is contaminated with 'chemicals'. As the author states, such statements are meaningless without appropriate context. Take the eponymous apple of the book's title. Apples contain nail polish remover (acetone), rubbing alcohol (isopropanol), and cyanide. Should we be worried about eating apples? Of course not. Context is everything. The amounts of these, and over 300 other chemicals found in apples, are too small to be of any consequence. Whatever effect the fruit has on our health is a reflection of all of these naturally occurring substances.
The material is presented logically in three main parts: "Naturally occurring substances in our food supply", "Manipulating our food supply", and "Contaminants in our food supply". You can read from beginning to end, or dip into specific chapters at random. I suspect, though, that you will have the book read in very short order. It is gripping, with each easy to read chapter being only a few pages long.
Sections such as those describing the artificial sweetener 'debate', for example, are fascinating and the results not what I was expecting at all. The author reserves particular outrage on our behalf at the 'scientific' results of so-called media-friendly 'doctors'. One, for example, fools us with her 'Dr.' status which turns out to be an honorary doctorate in humanities from an unaccredited religious institution. And yet she is influencing policy through media pickup and sensationalism, while proper controlled scientific studies graft away in the background, rarely making news unless a genuine breakthrough really has been discovered. I felt mounting outrage while reading through this, and many other chapters.
Typical of Schwarcz's concluding section is the subject of 'detox'. As the author puts it:
"Even if detox diets do result in improved feeling of well-being, their concept is flawed. The message is that our body will forgive our dietary sins if we periodically undergo a cleanse. That's not what sound nutrition is all about. Focus should be on eating in a healthy fashion all the time, not on making some dramatic alteration when a problem arises. But that idea doesn't sell nearly as well as claims of miraculously restored health by a short-term change in diet."
I couldn't agree more. If, like me, you are confused about what to believe in the field of nutrition today, how we are being massively manipulated, you absolutely must read this book. The author gives you the tools to make your own informed decisions based on genuine scientific research. Oh, and he does conclude with what he personally considers a good, healthy eating lifestyle.
I thought I was well-informed at a culinary level, not blinded by myth and rhetoric. How wrong I was. The author is to be congratulated on this superlative exposition.
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