The Essential Guide to Nutrition and the Foods We Eat

Together with a calculator, I found and find this book to be absolutely indispensable in putting together and maintaining a healthy balanced diet, getting all the necessary nutrients, maintaining my weight and limiting as much as possible my intake of saturated (bad-cholesterol raising, and therefore possibly lethal as possibly heart attack/atherosclerosis/heart disease causing, if consumed in excess) fat at this time (after my cholesterol was determined by my doctor to be too high and I was advised by him to change my eating habits and improve my nutrition generally). In the beginning of the book is a short introductory chapter in which the basics of a healthy balanced diet are briefly discussed together with a graphic representation of the FDA's FOOD PYRAMID GUIDE and discussion of it, including what constitutes a portion and how many portions of the various kinds of foods comprising the pyramid one should have daily generally for one's sex, age range and activity level. One thing the author said that I liked very much and which helps me is that if one doesn't eat as healthily as one should one day, there is always the next day in which to improve. This book is the only resource of its kind which I have which lists Total Fat in grams AND SATURATED FAT IN GRAMS. I appreciate the fact that this information is included and that it is presented in this way (and not just as a percentage of the Total in the case of Saturated Fat) as this makes it as easy as possible for me to process quicky and simply. It continues to be particularly helpful to me in limiting my consumption of total fat, in general, and saturated fat, in particular, which as I said above is someting that I have been told need to do on an ongoing basis and which I do try to do. It lists a wide variety of foods and nutritional information in a format that makes it possible for an unusually large number of them to be included without their taking up a great deal of space. This makes it paricularly helpful to me in making healthy choices - getting enough of the nutrients I need without too much of anything I should not have too much of, and exercising portion control. Highly highly recommeded.I wouldn't want to be without it and I continue to refer to it for necessary nutritional information on an ongoing basis. The author is highly qualfied and has done an excellent job.

This book is essentail for healthy people to enrich their nutritional background. It instructs people how to select healthy foods and avoid bad nutritional habits.