Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Food,...

Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 307pp. ISBN: 0375407545 Publisher: Knopf Alfred A Pub. Date: March 2000

Synopsis From one of our most trusted authorities on health and alternative health care, a comprehensive and reassuring book about food, diet, and nutrition. Building on the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of his Spontaneous Healing -- the body's capacity to heal itself -- and presenting the kind of practical information that informed his enormous best-seller 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Dr. Weil now provides us with a program for improving our well-being by making informed choices about how and what we eat. He explains the safest and most effective ways to lose weight; how diet can affect energy and sleep; how foods can exacerbate or minimize specific physical problems; how much fat to include in our diet; what nutrients are in which foods; and much, much more. He makes clear that an optimal diet will both supply the basic needs of the body and fortify the body's defenses and mechanisms of healing. And he provides easy-to-prepare recipes in which the food is as sensually satisfying as it is beneficial. Eating Well for Optimum Health stands to change -- for the better and the healthier -- our most fundamental ideas about eating.

Annotation "...provides basic facts about human nutrition, explains how to evaluate the latest miracle diet or reducing aid, presents in easy-to-follow detail the author's 'Optimum Diet,' and offers 85 recipes with nutritional breakdowns.

From the Publisher At last, a book about eating (and eating well) for health -- from Dr. Andrew Weil, the brilliantly innovative and greatly respected doctor who has been instrumental in transforming the way Americans think about health.

Now Dr. Weil -- whose nationwide best-sellers Spontaneous Healing and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health have made us aware of the body's capacity to heal itself -- provides us with a program for improving our well-being by making informed choices about how and what we eat.

He gives us all the basic facts about human nutrition. Here is everything we need to know about fats, protein, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins, and their effects on our health.

He equips us to make decisions about the latest miracle diet or reducing aid.

At the heart of his book, he presents in easy-to-follow detail his recommended OPTIMUM DIET, including complete weekly menus for use both at home and in restaurants.

He provides eighty-five recipes accompanied by a rigorous and reliable nutritional breakdown -- delicious recipes reminding us that we can eat for health without giving up the essential pleasures of eating.

Customized dietary advice is included for dozens of common ailments, among them asthma, allergies, heart disease, migraines, and thyroid problems. Dr. Weil helps us to read labels on all food products and thereby become much wiser consumers. Throughout he makes clear how an optimal diet can both supply the basic needs of the body and fortify the body's defenses and mechanisms of healing. And he always stresses that good food -- and the good feeling it engenders at the table -- is not only a delight but also necessary to our well-being, so that eating for health means enjoyable eating.

In sum, a hugely practical and inspiring book about food, diet, and nutrition that stands to change -- for the better and the healthier -- our most fundamental ideas about eating.

Chapter 1 - First Course 1. We Have to Eat to Live 2. Eating Is a Major Source of Pleasure 3. Food That Is Healthy and Food that Gives Pleasure Are Not Mutually Exclusive 4. Eating Is a Most Important Focus of Social Interaction 5. How We Eat Reflects and Defines Our Personal and Cultural Identity 6. How We Eat Is One Determinant of Health 7. Changing How We Eat Is One Strategy for Managing Disease and Restoring Health

Chapter 2 - The Macronutrients 1. Carbohydrates 2. Fats 3. Proteins

Chapter 3 - Carbohydrates Revisited: Staff of Life or Contributor to Illness

Chapter 4 - Fats Revisited Chapter 5 - Proteins Revisited Chapter 6 - The Optimum Diet Chapter 7 - Food Preparation and Ingredients Chapter 8 - Nutritional Medicine: Tailoring Diet to Medical Conditions Chapter 9 - Recipes Chapter 10 - Sources