Book Review

Eat To Live  By Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

(Click on the underlined title to see Barnes & Noble or Amazon Review/Price)

This is a book I think everyone should read.  I've been a little hesitant to review it because I've been so convinced and impressed by it.  Of course, no book is perfect.  There are things in it that I don't completely agree with.  These points are small and few.  Fuhrman includes over 360 references to back up the points he makes in his book.  That might be one of my criticisms of the book.  It's so comprehensive, a good thing, but that also makes it difficult to clearly understand.  It's the kind of book that needed to be written, but it just may be too opaque and difficult for the "casual lay reader."

This book is about changing our eating habits.  It asks us to do what most MD's have said people won't do, and that is give up highly processed foods and instead eat low processed, unrefined plant foods.  What worked for me was the good reasons it gave for doing this.  There weren't vague and overreaching reasons like it's "good for you," or "it will help the planet."  Eat To Live attempts to prove to us that the reason to change eating habits is to make your life longer, and, better than that, to make that longer life be of high quality.

Few would question that most deaths today are "lifestyle deaths."  In other words, people die earlier than they're supposed to because of the things they decide to do.   Eat To Live gives these statistics with the World Health Organization (Statistical Annual,1999) as a source.  The major killers of Americans = 52% heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes; 38% all cancers (a total of 90%).  Most everyone agrees that many cases of heart attacks, diabetes, and strokes are caused by lifestyle choices.  The causes of cancer are not so clear, but every day there are studies showing that "lifestyle choices," diet and exercise, make all the difference.

One of the other possible criticisms of this book is that what it asks people to do is just too radical.  Its suggestions are so "far out," that most people will be discouraged and not even try what is suggested.  They may not even want to read it because of what they've heard it suggests.  That criticism is probably a valid one, but I believe it's a book that needed to be written.  If its suggestions are not sound and true, they should be refuted, but if the suggestions are true, then not to read something so important for the quality of your life would be foolhardy.  It would certainly behoove every fitness trainer to read Eat To Live. 

I highly recommend this book, particularly to those who want to be leaner and improve the quality of their life as they age.

(Eat To Live is available at bookstores everywhere, or on the Amazon web site. It's bookmarked on my Fitness Links page).