Eating Well Review

Andrew Weil is often dismissed by the professional nutrition community as a media-hound who favors sound-bytes over science. His web site is slick, almost hucksterish, and Time magazine stuck him on the cover of their issue on alternative medicine years back. It's important to remember, however, that Weil holds both undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard, and is on the med school faculty at the University of Arizona. Yes, he's a self-promoter of the first degree. But he's also a seasoned medical professional, expert at making good health information accessible to the masses.

Weil's book Eating Well for Optimum Health is an outstanding resource for any ordinary person who really wants to understand nutrition. After a brief warmup laying on the "Principles of Eating Well" (basic message: socializing and relaxing at mealtime may be as important to nourishment as the right foods), Weil devotes 40% of the book to a single chapter entitled "Basic Human Nutrition." He weaves complex biochemistry together with anecdotes and asides to make the interaction of food and our bodies click into focus. My hat is off to anyone who can make topics like HDL vs LDL cholesterol understandable and interesting.

Solid structure helps clearly convey the 112 pages of this section. Weil covers the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins) first, starting with a few pages on each. Once the basics are established, he probes each of these three in much more depth, then summarizes each with a bulleted list of main points. Next he proceeds with the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), giving a good overview and summarizing, once again, with bulleted highlights.

One of the biggest sources of confusion in nutrition information is the fact that the ground is always shifting under our feet. Yesterday eggs were bad, and today they're good. Carbohydrates are really bad for you... except maybe they're really good for you. Some authors address this by writing in trust-me-eat-this style: they lay out absolutes in an effort to eliminate confusion. But what happens to their credibility when a new study comes out tomorrow?

Weil avoids this trap—and shows great respect for his readers—by tracing the research history of each topic, explaining why eggs were thought to be bad, for instance, and why opinions changed. This approach makes many pages read like an intriguing medical mystery, and gives us the context to absorb tomorrow's new data, too. Weil says, "Here's how it seems to work, as far as we know today. So what do you think you should eat?" In the end, we are informed consumers, more ready to make our own decisions when the ground shifts yet again.

The rest of the book consists of "side dishes," interesting but no competition for the main course on basic human nutrition. There are chapters on the best and worst diets in the world, tips for food shopping and eating in restaurants, and a collection of about 75 recipes, including 19 desserts. The recipes are easy and pleasant, accessible even to beginner cooks (unlike Weil's new cookbook, which contains some daunting procedures). Five appendices round out the volume, including a good list of resources and a simple diagnosis list suggesting what dietary changes you might make for each of 50 different diseases and conditions.

Eating Well for Optimum Health is not perfect. I personally disagree with Weil's butter and peanut phobias, for instance, and he jumped the gun by announcing that the FDA started including trans-fats on food labels in 1999 (not so: we're still waiting). And I'm not sure why he included the appendix on bigu,a mystical Eastern fasting state. These minor drawbacks are insignificant; overall the book is an extremely useful reference on how the body uses food—and how food can abuse the body.

This is one of my favorite books, but it may not be right for everyone. If you're motivated to really understand nutrition, it's a must-read: Weil's clear writing and structure will carry you along smoothly, even if you know nothing about the subject when you start. For those who want a quicker grounding in nutrition, however, Weil's biochemical facts may be a bit daunting as a starting point. Consider Woodruff's Good Carb Cookbook—then come back to Eating Well for Optimum Health for its solid details after your improved health and weight encourage you to dig into all the whys and wherefores.

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Review © 2002 Cynthia Harriman.
All nutritional information on this website is as accurate as current research allows—though complex issues are often simplified to make important points clear. GoodFoodBooks.com humbly invites all professionals to email us with their ideas for improving the accuracy of our information while still leaving it clear enough to help normal people.