Mindless Eating- Wansink

This is a good book to help you realize you are not as in control of what you eat as you might think through very thorough explanations of his research in various universities determining many things such as how accurately we assess calories in our foods, which situations are most likely to enable us to mindlessly eat. I really like this book for its information but I felt it was a bit too apologist to the food industry claiming that they do not have bad intentions in feeding us as they do (five servings on one package of chocolate that everyone knows you will eat in one gulp, etc) but I don't find his reasoning very convincing. Still, its a good book and very interesting.

Pritikin Weight Loss Breakthrough

I began reading this book after reading Pollan's books "In Defense of Food" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" (both reviewed on this site below). While Pollan never mentioned Pritikin, I found that Pritikin's ideas reflected very much what Pollan had to say (i.e. avoid processed food, easy on the heavy meat emphasis, eat more plants, etc.). The principle seems fascinating but this particular book is not the one to read to get an idea of the details of his plan as only one or two chapters are truly devoted to it. I really enjoyed reading about his explanation of why we crave fats and sweets and how to try and outsmart it. It really makes great sense that you will feel fuller eating a huge salad as compared to a 3 oz steak though the salad had infinitely less calories.

People keep saying Pritikin is really strict and not realistic but I dont see how? You never go hungry, you can eat sweet things like oranges and other fruits, you can eat even after dinner. I think its a much better alternative to many diets out there today.

All this being said there are a few things I disagree with Pritikin about:
1. Some of his meal plans include diet coke. You can read here why I disagree with that. Plus if we're supposed to avoid processed food well, diet coke is processed food!
2. He advocates using low fat dressing. Research has shown that we absorb more nutrients in our veggies through some fat in the dressing. Also, most dressing is incredibly processed, there should have been some caution about this included. I think olive oil, some feta and freshly ground peppers and salt with a hint of lime mixed together and poured over a salad is unbeatable.

My rating of this book is for this book in understanding the Pritikin principle and not a statement of the diet in general, principles of which, I intend to incorporate myself.

The Omnivore's Dilemma- Michael Pollan

I will write more about this book on my main blog (www.aishaiqbal.blogspot.com) but suffice it to say this book is a life changing examination on where our food comes from. If you read this book you will have to confront some ugly truths about the nature of indusrialized food and you may also feel dismay that organic foods, many of them, are not always necessarily better. Still, though it will open your eyes to ugly truths it is an important book to read nevertheless. Devour immediately!