How to Eat?
 

How to Eat is the title of a book by Dr. David Katz and colleague Mark Bittman. Curious, I bought it on Kindle. It has a Q&A format that soon made me feel like an idiot child asking grandpa to explain everything. But then, I’m coming from a background of considerable reading on the topic.

I wanted to capture a quote from the summary comments at the end, but I can’t seem to paste it here. However, the gist of it is, after a couple hundred pages:
Don’t eat industrial crap. Don’t pay attention to diet fads. Use common sense.

This is pretty good advice, as far as it goes. However, like many medical “experts” who have no clinical experience with lifelong obesity, or other weight management challenges, they (he, as Katz seems to be the chief author) dismiss out of hand the overwhelming “epidemiological” (a way of science he actually believes in) evidence for alternative dietary choices, like low-carb in all its permutations.

His focus on “balance” never really comes into focus. Those of us who have spent years learning to count stuff like calories, carbs, macros, and micronutrients might have a reason to think he makes it sound too easy.

Aside from my prejudice about low-carbohydrate eating, this book is exactly the thing he criticizes: a book with a catchy title intended to make money. Doesn’t matter that his “idea” is nothing new, as he admits. I say it was a lesson learned (by me) for only ten bucks. You can save that much at least.

The problem isn't fad diets, it's treating diets like they're fads.

$10 for a Kindle book?

Not unusual. When I buy books, I have a personal "triage": library, paperback, used, digital check-out (often free), digital purchase. Last of all, hardcover (if it looks like a definite keeper for my home library). In this case, I went for instant gratification and convenience, which are almost always the most expensive. :lol:

And teaser, you're absolutely right. These authors would agree with you, too.

Sadly, my library card expired during the lockdown. :help: I use web apps to check out ebooks, provided I can finish them before they get automatically returned. I love that feature!

So, my own checklist now goes:

• Scribd subscription
• Kindle Unlimited
• Used tree copy
• digital purchase

For the equivalent of two books a month, I subscribe to Scribd and Kindle Unlimited. These let me take as long as I like to read them, too. KU has a 10 book limit, while Scribd does not.

Out of print books are often not digital, but only a few bucks used. I digitally purchase very rarely now, because I'm trying to save money and work through my previously purchased backlog, which is considerable :)

From the sound of it,

is one of those CommonSense/InstinctiveEating/FollowYourHunger kinds of approaches, which might work for people whose main problem is cramming in snack food in front of the TV and eating too much takeout heavy on the transfats and breading.

Those DO NOT work for people who find they crave foods that are bad for them. Whose blood sugar plunges with those hearthealthywholegrains. Who already have metabolic issues from years of bad advice.

If we lived in an environment where the kind of foods humans are built to eat were all that existed we'd be fine following common sense, hunger, intuitive eating. Meat, maybe a few gathered plants, that sort of thing. But instead we find ourselves in a man-made environment of strange food-like substances filled with chemicals and grown and refined to have huge amounts of starch, sugars and rancid industrial omega 6 seed oils compared with what our bodies are meant to consume. Plus carefully engineered to taste great and make us want to buy and eat more of it. That is a problem.

Werebear, thanks for your useful list of preferred book sources. I'll keep it in mind.

As for How toEat-- Not entirely. Their "common sense" is don't eat highly processed industrial junk. The mantra they repeat: fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils, and good fats like olive oil and fatty fish. Everything else (except highly processed foods) in small amounts to suit yourself.

As far as I can tell, they do not deal with food addictions and afflictions, and many other individual details. This is not a book about weight loss. Presumably, if people eat as outlined above, healthy weight and good health will naturally ensue. Actually, on a population scale, this may be true. Our food environment and bad habits make this unlikely, however, to occur.

Again, this could be called "Eating for Dummies." These authors manage to avoid "Eat less, move more" as the universal solution. I give them that.

I have Kindle Unlimited too and I generally have 10 books in my queue at any one time, which does encourage me to read them so I can free up a slot when I want a new book. I also get emails daily from BookBub which sends me my daily bargain recommendations - books that are often free to buy, or 99 cents, or a $1.99. I'm willing to shell out that much.

Currently reading a book that I think was free at amazon - modern day author but a murder mystery set in 1940s wartime England. So far I'm loving it but that's my sort of book. I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan for example. Of course it turns out it's the first in a series and that's how they hook you in - first book free but if you like it you have to pay for the following books.

I find Kindle works best for me for novels - books where you start at the beginning, read until the end, and then stop. I like it far less for things like diet and health related books where I like to jump around, check out topics of interest, go back and forth, re-review topics, etc. There I like an actual physical book.

Don't think I would ever pay $10 for a book by David Katz, regardless of format. I would perhaps consider taking it from the library. But of course the library is closed now so not currently an option!