Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are so many things wrong with this book I barely know where to begin. I thought the review below mine covered much of what I wanted to say. Let's begin with this: the authors rant quite a bit against modern medicine, specifically over-the-counter pain medicines like Tylenol and Advil. They say that "Cramps suck" and then tell us "cramps are supposed to suck" and that the purpose of cramps is to ready our bodies for the pain of NATURAL CHILDBIRTH, and therefore, when we take pain killers to mask the pain of cramps, we are screwing ourselves over (only they don't use the word "screwing"). Seriously. Do you need any further reason to NOT read this book? What's next -- NATURAL dentistry? When I first picked it up, I confess, I was delighted and amused. The authors drop the f-bomb within the first few paragraphs. They call diet soda a "chemical spill sh-tstorm". The book jacket and attitude of the authors made it seem easy to lose weight, as if the so-called "difficulty" of being "skinny" is all in our minds. Be skinny? No problem! Then I got to the part where they started on the REAL message of the book. It's not a diet book, folks. It's not about losing weight or even being healthy. This book is a Vegan Manifesto. The whole purpose and reason for this book is for the authors to spout their own political views about food and food production. When I got to the page where they say we as humans are biologically not supposed to eat meat simply because we do not have the claws or teeth to hunt and kill like carnivores, my jaw dropped open. Because we as humans have to use tools (weapons) to hunt, this "proves" we are intended by nature to be herbivores. In two paragraphs the authors dismissed 150 years of research in evolutionary biology. Obviously the authors are NOT physical anthropologists. You don't need a degree in that subject to see for yourself how wrong they are -- all you need to do is look at your own teeth. Humans, like many primates, are OMNIVORES, not vegetarians. We have molars for chewing vegetation, yes, but we also have incisors for ripping into food and WE HAVE CANINE TEETH, specifically designed for eating meat. The authors also dismiss the biological component of Homo sapiens that our species has used for thousands of years to hunt successfully -- OUR BRAIN. Perhaps it's because they've never used theirs. Despite this, I kept reading. As the book went on, I just could not believe what I was reading. If the book is intended to be about "diet" then why are there 3 chapters about food production and animal slaughter? I cannot even recommend this book to anyone considering veganism. This book is not simply about choosing to be a vegan -- this book is about HOW TO HAVE AN EATING DISORDER. The authors are not skinny because they are vegan. They are thin because they have a couple of full blown eating disorders, and if you want to look like them, you need one too. Like those suffering from ED, the authors demonize whole food groups as "bad". If you ingest any of these foods, you are "fat" and "disgusting". If you eat meat, then you are fat and disgusting, and you have "dead carcass rotting" away in your guts. Despite study after study demonstrating that people who eat breakfast lose more weight and keep it off, and that food in the morning is needed to charge the body's metabolism, the authors tell the reader to put off eating breakfast -- to enjoy the "clean" and "light" feeling one gets from starving oneself. The longer you can put off eating, the better. Only when the hunger pangs are too hard to bear, are you, the reader, to eat ONE piece of organic fruit. If you cannot stand the hunger, you are allowed one more piece and then, if you must, a third, but the goal is to reduce your food intake to one piece of fruit for breakfast. To these authors, food is bad, and if you are weak enough to be hungry, then YOU are bad too. This whole book is disgusting. How can I blame the authors -- the lack of food has affected their brains. But the publishers should be strung up for printing and distributing it. I have always been again censorship, but if ever there was a reason for a book burning, this book is it. Don't read it and DON'T let your daughter read it. If you are interested in food production and where our food comes from, I recommend What To Eat, by Marion Nestle, who teaches nutrition at Columbia University in New York. That's a reputable book by a reputable author, with actual research behind it. If you are interested in veganism, there are many good books out there, and I recommend the blog Vegan Lunch Box (google it). If you are interested in losing weight, I recommend almost anything else.