[.ca] Nutrition For Dummies, 3rd Edition (ISBN 0764540823)

From Amazon.com:
Butter or margarine? Regular or decaf? Wanna supersize those fries? Each of us makes dozens of dietary decisions a day and consumes 1,500 pounds of food a year, but nutrition is one of those topics in which many people--including the majority of physicians--are not well versed. Fortunately, reading Nutrition for Dummies is like watching That's Incredible!: there's no shortage of fascinating tidbits. Read it if you've ever popped a multivitamin and figured it would compensate for not getting your five fruits and veggies. Longtime health journalist Carol Ann Rinzler clearly walks you through the anatomy of the digestive system (including the difference between a duodenal and a peptic ulcer), the roles of the six basic groups of nutrients, the highs and unfortunate lows of metabolism, and the links between diet, aging, and disease. While these topics could be dry and dull, she spices them up with clear charts and illustrations, lively writing, and fascinating facts: "Megadoses of vitamin A {as retinol} may cause symptoms that make you think you have a brain tumor"; "Fluoride levels higher than 6 milligrams a day are considered hazardous"; the mineral copper "prevents your hair from turning gray prematurely"; oysters are correctly reputed to be aphrodisiacs, as they're high in zinc, which helps produce testosterone. Rinzler then covers food processing, how cooking affects nutrition (yes, cooking in an iron pan will add iron to your food), how to read food labels and choose supplements, and how to cope with food allergies and intolerances. She also lists common food-drug interactions (taking aspirin increases your folate and iron requirements). There's plenty in here that will benefit dieters--a food listed as "fat-free!" for example, can still contain up to half a gram of fat. Rinzler also lists her top 10s: Web sites, superstar foods, and easy ways to cut calories. An appendix listing nutritional information for hundreds of common foods is also included. --Erica Jorgensen

Lots of food for thoughts here:
Like any book of the Dummies series, this book provides a lot of information, and establishes a strong foundation in an incredibly complex and confusing field. I am a big fan of the Dummies series. Thanks to them, I learned a varied set of skills including EXCEL software, Chess, and cooking. But, nutrition is far more confusing than a user friendly software program. This book gives you all the basics you need to know about nutrition. This includes a good description of the macro nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats). The author even describes their respective chemical molecular compositions. Coverage of micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals) is just as good. This book gives you the information so you will eat healthily, understand what you eat, and what are your eating requirements. It is just like an excellent textbook for a college level course on nutrition. Except, as all Dummies book, it is a lot funnier and user friendly to read and extract the information than a college textbook.

A great book for those who wish to create their own diets:
This book title may be misleading, as it is not for dummies, it is for those who know little about nutrition but wish to know more It is highly informative, covering all aspects of nutrition, including vitamins, minerals, etc. that are stored in the body as well as those are not. Examples are given for foods that promote good health with plenty of references and studies that back up these claims. The digestive system is explained to give a very good and necessary knowledge of how foods are metabolized in the body. Scientific names are given, always with the layman's term or at least a thorough explanation. Plenty of websites are given for further reference. I highly recommend this book for those who wish to further their knowledge of nutrition. An excellent companion book, which is almost completely a very thorough list of food values and little else is 'Bowes And Church's Food Values of Portionz Commonly Used'.

not what i wanted:
I was hoping for a book that would help me put together menus with the best nutrition information. this one just didn't do that for me. instead it had the same old tired and conflicting information as the other books or magazines. plus, this one spent way too much time on the digestive process. most of us already know that or just don't care.

not what i wanted:
I checked out this book as much as i could on-line before buying and it sounded like a great way to figure out what i was doing wrong with my dieting and nutrition. all it did was point out the same old tired information that appears in all the other books and waste several pages explaining how the digestive system works. i was hoping for a book that would use the ideas of good nutrition to put together menus but this one didn't come through. i wish i hadn't bought it.

Nutrition for Dummies:
This is an excellent source of information organized in an easy-to-read format. It covers an entire range of topics from basic facts to healthy eating and food preparation. Much of the data is arranged in chart and table formats, which make it a great reference guide.