Book Review: The Doctors Book of Food Remedies

The Doctors Book of Food Remedies, Selene Yeager and the Editors of Prevention Magazine, 707pp, $21.95 list, Amazon new: $14.93

This reference book offers hundreds of tips which reflect the latest findings on how food will treat and prevent health problems.

Cut your risk of heart attack in half by snacking on nuts...protect yourself against colon cancer with grapefruit....cool off your hot flashes with flaxseed...reduce your stroke chances by nibbling just one carrot a day...lower your blood pressure by munching a little more celery...heal a wound with honey...beat a cold with yogurt...say goodbye to PMS with whole-grain cereeal...fight diabetes with milk and with wind...reduce cholesterol and triglycerides with cinnamon. 

The 157 chapters focus on specific foods, problems, or important related topics (antioxidants, low-carb diet, smoking) and offers the best advice out there.  Also included are 100 nutrient-rich recipes specically developed to fight and reverse specific health problems.

Everybody has heard about benefits found to eating the ever-popular cold remedy chicken soup. Here there is a three-page chapter devoted to the topic.  There was actually a 1978 test by three lung specilists who had 15 people with colds sip either hot chicken soup, cold chicken soup, hot water, or cold water.  They found that chicken soup eased nasal congestion better than both hot water and cold water.  Even the steam from hot chicken soup acts as a powerful nasal decongestant, soothes irritated airways, and temporarily raises your body temperature, hindering the ability of cold viruses to multiply.  Add hot spices like a clove of garlic or chopped chili pepper to speed its declogging power.  Therapeutic effects of chicken soup last about 30 minutes.  Make lots.  A recipe for Grandma's Chicken Soup is included.

And that's only about chicken soup.

Having had a heart attack last November 29th, with diabetes and high blood pressure diagnosed simultaneously, I plan to use this book a lot, unlike many of my reference books.

If you have any health problems or, like futurist Raymond Kurzweil, you plan to take advantage of medical advances to extend your life forever, then this book is for you.