Strong Women Eat Well – by Dr. Miriam Nelson

We previously reviewed Dr. Nelson’s excellent “Strong Women Stay Young”, which focused on the science of an exercise program (which is provided in the book) and its results. This time, it’s about the nutritional side of things.

After the introductory material of the kind you’d expect (about the current state of affairs in terms of Americans not eating well), space is devoted to “the new national guidelines: a solid base for optimal nutrition”. This does date the book somewhat (it was written in 2001), as it predates the China Study, not to mention the decades of advances in nutritional science since.

Nevertheless, after presenting the (now largely abandoned) food guidance pyramid, she does note that there are a dozen more food guidance pyramids around, tailored to different dietary approaches and different demographics. With this in mind, she recommends the food pyramid more as a template, a way of describing how we plan to eat and then ensuring we don’t go off-piste, rather than necessarily as the One True Eating Plan that the initial exposition of it may have otherwise conveyed.

Thereafter, we get chapters devoted to each of the various food groups (e.g. grains, fruit, vegetables, etc), and the science around them as best it stood at the time, as well as advice on integrating these into one’s dietary pattern.

Finally, she does also give recipes, but they’re not the real meat of the book, so to speak; they’re more an illustration of what can be. This cannot be reasonably described as a recipe book, so much as a book that includes some recipes.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for a book of cutting edge nutritional science, this isn’t it. If, however, you’re looking to rethink how you go about deciding what to eat, then this book can help with that.

Click here to check out Strong Women Eat Well, and eat well!