95. What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You - Ray D. Strand

In this book, Dr. Strand puts forth his arguments in favor of "nutritional medicine" - vitamins, minerals, and other supplements - and how these are essential to combating a lot of diseases. He defines "nutritional medicine" as a way to supplement pharmaceuticals (if needed) - to be distinguished from "alternative medicine," which is an alternative to pharmaceuticals. According to Strand:

Scientific research has established beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that oxidative stress, or cell damage caused by free radicals, is the root cause of more than seventy chronic degenerative diseases.

He devotes a good amount of time to explaining diseases such as fibromyalgia, lung disease, and diabetes. In the chapter about diabetes, he explains how Americans tend to eat way too many high-glycemic foods like white bread, white flour, pasta, and rice (meaning they cause blood sugars to rise very rapidly and stimulate the release of insulin). When our blood sugar drops, we feel hungry - so we eat again sooner. After a while, the release of insulin becomes overstimulated so often that our bodies become less sensitive to it.

It was interesting for me to have read Fast Food Nation recently, because Strand talks about a lot of the same things that Schlosser did. He explains that the RDAs (recommended daily allowances) set forth by the FDA are not very useful. Also: 17% of the American population does not eat any vegetables; and if we exclude French fries and baked potatoes - more than half of the population is not eating any vegetables!

Strand definitely made it clearer to me what these "free radicals" are that I keep hearing about; as well as what anti-oxidants are and why they're so important.

91. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal - Eric Schlosser

Eric Schlosser does an amazing, in-depth survey of almost anything you can think of that has to do with fast food: he shares history of the most of the core fast food restaurants, e.g. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and Carl's Jr.; he interviews the teenagers and immigrants who work at these restaurants; he uncovers secrets of the contemporary meatpacking industry; and he discusses marketing and globalization as it relates to fast food. He even explains how franchising fast food restaurants works: apparently the primary business of McDonald's isn't really fast food, it's real estate! The McDonald's Corporation owns the real estate of all of the 15,000 McDonald's restaurants in this country and it leases out the property to its franchisees. (Also, according to Schlosser, Subway is one of the worst companies of which you could become a franchisee.)

To understand just how much fast food has taken over our society:

[I]n 2000, [Americans] spent more than $110 billion [on fast food]. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined.

The marketing strategies used by fast food establishments are amazing. The bulk of their advertising is directed toward children, since children are "surrogate salesmen" - they have the ability to persuade others, usually their parents, to buy what they want. Soft drink marketers try to get their products into elementary schools because children establish their tastes and habits early - and soda has the highest profit margins out of any product at fast food restaurants.
The part of the book that was the most disturbing was the part about the slaughterhouses and the meatpacking industry. It was basically a modern day version of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Did you know that American beef can't even be exported to most countries in Europe, because American cows are fed things that Europe has banned? They are given bovine growth hormone (banned in Europe) - and they're also fed ground up cows and poultry. Yes - cows, which are really supposed to be grain- or grass- fed, are now omnivorous. Oh - and if you are a vegetarian, you might want to reconsider eating McDonald's fries - part of what gives them their unique taste is that they're cooked in oil with beef tallow and beef extract.

This was a great book - I decided to read this book after it was quoted several times in The Hungry Gene. Schlosser really revealed a lot about the fast food industry ... probably a lot more than I ever wanted to know! Even though it won't prevent me from eating fast food, I appreciate having a better understanding of what McDonald's (et al.) is doing to lure me to eat its food and I appreciate knowing what exactly I might be putting in my mouth.

86. The Hungry Gene: The Science of Fat and The Future of Thin - Ellen Ruppell Shell

This book, written by science journalist Ellen Ruppell Shell, is about why Americans are so fat, including the roles of genetics, drug companies, the food industry, and social class; and what crazy things we do to try to lose weight. $33 billion - yes, billion - a year are spent on weight loss products! - and bariatric surgeries like gastric bypass are becoming more common.

I found the first and last thirds (or so) of the book were the most interesting. The middle section on isolating leptin, the gene that helps to regulate energy intake and energy expenditure, including appetite and metabolism, got a bit dry. The first third talked a lot about the types of surgeries that people are going through to lose weight. Did you know that some doctors used to actually use a "slice and dice" approach - they'd actually cut you open and cut out layers of fat from your stomach!

The last third was definitely where I couldn't put the book down. One particularly interesting section explained how children of parents of ethnicities who tend to be smaller-framed (i.e. a lot of Hispanics and Asians) are especially prone to being obese when they start eating more Westernized diets (i.e. McDonald's, Coca-Cola, etc.). People in the Philippines have started drinking more Coke per capita than any other country - and their obesity rate has shot up dramatically in the past decade.

Shell also does a great job of uncovering the food industry. This part is so true:

Convenience is more than a buzzword in the food industry; it's a matter of life or death. Millions of advertising dollars are spent reminding us that we do not have the time or patience to shop for, cook, or thoroughly consume our meals. And we are convinced. In the 1960s homemakers spent about two and a half hours making dinner each night. In 1996, the latest year for which figures are available, dinner preparation had shrunk to fifteen minutes.

Another interesting thing to think about: why don't nice restaurants ever supersize, for example, your lobster tail? It's only the cheap places, like fast food restaurants, that do things like that. Well ...

"You're getting extra French fries, more soft drink, cheap stuff that is essentially filler ... You think you're getting a deal here, but you're really not.' Salads are rarely part of these "value meals" and for good reason - fresh vegetables are pricey to buy, prepare, and store. (Salads also take longer to eat, anathema to the fast food world.) Servers are trained to remind customers of the "good deal" they'll get by super-sizing their meal for the very sound reason that super-sizing is not a good deal ...

... because it only costs fast food places three more cents to add some more fries ... but just think of how many more calories that is for us!!

I'm definitely a fan of Shell's journalistic writing style - although to be completely honest, the chapters that talk about isolating leptin got a bit dry. I don't think it was her fault - she did the best job she could - it was just the material. Anyway, both books I've read by her have been great (this one and Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture), and I definitely recommend both of them.

49. Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness - Suzanne Somers

This was my first Suzanne Somers book (who knew she's written 17?!) ... and since all I really knew of her was from Three's Company and Step by Step, I was relatively impressed.

Somers is a huge proponent of finding ways "to live a long, healthy, energetic life without drugs." This book is a collection of information that Somers has researched based on her experience with breast cancer, as well as interviews with doctors about the "eight steps to wellness": (1) bio-identical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT); (2) avoid chemicals and detoxify your body; (3) take nutrition seriously; (4) create a healthy GI tract; (5) avoid pharmaceuticals unless absolutely necessary; (6) supplement your diet; (7) exercise regularly; and (8) get proper sleep.

There are a lot of useful bits of information woven into this book - i.e. about melatonin (an over-the-counter hormone that helps you sleep, which is a much better option than prescription drugs; it also helps fight free radicals); natural ways to cure bladder infections; and why alcohol and caffeine can make it really hard for you to lose weight. But the bulk of it really would be more useful to me in about 10 years. At 25, I don't need to worry about anti-aging stuff like BHRT - and from what I hear, it's also very expensive! Lastly, I felt that the interview style of the book made it about 100 pages longer than it needed to be - there are interviews with different doctors under each heading, and sometimes the things that the doctors say overlap.

The main reason I'd hesitate to recommend this book is because I feel that there's another one out there that says many of the same things but in an easier-to-read style and in fewer pages.