Review of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (Paperback)

It is almost a cliche in this day and age for someone to ask the waiter at a Chinese restaurant 'no MSG, please,' as is the waiter's knowing smirk in response. MonoSodium Glutamate (MSG), or 'The essence of taste' (as coined by the Japanese), is used as a 'taste-enhancer' in nearly every form of processed food on the market today, though 'taste addiction' may be a more correct term. But what exactly does it do? And how is it harmful?
Dr. Russell L. Blaylock answers these questions and poses some startling evidence as to the eventual consequences of a heavy MSG-diet in his book _Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills_. In basic terms, MSG (and other, similar agents) pierces the blood-brain barrier and over-stimulates the neurons of a brain to a deadly degree. Habitual intake among animal experiments has shown the development of tumors, memory loss, and a whole host of neurodegenerative diseases as the end result of excess excitotoxin intake, including Alzhiemer's, Parkenson's, Lou Gerhig's etc.
Walk into any gas station in the United States (or grocery store, for that matter) and, upon close investigation, you will find that 75%-90% of the available food has been 'enhanced' to some degree by excitotoxins. The chemical agents are often disguised by such ambiguous terms as 'spice' and 'natural flavors' or, my personal favorite, 'hydrolyzed vegetable protein.' A consumer society must have consumer slaves to keep it functioning; MSG is the crack cocaine of the food industry...and it is legally perpetuated by slush-fund advocates and a pork-glutted FDA. As proven again and again, money talks, ... [you can finish the maxim for me].
Blaylock's thesis is written in a technical style, but the use of repetition throughout each chapter hammer in his myriad points into the reader with precision and power. An important book for anyone concerned with the health of self and family. You are what you eat---but do you know _what_ it is you are eating, below the surface of taste/fulfillment?



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Review of Healthy Holistic Aging; A Blueprint for Success (Paperback)

What is exemplary about Healthy Holistic Aging is that the book not only provides an easy to follow blueprint for health and holistic aging, but the author is an exceptional role model for his program. Can you live a healthy and independent life to the age of 100? Can you enjoy positive relationships? Can you maintain a healthy environment? Carl Helvie says you can and at age 74, he's a perfect example of the right things to do. He has no chronic illnesses and is among the 11% of the age 65-and-overs who take no prescribed medications. As a professor emeritus and a doctor of public health, he knows whereof he speaks and cites overwhelming scientific evidence that good diet, exercise, adequate sleep, prayer, meditation, positive relationship with others and a clean and safe environment can ensure successful aging.

I just hope all of us will listen.

Carolyn Chambers Clark, RN, EdD
Author, Living Well with Anxiety



Product Description
Can you live a healthy and independent life to the age of one hundred? Can you enjoy lifelong positive relationships? Can you maintain a healthy environment? Carl Helvie presents his holistic theory of aging and concludes that we influence our health and other life circumstances by our thoughts, decisions, and actions. Helvie believes that we must strive to reverse negative thoughts and actions to facilitate a healthy aging process. Citing overwhelming scientific evidence, he demonstrates that the combination of good diet, exercise, adequate sleep, prayer, meditation, positive interaction with others, and a clean and safe environment can ensure successful aging.

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Review of How to Survive Your Diet and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever (Paperback)

I waited a little over a year to write my review; I wanted to offer solid evidence in favor of this book and approach to losing my disordered eating (binge eating/compulsive overeating in my case). I read this book about 11 months ago and quit dieting after having gained 20 more pounds on my diet last winter (bingeing my way through it). I have been implementing normal eating ever since to the best of my ability.What changes have taken place in my less than perfect attempts to eat normally?

-- I am losing weight.
-- My blood pressure is perfect when it was high (140/90) a year ago before non-dieting/normal eating.
-- My cholesterol is normal (I suspect it too was high).
-- I am exercising everyday without hating it.
-- I am eating foods I love with no fear of calories, carbs, or fat grams.
-- I am enjoying life again, no longer in a pit of despair asking myself all day long, "what can I do to quit eating and lose weight?"

Linda's book gave me perhaps the most important tool in my life (and in my eating struggles): the ability to think in shades of grey. I have always been a perfectionistic, all or nothing, black and white sort of person. No more-- I am free from dieting prison and all other prisons. Now my eating matches up with my other philosophical and personal leanings toward free thought and focused action. I urge you to read this book, and if you need more support, come on over to dietsurvivors' yahoo group, Linda Moran's group.Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Linda.


Product Description
Are you a Diet Survivor? Maybe your whole life seems to revolve around diets and weight focus. Perhaps even attempts at intuitive eating failed. This book will help you find your own inner wisdom, and a path to normal eating.
Binge eating, emotional eating, stress eating, and just plain overeating are often made worse by dieting, not cured by it. External changes just aren't enough. That's why even intuitive eating can backfire.
Unlike willpower, the work lies instead in changing how you think about food, stress, and emotions. And happily, you can stay in the present day. No need to delve into childhood memories or deep emotions.
Using principles of cognitive therapy, you will learn to adjust the self-talk that accompanies dysfunctional eating. Self-talk such as "I must drink this diet soda in order to get thin," "my children must not have junk in the house," "my emotional eating will never end," and "I canÂ't tolerate stress," have little basis in reality and lead to failure.
After some work at replacing your beliefs with facts, you will start to find your own food wisdom again. Maybe you havenÂ't had this wisdom since you were a baby, but itÂ's still inside you. And you will learn to think in shades of gray, instead of the black and white thinking that is typical of folks with dysfunctional eating.
Learn how to know when you are hungry and full, and how to be a picky eater, perhaps for the first time in your life. With practice, you will find that small, perfect, delicious portions do satisfy. Just as importantly, learn how you can cope with stress and emotions without running to the refrigerator. Learn to apply your mind to rational thought.
No longer will you feel that your body has betrayed you. You will once again be able to trust your body and mind to lead you to your ideal weight. You will never again have to bow to a diet as if it were some kind of god. Instead, any diet you choose will be your slave, not your master. In fact, as you finally free yourself from your attachment to food and dieting, your body will seek its ideal weight with no formal diet at all.
Regardless of whether or not you are overweight, if you have any kind of food issues such as emotional eating, stress eating, eating in secret, exercise addiction, using food for control, night eating, diet addiction, scale addiction, or binge eating disorder, this book is for you. Eating issues are more hidden than people realize, and are not always evidenced in oneÂ's appearance. Indeed, eating issues reside in our hearts and minds, not our stomachs.
This book is a fun, easy read that could change your life. Join the growing club of Diet Survivors.

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Review of The 80/10/10 Diet (Paperback)

This is a very interesting book, and I am extremely glad it has been written. The strange sounding title refers to the name of an eating plan that derives 80% of total calories from carbs as found in fruit, and 10% each from fat and protein, and does so within a raw vegan framework. Graham's opinion is that this is the optimum and natural diet for human beings and therein lies the premise of this book, and he spends the next 300+ pages convincing the reader why this is so.

To accomplish this, Graham uses mostly common sense arguments and scientific analyses. The former are more effective here, and he peppers the text liberally with them. The combination is a very convincing mix, and I felt ready to dive into a pit of bananas before I had read too far. By the time Graham describes how eating a high-fat diet stresses the adrenals I was both fascinated and reflecting in horror on my past dietary sins.

There are 348 pages here; 170 of them are essay in chapters, and the balance goes to sample menus, nutrient breakdowns, portion equivalents, testimonials, faqs, and so on. These miscellaneous parts do not come across as filler, even the perhaps overly lengthy testimonial section. Graham's writing style is clear and though he engages in repetition at times (for instance when talking about fat and blood sugar) the flow is mainly undisturbed. The end feeling I had was that it was very intelligently laid out and well done. I also appreciate that he doesn't try to sell you anything. (see "The PH Miracle" for an example of that!)

I really don't have much to criticize here, I did wonder what stripe of doctor "Dr." Graham is, and some of the menu plans (dinners) seemed a bit complex to coexist with a "mono is best" philosophy. He cites some vague and trivial sources ("a 1999 journal article says..." and "according to a brochure from the Colorado Vegetarian Society..."), and I was left wondering why Dr. Graham recommends eating any "overt" fat at all (given that sweet fruits and greens naturally contain 5% fat). He never gave a reason. Also, he says to eat juicy fruit for breakfast, sweeter fruit for lunch, and I remember something about acid fruits at dinner. Again, he never gave a reason for this. Very minor things in the broader context. I would overlook a great deal more to get to the profoundly worthwhile message of this book.

I guess the most compelling thing about this book is that by the end, the diet proposed within seems like a no big deal, normal, almost. It's like a secret hiding in plain sight. That's amazing considering how truly rare it is to eat in such a way. Go out into the world and you will see it is borderline revolutionary. I have applied these principles and experienced nothing but positive results for myself- If it were not so I would never write such a review. I must say thanks to Dr. Graham for putting this out there for everyone to benefit from.

Note: I don't know what the deal is with the 4-6 weeks Amazon takes to ship it, I bought mine from [...] because of that.

Product Description
After more than 5 years of intensive work the definitive guide to the 80/10/10 Diet is here! Get your hands on the latest book by Dr. Douglas Graham, The 80/10/10 Diet: Balancing Your Health, Your Weight, and Your Life One Luscious Bite at a Time. If you have struggled with staying raw, would like to lose weight, or change your life for the better, look no further than this groundbreaking book.

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