healthy eating books?

[~Mom2thhts~]

I am fixing to make a bulk book purchase from amazon and was wondering if y'all healthy mamas had any book recommendations??

These are the books I am looking at purchasing:

1) The N.D.D. Book: How Nutrition Deficit Disorder Affects Your Child's Learning, Behavior, and Health, and What You Can Do About It--Without Drugs (Sears Parenting Library) - William Sears

2) The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your Children - From Birth through Adolescence - William Sears

3) The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood: Ten Ways to Get Your Family on the Right Nutritional Track (Sears Parenting Library) - William Sears

4) Dr. Sears' L.E.A.N. Kids: A Total Health Program for Children Ages 6-11 - William Sears

They are all by Dr.Sears so I was concerned that I may be buying books that overlap each other and didn't want to waste my money or time reading the same thing. I'm looking to educate myself nutritionally and help my family to eat better. I'm looking for meal and snack ideas and school lunch ideas. I want to eat healthy but we also need to eat cheaply and in large quantities as we have 10 lovely mouths to feed!! (well 2 of those are still EBF'ing! )

So have any of you read these books? What did you like about it? Do you think they are ALL worth purchasing? Have you read a different book that you think is better?

Thank you in advance for your advise and recommendations!! I cant wait to start reading!! : : :

[Thalia the Muse]

I like Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food for this, because some nutrition books leave readers with a lot of anxiety that they MUST eat this one magic food and whole other categories of food will kill them, and for the love of all that's holy, what about the magnesium? Are they GETTING ENOUGH MAGNESIUM!?

Ahem. Anyway, I think they can be anxiety-provoking and encourage readers to think of food as pharmeceuticals, which IMO is not a very healthy way to look at food. And Pollan does a really good job presenting a saner way to deal with it.

My two cents!

[JessicaS]

I have the Whole Foods cookbook and the Complete Book of Raw Food checked out from the library both seem pretty good, a lot of information and recipes.

I am just trying to get some new ideas, I make too many heavy meals. There are too many "hey wanna split part of a cow with me?" temptations around me. :

[Drummer's Wife]

What about Real Food: What to eat and why

[jessicafairy]

I have read 3 of those 4 books. I haven't read LEAN kids. I think there is pretty significant overlap in the others. I would buy either NDD or Healthiest kid in the neighborhood. I think I still have them from the library if you have specific questions. The recipe sections are very small, I've gotten more recipes here!

I would also look at;
Feeding the Whole Family Cynthia Lair
Simple Food for Busy Families Jeannette Bessinger

I'll keep watching to see what else gets recommended!

[FairyRae]

I've not read the books you mentioned, but wanted to cooment!

Originally Posted by Drummer's Wife

What about Real Food: What to eat and why

My sister just got "Real Food for Mother and Baby" and I think it's even better than "Real Food"--more user friendly (IMO)!

Another book I'd rec. is Nourishing Traditions--it has changed my life! But the "Real Food" books are definately great intros/primers for folks interested in eating healthy, *traditional*, 'real' foods...

[~Mom2thhts~]

Thank you everybody for your responses! I am so excited by the variety of books to choose from. These are the books I think I will purchase...

Feeding the Whole Family Cynthia Lair
-I liked this book because of the many recipe ideas, esp for school lunches. It seems very user friendly.

Simple Food for Busy Families Jeannette Bessinger
-This book was aimed at busy moms so I thought it would be a good book to reference when I need to quickly and easily whip something up.

Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food
-This book looks very interesting. I want to learn what myths are true and what are not. The history of nutrition looks very intersting to me. I want to learn more about what processed foods are doing to us.

Real Food: What to eat and why Nina Planck
-I want to change the way I think about eating healthy.

The N.D.D. Book: How Nutrition Deficit Disorder Affects Your Child's Learning, Behavior, and Health, and What You Can Do About It--Without Drugs (Sears Parenting Library) - William Sears; Paperback
-I want to learn about how certain foods can affect my childrens behavior and what to cut out and how.

So what do you think? too over whelming?
They just all sound too good!!

[mama1803]

Originally Posted by Drummer's Wife

What about Real Food: What to eat and why

I'm reading this right now and I love it! It has certainly challenged me on some of my ideas of what healthy eating means.

[Geigerin]

Originally Posted by Thalia the Muse

I like Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food for this, because some nutrition books leave readers with a lot of anxiety that they MUST eat this one magic food and whole other categories of food will kill them, and for the love of all that's holy, what about the magnesium? Are they GETTING ENOUGH MAGNESIUM!?

Ahem. Anyway, I think they can be anxiety-provoking and encourage readers to think of food as pharmeceuticals, which IMO is not a very healthy way to look at food. And Pollan does a really good job presenting a saner way to deal with it.

My two cents!

I'm coming to this a bit late, but I definitely second Michael Pollan's book. He also wrote "Omnivore's Delimma" another great one, IMO.

If you're looking for books with recipes, also try:

Local Flavors by Deborah Madison and The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. Both are great for getting back to whole foods.

[Samm]

I'd also add Mark Bittman's Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes Happy Reading!!

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Cookbook author Bittman (How to Cook Everything) offers this no-nonsense volume loaded with compelling information about how the food we eat is doing damage to the environment, what changes to make and why. Authors have covered this topic before (Michael Pollan, for example, in The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food), but Bittman takes a practical turn by concluding with 77 recipes that make earth-friendly eating doable and appealing. His collection of reliable recipes even includes such meat dishes as Thai beef salad, which isnt meat-heavy, but rather has just the right balance of meat to greens. There are also such staples as super-simple mixed rice; chicken not pie; and modern bouillabaisse. Bittman decries consumption of over-refined carbohydrates, but doesnt leave off without some sweets, including chocolate semolina pudding and nutty oatmeal cookies—suggesting, as the whole book does, that a diet in synch with the needs of the earth doesnt result in a sense of utter deprivation. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Only America could produce a Mark Bittman. One moment, he’s traversing Spain on public television with celebrities in tow, peddling the newest fad in high-end dining and drooling over prodigious quantities of savory food in tight closeup. The next moment he’s promoting minimalist cooking. Now he reports his own passionate belief in agricultural sustainability and slow food, and he touts a new diet that not only offers guilt-free pleasure but also makes Americans look as good as the beautiful people he hangs out with. His prescription: become aware of where food comes from; choose foods intelligently; pay attention to broad, inclusive nutritional principles; balance intake and exercise; snack judiciously; and make sure that whatever one eats, it’s as attractive to the palate as it is to the waistline. Bittman’s fame will generate lots of attention, and his commonsense advice, while not new, bears the hallmarks of contemporary nutritional wisdom. Recipes included. --Mark Knoblauch