My rating:
add to my books
Loading...
The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Resource for Healthy Eating
To a large degree, the quality of what we eat determines our health, and many cultures understand that food is the best medicine for what ails us. Arranged alphabetically, fully cross-referenced and indexed, and illustrated with line drawings, The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia provides information on how to select, prepare, store, and use medicinally more than 1,000 common ...more
Paperback, 426 pages
Published
July 1st 1999
by Penguin Books
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
185)
I will second the review below that says the book is not very scientific. I was aware when I bought it that it wouldn't be quite what I wanted: I was looking for basically an encyclopedia of staple foods, with basic information, nutritional information, general cooking recommendations, etc. I knew this would be much more New Age-y than I wanted, but it seemed to be the nearest thing available. (I guess I'll have to compile my own.) I do like it and will keep it, but will be looking for other...more
If you run across a weird produce item, or want to know which foods are good for your liver, or are interested in the kitchen remedy applications of rhubarb, consult this book. After you do that, you will just want to start reading it. Wood's knowledge of food is exhaustive, and she throws in interesting stories and history to keep it from being a dry list of which foods have which vitamins. She's pretty opinionated, though, and if you take it too seriously, you might start freaking out about...more
Very insightful, this "encyclopedia" goes through and lists all natural vegetables and grains, what it is, what it's uses are ( both as food and medicinally)and so on... I use it frequently, as a guide, to gain a better understanding of the food I am eating, and how to better use the food around me. I find the author to be extremely knowledgeable and all information is very straight forward. The author gives recommendations as to what is good for use, how to prepare or store certain f...more
Jennifer
rated it
Recommends it for:
anyone who is eating a whole foods based diet, or wants learn about eating healthy foods
Shelves:
healthy-living,
cookbooks
Whether or not you believe in Ayurveda, food combining or other unusual ideas, I find this book to be a really comprehensive guide to all whole foods (hence its title!). It also is a helpful guide to what foods you may think are healthy should actually be avoided, due to the chemicals used in processing. I rented this book from the library as a follow-up read to In Defense of Food. It really helped to give me a better idea of what 'processed health foods' to avoid. Examples include texture...more
I checked this book out at the library a couple times, so I thought I might as well buy it. It is a great reference and now lives in my kitchen. I love the way she describes the different foods and explains their benefits and drawbacks. I learned about quinoa thanks to this book (before it became popular).
I found a newer version, released in the last couple years. It's a great resource for learning about specific whole foods, their history and benefits. Awesome reference book.
I wish I could put exclamation points after the five stars. I use this book constantly.
a good reference for your kitchen bookshelf
Rorie DuPrey
added it
helpful and informative
Brian
rated it
Recommends it for:
anyone who loves to eat fresh, natural food.
Shelves:
owned-and-read,
food
Absurdly complete, from "acorn" to "zuchinni". I filed this as a cookbook, but it doesn't have a lot of recipes, so much as basic instructions on how to handle and prepare every piece of produce you can imagine. A good amount of nutritional info, tons of cultural history and anecdotes, and some stuff about traditional medicine systems like aryuveda that I don't pay much attention to. A handy kitchen reference for anyone who likes to eat healthy, but also the kind of thing you...more
Not very scientific. If you look under beets, for instance, there is a reference to a "nutrition PhD" who claims that you can tell if you're iron deficient or not by whether or not your urine is pink. Iron has nothing to do with that!!! It's the betacyanin, the flavanoid that makes the beet red. Sometimes useful as a starting point but need to confirm with more reliable sources to confirm health benefits.
Skimmed through the pages of the book and liked the plant, food, historical, nutritional and health information that I saw. More of a reference book for you to pick up and flip to, get your info, then put back on the shelf until next time... not a read-through book. Borrowed from the library but would like to get my own used copy to keep on hand for reference!
This is a great book for looking up certain foods/spices/herbs to see what they can be used for. The author lists health reasons, cooking reasons, and etc. It is a great Whole Foods Encyclopedia and I would like to own this book myself. What a good resource!
a good reference book if you want to know what nutrients are in your foods. it goes a little too heavy into the mystical for my taste, but the practical info is useful & concise.
I LOVE this book, and in fact bought one for my sis a couple years back. I got it while at Natural Gourmet and look something up in it at least once a week.
I refer to this book more than almost any other. How to buy, store, cook, health properties, ayurvedic properties.
I refer to this book regularly when talking to folks about the nutritional value/lack of food.
Didn't read the whole thing (I skimmed), but a great book.
my #1 go to reference for food/nutrition info.
great reference for cooking w/ whole foods
Colleen
marked it as to-read
Carol
marked it as to-read
Trav
marked it as to-read
Jessi
marked it as to-read
Sue Chamberlain
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
