Total Nutrition

Customer Reviews

• Concise, scientific and medically relevant text of nutrition  Nov 4, 1998 (13 of 14 found this helpful)

  I completely disagree with the review of October 25, 1998. Total Nutrition is a serious medical text about nutrition that supports its claims with scientific studies. I have a serious medical condition (a kidney transplant), and have had to learn a considerable amount about nutrition in order to keep my transplant healthy. I have over 60 books on nutrition, and this is the ONLY text that I reccommend to fellow transplant patients to understand nutrition.

  The book is in three parts: Part I: Nutrition is explained in detail so that the reader understands what a macronutrient (fat, protein and carbohydrates) and micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) is. Part II: Nutrition and its importance to aging and gender is explained, everything from infants to geriatrics. Part III: Nutrition as it relates to chronic and acute illnesses is explained. Every manner of illness is covered (I learned the most from the section on kidney ailments).

  I highly reccommend this book. If you have very little or no understanding of nutrition, Understanding Nutrition (by Ziff Davis press) is a very good introduction to nutrition and explains it in very easy terms. I read that book first and nutrition became very easy to comprehend. Stay healty!!

• Some Facts, Too Much Biased Opinion  Nov 11, 2000 (25 of 33 found this helpful)

  On the upside, the book is a comprehensive collection of many doctors works on nutrition (as according to FDA and "old school" knowledge). It does explain very well many concepts with great details as expected in any college type text book.

  On the downside, the editor Victor Herbert sounds like a very angry skeptic that looks down upon anyone that contributes to the field of nutrition that does not have a "M.D., F.A.C.P" after their name. According to him, even PH.D's are "quacks" (a term by the way which he grossly overuses throughout the book).

  I was looking for a unbiased, non-fad, non-hype book on nutrition and what I found was a complete one-sided story that could have been written by Olvier Stone - trying to expose all nutrition's misinformation like...

  - Don't beleive any advice about nutrition unless it comes from an M.D. - Organic foods and Health stores are a scam - Vitamin supplements are completely worthless and do nothing - Processed foods are just as good as natural foods

  .. the list goes on. Herbert makes claims that he does not back up, with the exception of a few references to his own books that he wrote. This is like a hacker using several computers to hide where they are really coming from.

  If you are one that has enough common sense to block out the biased opinion and learn from the facts, then this book is useful. However I am sure there are better choices out there for some good facts.

• No Nonsense Approach to Nutrition  Jul 23, 2001 (7 of 8 found this helpful)

  Dreamers need not read this book. If you believe that there is a magic herb, vitamin combination, etc that will relieve your need to understand how what you eat impacts your long term looks and health... seek guidance elsewhere (AM radio is full of such information). If you can wade through a fair amount of information to be used as a starting point in building your nutrition IQ, this is a great book. Includes nutrition specifics those with special dietary requirements.

• Very disappointing, stay away from this one!  Jan 11, 1999 (10 of 13 found this helpful)

  I purchased this book because it had a section on nutrition for infants, but it turned out to be a very long book with no detailed information. (Over 800 pages, but the recommendation for infants aged 1 - 2 years included a suggestoin to feed "Sweets to meet caloric needs" with no definition as to what these caloric needs are. (I admit I was suprised to learn that I was supposed to feed my infant sweets.) Victor Herbert also spends a considerable amount of time looking down his nose at anybody who would sell Vitamin supplements. He believes that any vitamins, such as a multivitamin, or vitamin E or C supplements are completely worthless. His references for this information appears to be the many articles he himself has written over the years. He apparently makes quite an income on dubunking other nutritionists while offering absolutely no scientific evidence of his own. This book is 800 pages of his opinion - I wasted my money - don't waste yours!

• Great reference  Jan 12, 2008 (2 of 2 found this helpful)

  This is an excellent nutrition book I'd recommend for anyone interested in non-fad information on healthy eating. It's an excellent reference. I think a second edition is needed with updates from more recent studies. Most of the basics don't change, however, and I still recommend this edition.