Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

You don't need to have read the author's other books, including Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health or Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight! to get up to speed on the whole "lose the wheat" system. All the general info is here. It can be summed up, as the author does, very simply: "Wheat is not to be trusted" and in even more blunt terms, he calls it "the Enron of the food world." Dr. William Davis adds that whole grains (which are considered healthy by many ) can contribute to high blood pressure and cholesterol, irritable bowel syndrome - even depression. Of course, the author goes far beyond this bare bones summary in the book. The Wheat Berry Cookbook is divided into two parts, along with a detailed introduction. Part I focuses on The Wheat Belly Way of eating. Part 2 centers on recipes as well as some very intriguing success stories, complete with photos of the people who share their experiences. I was fascinated by these personal accounts. Now for the recipes: Examples of breakfast choices include french toast, pancakes, frittatas, homemade turkey sausage, breakfast egg biscuits, etc. Main dish lunch and dinner selections favor plenty of traditional fare: Braised Pot Roast with Vegetables (using coconut flour as a thickener for the gravy), Pecan-breaded pork chops, Herbed Chicken, etc. Many are family-friendly but if you like to branch out from the usual fare you can try other choices such as the Feta Spinach Swordfish. The No-Macaroni and Cheese is a winner, with cauliflower serving as a stand-in for the pasta. No, it doesn't taste like "regular" Macaroni and Cheese but I like it better. If you're cautious about your fat intake, I should mention that even some of the lower calorie recipes can have high fat amounts in them. One example is a creamed spinach which has only 235 calories but a whopping 18 grams of fat. Spaghetti squash is a favorite of mine and the recipe for Spaghetti Squash with Brown Butter and Sage has 172 calories - of which 12 grams (more than half the total calories) are fat. Since we had squash on hand, I tried this recipe - for breakfast yet- and was easily able to lower the amount of butter from a whopping 4 tablespoons to far less. The taste was still excellent and the sage was a wonderful addition. Bonus material includes the individual success stories noted above as well as a list of not-so-obvious foods which may contain wheat. There is also an appendix of resources for products, websites, and more wheat-free recipes. This information should simplify things for those new to the Wheat Belly Diet. References provide further reading material if you are interested in knowing more about the studies and statistics behind the info in this book. Bottom line? You are either going to buy into the information presented here or you aren't. Here's where I"m coming from: I've cut my use of wheat significantly and have definitely felt better with the lab results (lower cholesterol) and weight loss to support my conclusions. However, I am not yet wheat free. But close. I'm still a work in progress - nearly 40 pounds lighter and without the aches and pains I had from that extra weight. Are all my improvements due to less wheat? I honestly don't know. But it is possible. A caveat for those of you allergic to nut products: a fair amount of the recipes suggest ground almond flour, including a basic bread recipe which is used for other recipes such as French Toast. However, I've found that coconut and other flours can be substituted although you may have to play around with the proportions. If you are allergic to coconuts as well as almonds, etc...then you'll have to tweak things significantly for the bread recipes - at least, a fair amount of the time. If you're new to wheat-free eating, the author has lists of resources and even brand names for wheat substitutes: garbonzo and coconut flours, and more. He also lists foods which may be assumed to be wheat free but are not. .