Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After years of hearing about this book and how wonderful it was from a friend of mine, I finally decided to grab a copy from the library and read it, cover to cover. My conclusion: the book isn't a recipe book so much as an ideological manifesto. Fallon is pushing - very overtly - a particular ideology about the types of foods we should be eating, based on beliefs and the perceptions of how "traditional" cultures and communities may have eaten in the past, and their supposed superior health. First, the recipes: Mostly, they're the sort you'd find in your grandmother's old recipe books, or your mother's. They're heavy, stodgy, and - to my way of thinking - not particularly appetizing in the main. They are NOT all meat-based, and a fair percentage are vegetarian. I do know this book has come under attack from the vegetarian quarter, which I find interesting, as there are more vegetarian recipes in here than in many omnivorous cookbooks. Some of the recipes sounded downright revolting to me, and would not appeal to any but the keenest eater of offal (my father might be tempted...maybe). I don't think this would be a useful book for any but the keenest cooks, simply because so many of the recipes require a great number of ingredients, and a significant amount of preparation time. Most home cooks simply don't have either of those resources to hand, and want quick, simple recipes with three or four ingredients they can knock up in minutes. A lot of the recipes are more like "dinner party" recipes, and would be suited to special occasions. A significant percentage of the recipes also require specialist ingredients (e.g. mare's milk), and would, I doubt, ever be used by any but the most dedicated foodie. From purely a practical point of view, this would be the sort of recipe book that, for me, would sit gathering dust on the shelf and rarely be used for the above reasons. Second, the general ideology. The book is simply outdated, and does not tie in with modern scientific understanding of healthy, balanced eating. Modern nutritional science suggests there are definitely healthier and less healthy balances when it comes to eating, and some foods that should only be eaten very rarely (if at all). Fallon has definite ideas about a slew of "bad" foods that simply aren't supported by *any* valid peer reviewed scientific studies that I am aware of, and her ideas of balanced eating are very definitely out of alignment with most of what we have learned in the last 100 years. Humans didn't stop learning in 1923, but to Fallon's way of thinking, we did. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see someone following the Weston A Price recommendations improve their health after eating a standard western diet for years, but that is not because these recommendations are good - it is simply because the standard western diet is so absolutely appalling that any change from it to just about *any* alternative would likely be an improvement. And it certainly doesn't mean that this way of eating even comes close to resembling a healthy or ideal diet in any way. Some of the foods that are strongly recommended in the book are no longer recommended for healthy eating at all, or very rarely. For example, consumption of fermented foods is now known to be strongly linked to oesophageal cancer. Although these foods may have been traditional, there would have been no way of our ancestors knowing of their associated risks until recent data collection and analysis was able to highlight them. This is an example of how modern knowledge can be advantageous when deciding what to eat and what to avoid. Thirdly, the research. The research standard in this book is poor. Most of the content seems to come from nowhere. Much of the rest of her sources are newspaper articles (!!), magazine articles (!!!!) and tertiary sources generally. The same articles are cited over and over. This smacks of poor research and cherry-picking. While, in all fairness, the book is NOT a journal article, if an author claims to have science behind her (as Fallon does) she should darn well back up her claims with fact. Fallon does not do this well, and in some cases of her rather *large* claims within the book, not at all. Overall, this book is wordy, overlong, outdated, and probably of little use to the average cook who wants to whip something up quickly and healthily for their family. I don't recommend it, and was not tempted to buy my own copy. My final point: I'm expecting this review may be heavily attacked, as many of the negative reviews of this book have been. To attack a review without reason isn't scientific or logical, and doesn't do credit to the Weston A Price foundation one bit. By all means, disagree with me, but have some substance to your criticism please. Cheers.