Food and Our Bones: The Natural Way to Prevent Osteoporosis - Softcover

Colbin, Annemarie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452278066 ISBN 13: 9780452278066

Publisher: Plume, 1998

Synopsis

The author of Food and Healing describes nature's own process of bone regeneration and shows readers how they can improve the health and strength of their bones through a holistic approach that includes food, exercise, and an emotional understanding of the aging process. Original.

About this title

Review:

Why take hormones and supplements to ward off osteoporosis--the bone-thinning disease that many postmenopausal women worry about--when you can get calcium and other nutrients needed for healthy bones from eating the right foods? That's the message from Annemarie Colbin, a food therapist who authored a previous book, Food and Healing. While she acknowledges some people would rather pop pills than go to the trouble of cooking healthy foods, she argues her philosophy persuasively.

First, Colbin describes foods that studies suggest may weaken the bones, such as caffeine and tomatoes. Then she presents evidence for bone-strengthening foods, going beyond the conventional wisdom that dairy products are the best way to get dietary calcium. In fact, she writes, the Chinese vegetable bok choy provides the most calcium per calorie of any food--more than double the amount per calorie in skim milk. The book includes more than 60 recipes to help put Colbin's philosophy into practice, although many of the recipes call for ingredients such as seaweed. Detailed nutritional analysis of the recipes takes up more than 60 pages, space that might have been better spent, perhaps on recipes using more easily available ingredients.

Even if you're not interested in following Colbin's philosophy exactly, her book provides insight into how what we eat affects our bones. "Eating well is the best prevention," Colbin writes. "I hope you will find some ideas here that apply to you, to help you remain strong until the day you decide to leave the earth. Once you know the facts, your own individual course of action will become clearer."

From the Back Cover:

As our population ages, the loss of bone density and other effects of osteoporosis will be among our most serious health concerns. In fact, the natural regeneration of bone mass that keeps our bones strong and supple dramatically slows as we grow older, and nearly a third of women in their postmenopausal years will become seriously affected by osteoporosis. Now, Annemarie Colbin, a pioneering nutritional health expert and the author of the classic work Food and Healing applies her proven natural strategies to this debilitating but preventable condition.

In Food and Our Bones, you'll discover:

* Why too much calcium can actually increase your risk of fracture
* How you can dramatically improve the health of your bones through the kinds of food you eat
* How to rebuild bone mass - naturally
* Why conventional treatments like estrogen therapy, calcium supplements, and prescription medications are not the answer
* Which foods weaken the bones
* How weight-loss diets can often diminish bone mass
* A complete program of bone-strengthening activity
* How to tap into your body's self-healing potential
* The spiritual aspects of aging and health

Plus more than 60 simple and delicious recipes to immediately boost your nutrient intake, from soups, salads, and entrees to healthy desserts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0452278066
• ISBN 13: 9780452278066
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320