So what's new in the third edition? Along with now-accepted remedies, like zinc and echinacea for the common cold, the Balches also explore many of the newer supplements to hit the market: SAMe (recommended for depression and joint pain), phosphatidyl serine (mental acuity), red yeast rice (cholesterol), and 5-HTP (weight loss, insomnia, depression). You'll also find an expanded chapter on alternative therapies that encompasses Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine, along with a hefty section on pain control that offers a grab bag of options such as acupuncture, biofeedback, guided imagery, chiropractic care, and massage.

Still, the bulk of the book remains the more than 250 health conditions--from everyday problems such as insect bites and bad breath to serious diseases including bulimia, cancer, and AIDS--and the nutritional protocols the Balches recommend for treatment. Since any number of supplements can be taken for the same condition, the Balches make sifting through the glut of information a little easier by separating their nutrient recommendations into four categories: essential, very important, important, and helpful. And they take a lot of the guesswork out of buying supplements by listing the brands they know and trust. Once again, the authors have squeezed in an impressive amount of information, including valuable sidebars on topics such as the dangers of aspartame; how to choose a calcium supplement; common heart problems and procedures; cancer risk factors, diagnosis, and treatments; and sports nutrition. This is not relaxing reading, but it's enormously useful. While the material can be dense, the authors still manage to present it in a straightforward manner that's understandable even for readers without a medical degree. --Norine Dworkin

From Library Journal
Written by a medical doctor and a certified nutritional consultant, this comprehensive guide to nutritional, herbal, and complementary therapies discusses natural healing programs for some 300 health conditions. Arranged in alphabetical order, it's a useful ready-reference tool, although it could have benefited from a good bibliography.
Copyright 1999 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

For years, Weight Watchers has been helping people around the world lose weight and maintain healthy lifestyles. With Simply Delicious, they've even done the hardest part for you: finding healthy, delicious foods to eat. Follow their mouth-watering, easy recipes and you'll have a blueprint for an eating plan that fits within the renowned Weight Watchers Winning Points® program.

With chapters devoted to the way you and your family eat today, Simply Delicious will give you entrees, side dishes, and desserts that really satisfy. Even better, each recipe is 8 POINTS® or less per serving and contains nutritional information. Many recipes take a mere 20 minutes to prepare. Simply Delicious also includes easy tips and substitutions to make sure these recipes fit into your busy schedule. Inside you'll find tasty treats such as:

• Asian Sesame Noodles

• Oven Roasted Salade Niçoise

• Banana Raisin Bread Pudding

• Chicken & Broccoli Pizza

• Beef Tenderloin and Arugula Toasts

• Mediterranean Roast Chicken

and many, many more delicious recipes!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

New Year's resolutions. For some people, they act as a road map to help navigate the year ahead. For others, they're nothing more than a nuisance and reminder of past -- and present -- missteps. Yet as the holiday hoopla winds down, before you start mulling the resolution issue, ask yourself this question: What can I do to make my life healthier in the coming year? Let's face it: Being healthy has a trickle-down effect on your life. If you're in good shape, you can do more and feel it less. Your state of mind also reaps a benefit or two -- when everything is working smoothly, there's less for you to worry about, and that improves your overall quality of life.

We suggest that you start thinking seriously about taking on the number-one resolution of the majority of people in this country: losing weight. Our guess is that if you've picked up this cookbook, you're probably already on the weight-loss path; we're here to provide you with a little fuel so you can stay the course.

Weight Watchers Simply Delicious was created with you in mind.

Based on Weight Watchers Winning Points program, we focused on recreating familiar recipes with deliciously different tastes and flavors. We even kept that popular resolution in mind: No recipe is more than 8 POINTS per serving. We've also streamlined the ingredients and directions so you can whip up any one of the lunches, brunches, snacks, entrees, or sides whether you have a half an hour or half a day to get a meal on the table. We also think these recipes will become staples for your family because they taste simply delicious.

Good luck in staying the course and reaching all your healthy goals!

Nancy Gagliardi

Creative & Editorial Director

Copyright © 2002 by Weight Watchers International, Inc.

There is a complete buying and cooking guide for the many rice varieties, as well as other whole grains such as barley, millet, wheat berry, and quinoa. Many of the recipes provide convenient alternative cooking methods for traditional dishes like Italian risottos (the Italian Sausage Risotto is wonderful). Hensperger and Kaufmann show the rice cooker can also work miracles for hot breakfast cereals and porridges with such recipes as Hot Fruited Oatmeal. Delightful main courses include Steamed Ginger Salmon and Asparagus in Black Bean Sauce, and the meal is done almost exclusively within the rice cooker for simple preparation and cleanup. The dessert section has many ideas beyond the expected Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding--the Poached Pears with Grand Marnier Custard Sauce is one elegant and sophisticated example. Both authors of this cookbook are seasoned food writers and this combined effort gives tasty, easy, and healthy recipes that will motivate you to use what has been, until now, an underutilized appliance. --Teresa Simanton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Hensperger is well known as the author of a dozen or so books on bread. Here, she and Kaufmann, food editor of the San Jose Mercury News, show just how versatile a simple rice cooker can be. They start with rice, of course, providing an excellent guide to the numerous varieties now available and cooking directions. Included are recipes for dozens of rice dishes from risotto to sushi and a chapter on other grains. There are also recipes that use the cooker to steam vegetables, main dishes, dim sum, and tamales, and readers will find a good assortment of desserts, from silky custards to creamy puddings. Other books, such as Stephanie Lyness's Cooking with Steam (o.p.), have focused on various aspects of "steam cuisine," but Hensperger and Kaufmann's is far more ambitious and wide-ranging. For most collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

With Washoku Andoh takes the reader into the heart of the Japanese home kitchen. She explains the guiding philosophy then brings it into practical terms with a section on the essential washoku pantry. Her section on the washoku kitchen begins with cutting and ends with shaping and molding. Recipes are found in chapters on Stocks and Condiments; Soups; Rice; Noodles; Vegetables; Fish, Meat and Poultry; Tofu and Eggs; and Desserts.

You might never prepare an entire Japanese meal from beginning to end (though with this book in hand you certainly could), but there's no reason not to believe you wouldn't begin to include some of these recipes in an expanding foodway. The sauces and condiments are particularly exciting. As is the underlying thinking that goes into how you are cooking and why you are cooking--the washoku of it all. Not a bad lesson to learn from an exemplary teacher. --Schuyler Ingle

Book Description
"Elizabeth Andoh's groundbreaking cookbook introduces Western audiences to the age-old concept of washoku, the art of creating nutritional and aesthetic harmony at the table, one that transforms our thinking about Japanese cuisine and culture. Composed with deep scholarship and loving craftsmanship, Washoku is filled with authentic recipes and personal stories that place the Japanese cooking and dining experience in a much needed cultural perspective only an insider could share." --Grace Young, author of The Breath of a Wok

"For American cooks, Elizabeth Andoh is THE guru of Japanese cuisine. It seems there's nothing she doesn't know, her language is clear and understandable, and her recipes work. What more could you want?"

--Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

"We cook from the heart (kokoro) and express our feelings with our dishes. In this book, Elizabeth Andoh conveys the way of the Japanese kokoro through cooking to people around the world."

-- Nobu Matsuhisa

"Elizabeth Andoh’s beautiful new book is not just a cookbook filled with enticing recipes, but a fascinating treatise explaining the philosophy behind Japanese home cooking and Japanese cuisine as a whole. Washoku confirms Elizabeth’s stellar reputation as one of the most knowledgeable authorities on Japanese food and culture."

--Nina Simonds, author of A Spoonful of Ginger

In 1975, Gourmet magazine published a series on traditional Japanese food —the first of its kind in a major American food magazine — written by a graduate of the prestigious Yanagihara School of classical cuisine in Tokyo. Today, the author of that groundbreaking series, Elizabeth Andoh, is recognized as the leading English-language authority on the subject. She shares her knowledge and passion for the food culture of Japan in WASHOKU, an authoritative, deeply personal tribute to one of the world ’s most distinctive culinary traditions. Andoh begins by setting forth the ethos of washoku (traditional Japanese food), exploring its nuanced approach to balancing flavor, applying technique, and considering aesthetics hand-in-hand with nutrition. With detailed descriptions of ingredients complemented by stunning full-color photography, the book’s comprehensive chapter on the Japanese pantry is practically a book unto itself. The recipes for soups, rice dishes and noodles, meat and poultry, seafood, and desserts are models of clarity and precision, and the rich cultural context and practical notes that Andoh provides help readers master the rhythm and flow of the washoku kitchen. Much more than just a collection of recipes, WASHOKU is a journey through a cuisine that is rich in history and as handsome as it is healthful.

Now you can have take-out tonight and every night and still lose weight!

Craving Chinese, Mexican, Thai, or even Japanese for dinner? No problem and no need to worry about the fat and calories thanks to Take-Out Tonight! Based on the Weight Watchers Winning Points® weight loss plan, Take-Out Tonight! serves up more than 150 mouthwatering recipes that reinvent all of America's most-loved take-out dishes -- all 8 POINTS or less! Few people consider, before they stop in for take-out or pick up the phone to call for delivery, how these made-to-order meals fit into their lives if they're trying to lose weight. Truth is, they don't. So let Take-Out Tonight! help you prepare healthy, delicious meals for you and your family using the smart cooking hints people have come to expect from Weight Watchers cookbooks. Take-Out Tonight! includes:

CHINESE CLASSICS, like Shrimp-and-Pork Wontons, Chinese Barbecued Pork, and Szechuan Chicken with Peanuts • MEXICAN MUST-HAVES, like Family-Style Chicken Enchiladas, Chimichurri Steak with Jicama Salsa, and Nachos Supreme • DELI SPECIALS, like Crunchy Chicken Salad Wraps, Reuben Sandwiches, and Crumb-Topped Jumbo Bran Muffins • TOTALLY THAI, like Shrimp Pad Thai and Coconut Rice Pudding • ITALIAN DELIGHTS, like Pizza with the Works, Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Cannoli

Each recipe offers easy how-tos, tips, and complete nutritional information, as well as POINTS per serving. With Take-Out Tonight! there's really no reason to order out -- so get cooking!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

It's been said over and over: We're overworked, overstressed, and overbooked. But the fact is that somewhere between office work and homework, cleaning and carpooling, running errands and running a house, you have to eat. Add a family into this chaotic equation and what's a stressed-out wife and mother to do?

Call for take-out.

Recent statistics confirm that ordering out is our generation's way of resolving the daily "What's for dinner?" dilemma. You've also probably noticed that it's possible to walk out of your local market with a fully cooked fresh dinner. Rotisserie chicken or sushi, anyone?

Yet the obvious question arises: How does all this taking out to eat in fit into your life if you're trying to lose weight? Most likely, not very well. It's no secret that whether it's take-out from your local Chinese hangout, the fancy gourmet market, or your town's new Mexican restaurant, portions, fat content, and calorie count of these speedy dishes are, in a word, big.

Welcome to Take-Out Tonight! 150+ Restaurant Favorites to

Make at Home. We've re-created and reinterpreted you and your family's tasty take-out favorites, keeping fat, calories, and POINTS in mind so that when the craving hits for peanutty sesame noodles, creamy cannolis, filling fajitas, or tasty nachos, you can indulge in your favorites -- guiltlessly.

Our luscious recipes focus on big flavors and feature ingredients that may be new to your cooking repertoire. That's why we've included plenty of helpful hints, as well as listings of the items you'll need to make your kitchen the perfect pantry for creating these delicious dishes at home.

So put down the menu of your favorite restaurant and scan our index for your favorite dish. With Take-Out Tonight! there's really no reason to order out -- so get cooking.

Nancy Gagliardi

Editorial Director

Copyright © 2002 Weight Watchers International, Inc.