Low-Fat Living for Real People: The Fat-Free Chocolate-Covered Creme-Filled Mini-Cakes Diet and Other Confusions of Low-Fat Eating Explained

Rating:
Summary: best book i've read for a normal person trying to eat well
Review: I am learning to live a low fat life and have looked at and read several books that were boring and preachy. This book makes it easy to catch on and understand why we all should eat differently. It's also funny. It's like sitting at my neighbor's kitchen table and chatting while a great dinner is being prepared

Rating:
Summary: Decent basic advice, a little dated
Review: This book is a decent, easy to read introduction to the basics of low-fat cooking and eating. It will teach you how to read nutrition labels and the like. The humor, and the writing in general, are not great, but very readable if you like your information easy to swallow.

Unfortunately, the advice is a little bit dated about the specifics of, for instance, what the legal requirements are for a product to be called "low fat." When in doubt, do your own research. It also does not take into account any recent findings about, for instance, the glycemic index. If you are well versed in these things, the book will not help you.

For some, the most helpful part will be the final chapter, called "Embarrassingly Simple Recipes." If you have no idea how to cook, or no idea how to cook low fat, this will get you started, with recipes for how to cook skinless, boneless chicken breasts and how to make simple dishes with a variety of grains, vegetables, and fruits. There are a fair number of these recipes - definitely enough to get you started, if that's what you need. Again, if you can already cook low-fat or you want a real cookbook, this is not what you need.