Fit for Life

September 29, 2003
Coauthor of the bestselling Fit for Life, Diamond here advocates a lifelong diet composed of 50% raw (living) food and no more than 50% dead (cooked) food in order to lose weight and maintain maximum physical and mental health. He offers himself up as a personal example of someone who overcame his medical problems by adhering to this nutritional program. Exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and 50 pounds overweight, Diamond is convinced that eating living food is what restored his heath. The details of this somewhat unusual way of eating are conveyed in an easy conversational style, and the author clearly explains (sometimes overexplains) how the digestive process works more efficiently when less cooked food is consumed. The program comes across as palatable rather than rigid, because Diamond repeatedly suggests it be followed in a relaxed flexible manner and that occasional deviations are to be expected. According to the author, only fresh fruit juices and fruit (the best possible food) should be eaten before noon. Lunch and dinner may consist of either a protein or a starch (but not both) with cooked vegetables and a hearty salad. He strongly argues against the consumption of dairy products (calcium is readily available through raw foods) because they are hard to digest. He is further convinced that young children should drink breast milk, not cow's milk or formula.

November 15, 2003
In this latest entry of his "Fit for Life" series (e.g., Fit for Life: A New Beginning; The Fit for Life Solution), which offers advice on eating right, losing weight, and staying healthy, Diamond rides the increasingly popular raw-food wave. Arguing that cooking makes food acidic and destroys many vital nutrients and enzymes, he recommends a plant-based diet of predominantly uncooked vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, which he calls "living food," along with small amounts of cooked foods ("dead food"). His unique approach includes eating fresh fruit for breakfast, salads as the main course for lunch and dinner, plant enzymes, and no dairy products. While Diamond's rather controversial ideas will appeal to readers who have tried other weight-loss diets without success, he undermines his main points with distracting ramblings about life, God, the environment, conventional medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, food irradiation, and other topics. Large nutrition collections that provide a range of viewpoints on weight-loss approaches may find this a worthwhile addition. [Coming from Avery in December is Renee Loux Underkoffler's Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods.-Ed.]-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., NY

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