Review: "Eat This, Not That" by David Zinczenko

Eat This, Not That by David Zinczenko promises to illuminate the menus of fast-food joints and fine restaurants alike, giving you fool-proof choices to make in order to lose weight and be healthy. While browsing in a Barnes and Noble store, I flipped through this best-seller and was more than a little disappointed. 

Zinczenko compares foods in pairs, always presenting "eat this" foods on the left page, facing the "not that" foods on the right page. The trouble is, in any other book about nutrition, the "eat this" foods would be categorized as "do not touch." In fact, in any person's right mind, most of these foods should be things to stay away from.

I fail to see how Eat This, Not That is a good resource for people looking to lose weight or even maintain decent health.

This book is appealing because a) it gives junk-food lovers an excuse to continue eating dangerously, and b) there are a number of comparisons which provide major shock value.

For example, who knew that a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese has twice as many calories as a McDonald's egg and cheese breakfast sandwich? Actually, I knew, and I would still choose the bagel over the McMuffin (or whatever it's called) any day. Just because something is smaller and has fewer calories does not automatically make it healthier. Another comparison was made between a bagel and a donut - and the donut won! The donut has more fat and less nutritional value, but it also has fewer calories and carbs, so it's the better choice? Why, I wonder, couldn't Zinczenko have suggested toast or yogurt in place of the bagel?

This is also an example of the one thing that ticks me off the most about this book. There is no ryhme or reason to the way foods are categorized. Sometimes a food wins a comparison because it has less fat and sodium, while other times a low-fat, low-sodium food loses out to a food with less sugar. It is impossible to derive a pattern for what to eat and not to eat from this book.

Sometimes shrimp is portrayed as a healthy option, and other times it is not. On one page of the book, goldfish crackers are classified as a "not that" food, and then on another page they are under an "eat this!" label.

Also, plenty of nutritious foods are singled out as "not that" items. For example, a Stonybrook Farms yogurt drink contains only a few natural ingredients: low-fat milk, sugar (organic, naturally milled sugar, mind you!), berry juice, and live/active cultures. One serving of this drink provides almost ½ of the recommended daily amount of Calcium.

What's so bad about that?

Everyone I know who loves this book cites the tidbit about the Aussie Cheese Fries at Outback Steakhouse. Thank goodness this book told them that those fries had 2,900 calories! Really, this is so significant, because otherwise they would have eaten a whole plate. Yeah, right. If you order cheese fries at a restaurant, you are probably sharing them with the rest of your table - so you are not actually getting a whole 2900 calories.