Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices: What's Missing in Your Body? Book

I was sorely disappointed when I received this book in the mail last night. I was expecting a fun and informative recipe book filled with fresh fruits and vegetables to make my body happy. Instead, Dr. N. W. Walker's Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices: What's Missing in Your Body? was a bunch of dated information delivered by a preachy and arrogant Dr. The book was published in 1970 (a fact which I should have checked prior to ordering I suppose) which makes the information nearly fifty years old. Much has transpired in the world of nutrition and our understanding of how the body works in the last fifty years and so, in reading this book, one has to be careful not to be ignorant of current ideas.

This book advocates drinking raw fruit and vegetable juices as is apparent from the title, but, not only does it encourage this practice as part of a healthy lifestyle - it also promotes it as a main source of nutrients, denouncing and diminishing the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables raw. It does make small mention of how and why fiber is important in a balanced diet but it is clear that the author feels that the benefits of the juice weighs more heavily on the healthy functioning of our bodies than does the fiber found in whole foods.

The author is a staunch vegetarian and a raw food vegetarian at that. Of course, if that's how you choose to live, I have no problem with it, but what I don't appreciate is someone treating cooked food as if it had the plague. I get why he's against fried foods; there isn't much, if any, nutritional value in a french fry, but a raw potato is no fun at all! This was the paragraph that really turned me off:

"Strict vegetarians who eschew cow's milk, flour, grain, and concentrated sugar products, are not afflicted with these [respiratory] troubles, particularly if they were brought up from childhood to shun and avoid these foods. This is not by any manner or means fanatical. It is just plain common sense and perfectly natural, and proved beyond question or doubt from experience (25)."

The language in the paragraph is exceedingly pompous. I just don't buy it. I don't have any respiratory problems, and never have, and I include milk, flour and grains (as well as sugar but I have to partially agree with the good Dr. on this point) in my diet. Also, earlier he suggest "exclud[ing] grains and starches (24)" which isn't healthy as our bodies need these elements to maintain a healthy metabolism and digestive flow.

Another big issue I have with this book is that it is very self-promotey. He mentions his other book several times, in big, bolded capital letters and highly recommends it to everyone. Put a list of your work at the beginning or end of your book and maybe mention it once or twice during the text but that's my limit. I don't want to hear about how awesome you think you are, I want to read about the subject - that's why I picked the book up in the first place. I also found it disconcerting when he mixed in some very religious sentiments to his text and didn't differentiate this religious opinion from scientific fact - he even used a quote from the bible to help support his argument (75).

As I mentioned, I was quite disappointed with this book. I must admit I didn't read all the words because I was so disenchanted but I certainly got the gist of what Dr. Walker was interested in - self promotion and righteousness! I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone; there are other more recent, more reliable and less judgemental books on this topic out there!