This is a helpful book to improve your diet. The author stresses vegetables and low starch and refined foods. The science is "iffy"--I'd charitably call it empirical at best. For example, nuts and dried fruits are classed together as fats and I wasn't aware dried fruit had anything but a concentration of fructose and fiber...fat? No. But then, alcohol is said to be metabolized like fat, so perhaps, again, empirically, there is something to be said for this idea.

The author essentially follows the old food combining rules, which Science says is bunk but effectively limits anyone from consuming a huge meal from soup to nuts. Instead, here you eat (drink) vegetable juice, salads, dressings of raw oil and seeds or nuts, and for those not totally into raw-only, steamed vegetables, some fish.

This book is valuable for the recipes, especially "green lemonade" which is a great juice to start the day (a head of romaine, some kale, apple, lemon and ginger. ) There is some fairly good advice on what to base your diet on. The author claims she eats almost exclusively greens and fruits with some nuts. Without a doubt, this diet lacks in vitamin B-12 and even chimpanzees, our close cousins, eat bugs and small critters. So is this really natural? I am not sure that is natural to exclude an important source of an essential nutrient such as eggs and occasional fish and meat, or even wise.

There are a lot of recipes for young coconuts. While I agree this is one food that is delicious and good for you, it's pretty hard to find young, green coconuts in most of middle America, even in places with many Asian ethnic residents. And if you are not handy with a cleaver, they are tough to open. The author does give good advice; keep one hand behind your back no matter what.

One more thing; the author recommends stevia, a sweet-tasting herb which is fine, but substitutes Splenda, which is pretty much dissed in the health community. If you're going all natural, artificial sweetener would probably fall on the first list of "must-avoids." Since stevia is widely available now and is a good natural-based sweetener, why include Splenda? Even a dash of honey, maple or agave syrup would be preferable, in my opinion.

I like this book, but with reservations.

This book is easy to follow and the diet is even easier. Her recipes are delicious. Even her "Green Lemonade" is so good I look forward to it every morning. My husband and friends have said I have never looked better and I know I have never felt better. It is definitely from all the great food I am now eating.