The McDougall Program for Women

Women trust and rely on their doctors for medical guidance. "Unfortunately, that advice is sometimes biased or ill-informed," says John McDougall, M.D. "The consequence is that a lot of women choose treatments that are ineffective at best, or harmful at worst." In The McDougall Program for Women, he discusses the most common medical conditions affecting women, such as breast cancer, menopause, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis (don't miss his explanation of how high consumption of animal protein destroys bones). He describes how best to treat these conditions and the benefits and risks of the usual treatments. His solution to women's health problems isn't hormones, drugs, or surgery--it's diet and lifestyle changes, specifically a starch-based, vegetarian diet, moderate exercise, and eliminating the "most toxic of [your] bad habits," such as smoking.

McDougall is well known from his other books and his program at St. Helena Hospital in California, with a loyal bevy of followers who report tremendous health gains and weight loss by eating mainly bulky complex carbohydrates (whole grains, beans, legumes, starchy vegetables), no meat or dairy products, and no added oil. The 102 recipes show that this eating plan can be varied and tasty. This is no trendy diet-of-the-month scheme--McDougall includes 82 pages of scientific references that support his views. --Joan Price