Betty Crocker's Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cooking Today

Betty Crocker is on the health bandwagon. Not one for fads, Betty sensibly bases this 175-recipe cookbook on the Food Guide Pyramid guidelines recommended by the American Heart Association and many other medical and nutrition professional organizations. You learn tips for cutting down on fat and cholesterol, understanding the different kinds of fat, and making smart food choices for heart health. The idea is to reduce fat by making ingredient substitutions and small alterations, but not making drastic changes. The recipes are varied and creative and don't resemble "diet food": Ginger Shrimp Kabobs, Vegetable Potstickers, Stuffed Veal Chops with Cider Sauce, Vegetable and Ham Jambalaya, Curried Chicken and Nectarines, Caribbean Fish Salad, and Thai Shrimp and Rice Noodle Nests. The desserts include Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake with Raspberry Topping (only 20 percent fat!), Blueberry-Lime Torte (about 15 percent fat), and Double Chocolate-Date Cake (about 25 percent fat). Recipes are labeled with symbols indicating "low-calorie," "low-fat," "moderate-fat," "low-cholesterol," and "moderate-cholesterol," so you can choose how far you want to go. Each recipe has a hefty amount of nutritional information: calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, carbohydrate, fiber, protein, vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, and diet exchanges. Cooks who love knowing what the dishes should look like will enjoy the 45 mouth-watering color photos. --Joan Price

The New Beverly Hills Diet

"It isn't what you eat or how much you eat that makes you fat, it is when you eat and what you eat together," announces this follow-up to the smash original Beverly Hills diet plan. In a switch from the original, this updated version gives day-to-day advice and support and a full 35-day menu plan that includes a more balanced diet that includes animal protein (the first 10 days of the original diet included nothing but fruit). There's no portion control or forbidden foods, ergo the book's mantra: "Cheesecake and cheekbones, hamburgers and hipbones." Enthusiastic and encouraging author Judy Mazel dropped from 180 to 108 pounds by following this diet, optimizing the enzymatic action of foods by eating fruits by themselves, by not mixing carbohydrates with proteins or eating carbohydrates after proteins, and by following protein with protein. The many additional rules of this diet may be hard to keep track of, but the guideline that's easy to remember is that champagne goes with everything (however, wine goes with fruit, and other alcoholic beverages should be combined with other carbohydrates). Warning: some of the prescribed fruits--there are mangoes, papayas, pineapples, and apricots galore--will be hard to find out of season for anyone who doesn't live in southern California.

Eating Well Through Cancer: Easy Recipes & Recommendations During & After Treatment

For 15 years, Dr. Miletello, an oncologist, wanted to write a cookbook as one of the most frequently asked questions was, "What should I eat?" Holly Clegg, author of the successful Trim & Terrific cookbook series has answered this question with her common sense approach to cooking and her easy, everyday recipes that has become her trademark for healthy cooking in today's hectic world.

Diet and nutrition are at the top of the list for anyone with a newly diagnosed malignancy. Patients have problems with a loss of appetite and altered taste either before or during treatment. Dr. Gerald Miletello, a practicing medical oncologist, collaborated with cookbook author, Holly Clegg to create Eating Well Through Cancer, a collection of 200 easy recipes to help cancer patients tolerate treatment. As nutritional evaluation and recommendations are daily concerns, practicing oncologist, patients, and families can benefit from this publication. In Eating Well Through Cancer, the personal experience of its authors combine to produce a cookbook that serves as a guide for nutrition before, during and after cancer treatment. Besides the recipes themselves, the book features diabetic exchanges, menu planning, high calorie variations, Doctor's Notes and a section that cross-references recipes and side effects.

Chapters are organized according to the phase of treatment and possible side effects. Additional sections are devoted to long term post treatment healthy eating as well as snacks and suggestions of foods for friends to bring those undergoing treatment. Some chapter titles are more characteristic of a medical encyclopedia, however the recipes resemble anything but hospital cafeteria fare. Although there are a few medicinal recipes from a natural laxative or a basic weight gain shake, Eating Well Through Cancer excels in presenting tasty favorite dishes with a healthy twist. Any patient undergoing chemotherapy will find this book to be an essential asset. The recipes are simple, tasty and easy to prepare. The last Chapter contains healthy nutritious recipes that are aimed at maintaining a smart healthy lifestyle.

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.

Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." --Gail Hudson

Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax"

Advance praise for Philip Plaits Bad Astronomy

"Bad Astronomy is just plain good! Philip Plait clears up every misconception on astronomy and space you never knew you suffered from." —Stephen Maran, Author of Astronomy for Dummies and editor of The Astronomy and Astrophysics Encyclopedia

"Thank the cosmos for the bundle of star stuff named Philip Plait, who is the worlds leading consumer advocate for quality science in space and on Earth. This important contribution to science will rest firmly on my reference library shelf, ready for easy access the next time an astrologer calls." —Dr. Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, and author of The Borderlands of Science

"Philip Plait has given us a readable, erudite, informative, useful, and entertaining book. Bad Astronomy is Good Science. Very good science..." —James "The Amazing" Randi, President, James Randi Educational Foundation, and author of An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural

"Bad Astronomy is a fun read. Plait is wonderfully witty and educational as he debunks the myths, legends, and 'conspiracies that abound in our society. 'The Truth Is Out There'–and it's in this book. I loved it!" —Mike Mullane, Space Shuttle astronaut and author of Do Your Ears Pop in Space?