2 out of 4 stars
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I was quite excited for Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks since I have a background in food science and nutrition. I enjoy reading about nutritional tips and was eager to see what new information I was going to get from Dr. Tavel. This book is about a plethora of common health tips and myths we hear daily from family, friends, the media, etc., and it breaks down what is true and what isn’t. My excitement was quickly deflated when I started this book, and overall I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. At times, it felt like I was listening to the rant of an old man sitting on a park bench just trying to get his opinions out into the void.
In addition, the chapter titles had unnecessary characters like circles and pi, though I’m not sure if this was just a product of the format (the pdf version) in which I was reading the book. In general, I found the beginning sections to be somewhat common knowledge, like eating a balanced diet that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables, getting enough exercise, etc. I’m not sure if this is the type of information a reader would be looking for if they were to pick up this book; it’s certainly not what I wanted. Page one of chapter one, taking about losing “excess blubber” (which itself was a turn-off) immediately had me bored and looking to future chapters.
The writing style is extremely casual, and while I understand it is for an audience with possibly little science background, I found the lax, conversational tone unfitting for a book about important health topics, especially one written by a licensed doctor with experience in this area. For example, the “ugh!” on page four feels juvenile and it doesn’t add to the message, in my opinion. There were also awkward phrases like “being free of calories” and “in test tubes” instead of saying in vitro, as well as starting sentences with “or,” “and,” or “so.” All of these culminate in me not trusting the statements in this book. Some typos include a period in the middle of a sentence on page 27 in point five, the crossed out word on page 48, “proanthocyanidine” on page 31, which should be proanthocyanidin, as spelled correctly earlier on the page, “NSAD” instead of “NSAID” on page 107.
When talking about cranberries, he mentions the bacteria Eschericia coli and H. pylori (which should be fully named as Helicobacter pylori) since it has not been mentioned previously), which should be italicized, and I would think most doctors would have enough training in microbiology to know this simple fact. This issue also appears when stating the species of green tea at the beginning of chapter 5. I think the book could benefit from more citations of the sources, especially for a lot of the studies used to make a point. This is very important for adding credibility to his statements, because it would allow the reader to follow up on the study and see what the results were. That being said, there are times when studies are cited, which makes me wonder why this is not expanded to the rest of the book.
I’m glad there were chapters on vaccines, functional foods, and genetically modified foods. I believe we do need more conversation around these topics since there are lies and misconceptions about what these can and cannot do, so I appreciated these parts of the book. However a chapter on the polygraph/lie detector did not make sense to me to include. In general, I think there are much higher quality books about health tips and guidance, and I would not recommend this book to my friends or family.
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Health Tips, Myths, and Tricks
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