Allergy Books

Well, yes it was kind of an advertisement for me. I was searching for doctors to diagnose what the hell was wrong with me. I was suffering from depression, IBS, arthritis, CFS, headaches, and muscle pain. My rheumatologist told me I was nuts. My gastroenterologist said I had IBS and to live with it.

The book read well, and I thought... Hmmm... One of the causes of all this is in the book. I think it may be an infestation of yeast. I should go fly to see Wangen.

He ran a bunch of tests and found out it was all true and plus I found out that I was also having allergic reactions to sugar cane and yeast.

The book, his clinic and his prescriptions has stopped my depression, my muscle pain, my head aches, and my chronic fatigue syndrome. Thank you Dr. Wangen.

And could I say that he is a pretty humble guy. Even his secretary was very nice, professional and things were in order. They even took a photo of me while at the office. The secretary said, "wangen wants to identify all his patients faces when he reviews their files and talks to them on the phone." He is pretty unassuming. He comes across like a curious kid who thinks you might have an important insight, not some guru-jerk like the other doctors that don't have a reputation. I was surprised.

It must been like $3,000, but money that I could afford to spend.

Wangen saved me years of torment. Wangen you rock.

I get gas more than most, but guess what?

NO MORE IBS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Stay away from this book. Waste of time and money. Other reviewers have said correctly - it's ad for his IBS Treatment Center.

Some of science behind his IBS treatments is sound. It focuses on having the correct kind of bactiera, etc. in the gut, testing for that and testing the bad bugs for antibiotic susceptibility which most places don't do.

Then there is the controversial food allergy testing. He blames food allergy for anything and everything. The idea of minor food allergies is controversial and the testing the labs do may not be valid or reliable no matter what he says. Even some of Dr. Wangen's peers at the Bastyr University argue against food allergy testing, saying it is too unscientific- the way the testing is done is not right. Although she also says it is not likely to do harm, just cost money. Some people seem to get relief, however, from eliminating foods from their diet.

Studies should be done to quantify and ascertain the real success rate of his treatments, because he actually has REAL causes for a condition and is not just doing the stupid song and dance doctors love to do of blaming the patient and telling them it is all in their head. They do this especially if the patient is female. The testing needs to be validated and symptoms correlated to positive results. No such test/ study exists as of today.

IBS is a real disease that needs to be taken seriously and treated. It does not surprise me that not many general doctors are even trying to find a solution, mainly because doctors don't care about their patients. In fact, this would hurt buisness and they don't like that- they are basically all about money. But why aren't other naturopathic doctors doing what he is doing? Why is he the only one?? Is he REALLY the only one? And if what he does is so great, why doesn't he train people and open other centers in large cities?
Two things about this book irritated me. First off, much of the information on the science is on his website. I payed too much for the book to tell me only a litte more about that. Next, much of the book talks about his former patients supposedly and how great they are doing now thanks to his treatments. It is a huge plug for his center.

If you want the testing done you can call them and they will tell you what labs they use. If you want to go to his so call miraculous center you have to go at least once and give him about $900 to $2000 (travel expenses and Seattlite attitude towards non-Northwestern persons not included). That is impossible for me. The book is almost useless if you can't go to Seattle. His attitude is kind of like he is the IBS god, and so what's a little world travel just to get his miracle cures? That maybe OK for some people, but not everyone. If you look at the 5 star reviews you will see many of these people live in Seattle or WA state.
Don't buy the book. Just go to his website and everything will be explained to you. Also do some research on food allergies- you will see he may not be all he's cracked up to be.

I am so thankful for this book-& my primary doctor. I cannot afford to travel to this clinic, unfortunately so I mentioned the food allergy test that I read about to my doctor & he agreed to try it. The Gastroenterologist I had been diagnosed at told me I'd have to live with the pain after giving me meds (that stopped working, or only worked for a short time). I now know that I am allergic to corn, soy, wheat, among other things. My doctor was amazed because he said that generally you know when you're allergic to a particular food. The problem is I was allergic to so many. This book saved my life. The pain was the worst & I finally had an answer. (I'd eaten most of these foods for years with no problem.) I had only suffered from IBS for a year so I had no idea it was food. I would love to go to this clinic & if it's half as helpful as this book I would highly recommend it. This book is wonderful & explains a lot. I am so thankful that it was written for those of us who are suffering unnecessarily.

The best book that I have read on IBS. It gives you a "solution" to the problem. Unbelievable, finally, something honest and to the point. I couldn't put it down!

This wonderful guide takes the guessing out of shopping for gluten free foods. We take it with us on all of our grocery shopping trips. The guide is worth every penny in gold.

Although it is a helpful guide to products that are not MADE with gluten products, there are products listed that are "manufactured in a facility that also manufactures products made with wheat...". The front of the book states that these products are included and that is on page xii. For those of us that are extremely sensitive, these products can contain enough contamination to make us ill; therefore it is advisable to triple-check the allergen warning. Not all products will have this, especially condiments and such things. I use this guide with the thought that if not all the manufacturer's products are gluten-free, I will not be buying anything from them unless it is certified gluten-free.

That being said, it is still a helpful guide and I do carry it. I have accidentally glutened myself by not triple-checking thoroughly the product labeling as well as the manufacturers ingredient for their similar products.

Nice guide, I wish it eliminated products with possible cross-contamination because it is a very handy resource.

As a parent of a toddler recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I have found this book to be VERY useful. At first, I thought I would only be able to shop at the costly specialty foods store, but now I know that there are many gluten free foods I can find at the "regular" grocery store. I know some day I will master label reading, but in the meantime this guide has been invaluable. It fits right in my "mom purse" so that is an added plus. My only complaint is the way the book is layed out. Everything is listed in alphabetical order by brand under the type of food it is. The problem is, if you aren't sure what category the item you are searching for would fall under, there is no way to cross-reference to find the correct category.

This is an extremely helpful book for those who are gluten-free. It's the right size to take with you to the grocery store. I used to read labels until I was cross-eyed trying to figure out what has gluten and what does not. This book doesn't answer all of my questions but it is a huge help.

We paid over $24.95 plus postage for this book, advertised to be small enough to carry to the grocery store. It has jillions of items and I was impressed and thought this would really help with my husband's celiac problem. THEN, I started getting ALERTS! on my email to "take off PACE - all products - on page XX --- take off all Campbell Soups on page XX - If they could find this out after I bought the book, why couldn't they have delayed publishing the book until they did all their research? It is a lousy buy and I wish I had our money back! I wouldn't give it one star.

This book has useful information. Especially the section on cross-reactions in food intolerance at the end is completely consistent with my food reactions. I used his info on cross reactions to plan a personal rotation diet that's worked well for me. I haven't developed new food intolerances to any of the foods that I've rotated, meaning that if I eat a food on one day, I don't eat any food that Brostoff thinks will cross-react with it, until four days later. I *have* developed new food intolerances to many foods that I haven't carefully rotated.
But, bad information on trace reactions! He says pretty flatly that people don't have food intolerance reactions to trace amounts. I do, and many other people on forums online have said they do too. For example, when I was finding out about my corn intolerance, I tried to eliminate corn completely for a week. Then I took a kernel of corn, and I sliced it with a razor blade in half, and half again ... then when I got down to 1/16 of a corn kernel, a tiny blob on my fingertip, I ate it ... and I was severely sick for 5 days. I used to feed the squirrels peanut butter, and one time I didn't wash my hands very carefully afterwards and a little peanut butter got under my fingernail, and I nibbled on my fingers and ate it. A little flash of peanut flavor: and I was sick for four days ...
I don't know why he is so sure people don't have non-allergic reactions to traces. Allergists have told me flatly that my kind of food reaction is not an allergic reaction. I get groggy and stuporous and out of it for about four days, sometimes also irritable, back pain, wanting to stuff my face, frequent urination. I've had IgE RAST testing for antibodies to food, and it's been pretty much negative (though not skin testing, which is more sensitive). Maybe it is a kind of allergic reaction where the antibodies don't appear in my blood? I don't know. I react on skin tests to many inhalant allergens, so it would make sense if I had a lot of allergies in my gut too.
I probably have celiac disease. Celiac disease causes other food intolerances, maybe by causing mast cell overgrowth in the gut. The food intolerances may be mast cell reactions, I got that idea from a website called thefooddoc. I don't know for sure I have celiac, but I think so because of a test from Enterolab that showed I had 8-10 times normal of IgA antibodies to gluten and autoimmune TTG antibodies.
So I don't know what Brostoff would make of me. I know my kind of food reactions isn't very rare. Many people describe similar reactions - celiacs, people who have corn "allergies", etc. Yet I have never seen this kind of food reaction mentioned in mainstream medical literature. The best I can figure is that it's probably a side effect of celiac disease and maybe Brostoff is mainly writing about other kinds of food intolerance that are more common and more mild than celiac disease?
I believed him about traces not mattering for a year or two after I quit gluten - he's about the most authoritative specialist in food intolerance - and it badly held up my recovery. I kept on eating fructose made from corn ... and I was woozy-sick for months on end ... Then I quit corn and I found out I had tons of other food intolerances and I was finally able to be healthy.
It was an incredible change for me when I quit gluten and other foods I reacted to ... I felt SO MUCH better ... mentally, emotionally and physically. And tragic that I only found out about it at 43.

goes in depth into what science knows and doesn't know about food This is a fantastic book if you want to learn about food allergies, immediate and delayed. It allergies. In fact, my only criticism of the book is that it might be a little too scientific for the average reader. Still, one can skip some of those sections if he or she isn't interested. The sections on creating a food elimination diet are outstanding, with extensive lists of trouble foods, related foods, and substitutes. I particularly like that the author doesn't hype the treatment of food allergies as a miracle cure for everybody's problems and doesn't pimp any specific blood tests. This is rational, unsensational advice. It's not a cookbook, though; you'll have to go elsewhere for that. I did an elimination diet after reading this and have so far found that I am allergic to milk and soy. By avoiding those allergens, I have easily lost 20 lbs (and 2 inches off my waist), I have much more energy, my mood is significantly better, my knees don't continually ache anymore, my food cravings and constant hunger are gone, and my bladder issues have resolved. In short, I feel better than I have ever felt. Although not everyone will see results like this, I think anyone with nagging health problems should give the elimination diet a try, as it can't hurt, and the only real cost is having to cook just about every meal for a few weeks, which I consider a trivial cost compared to the gains I have seen.

This book is great. It has helped me immensley to understand food intolerances. I would recommend to anyone wanting to know more about the way foods work in our bodies.

This is a concise and well written book for someone who is experiencing distress due to a possible food allergy or intolerance. The author writes in a clear and informative manner delineating the difference between an allergy and intolerance....something my doctor never touched upon. I would recommend it as a must read for anyone who is experiences any sort of food related reaction.

It is no surprise that this outstanding book is in its third edition. It contains a wealth of information for anybody with food allergies or food intolerance or anybody who thinks he or she might have food allergies or intolerance, and even for people (and doctors!) who would never think their health problems or their patients' problems could be due to eating foods that don't agree with them.

The authors make a distinction between food allergies, which typically involve mast cells going haywire, and food intolerance which results in symptoms not directly attributable to mast cell reactions. This is a very important distinction beyond the terminology since some doctors are skeptical about food causing sickness unless the mast cells are involved. The authors show, citing numerous clinical studies, a lot of research work, and specific individual examples, how food allergy and intolerance works, and they present a program to guide the reader to identify possible causes. They also give a step by step guidance on how to conduct various diets, including the elimination diet that may allow the reader (with his or her physician) to identify foods that are causing health problems. It's not just asthma and hives and other obvious symptoms that could be caused by food allergies or intolerances. The authors argue very convincingly that a host of other discomforts (and worse) could have as their cause and/or their trigger, certain foods. The most likely suspects in the American diet are wheat, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, coffee, tea and alcohol. The authors also point to the possibility of sensitivity to a host of man-made chemical substances that can cause debilitating symptoms

What makes this one of the best books of its kind that I have ever read (and I've read many books on food and health) is the wealth of information presented, the crystal clear writing, and the frank expression of the controversy surrounding how foods might cause disease. Additionally, the authors shed a lot of light on the complexities involved in digestive and immune system response to foods and how befuddling these complexities can be for lay persons and professionals alike.

Also covered are how microorganisms, especially what the authors call "gut flora," affect food absorption and digestion, and how they can cause disease. I learned a lot about how our bodies, along with the trillions of microbes we harbor, can either work together or at cross purposes. The material on how antibiotics or exposure to certain chemicals can alter our gut flora and trigger allergies or intolerances is just fascinating.

Brostoff and Gamlin also cover how food allergies and intolerances affect infants, children and nursing mothers. They are specific about what foods can be at fault and how to avoid them and even which foods can be substituted for suspected culprits.

And the symptoms themselves--asthma, running nose, headaches, migraines, arthritis, muscle and joint pain, rashes, hives, diarrhea, bloating, gas, irritable bowel syndrome, all kinds of inflammation, strange discharges, hyperventilation, and many more--are described and given their possible cause from foods.

There are ten appendices covering such things as "Synthetic Chemicals in Food and Water," a nice discussion of bottled water and water filters and how they work, "Medicinal Drugs," "Nutritional Supplements," "Synonyms for Food Ingredients," (useful when reading labels), etc.

The fact that this book is a little out of date (third edition, copyright 2000) should not deter you from reading it. Yes, there is some controversy about some of the conclusions the authors come to; but they tell you where there is disagreement and why.

Do yourself a favor. If you have any sort of unexplained symptom or have friends or relatives with unexplained symptoms, read this book. There is nothing else quite like it in print that I know of. Certainly nothing on the same level of value to the general reader. In fact, I would go so far as to say that were this book more generally read, an incalculable amount of pain and suffering might be avoided.

This was purchased as a gift for a friend with a wheat allergy. She loves it and has already made and enjoyed several recipes.

The main thing I love about this amazing book is the focus it places on fresh ingredients. Part of the joy of cooking is seeing it evolve from the ingredient to the meal and working with your ingredients rather than pouring them out of a can. This method of cooking is immensely more satisfying even if you just throw everything in the crock pot to come home to a great smelling house later.
The book has each recipe marked as lacto-ovo, vegan or something similar to help you find a recipe that's right for the foods you can tolerate. This would be great for a family with just one gluten and casein free member so you can adjust the ingredients to your needs. That's the way we end up working things out! Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Many of these recipes contain dairy and eggs, so be warned. But still - the ones that don't contain dairy and eggs look very good. If you are a gluten-free vegetarian, this would be ideal. Unfortunately for this book review, I am a Gluten-Free Vegan.

The reason I gave 3 stars is there are no pictures. Only the picture on the front cover. The recipes are listed as vegan under the title of the recipe.

This book opens with a clear, concise explanation in layman's terms of gluten intolerance and celiac disease and anticipates your next question by providing reference lists of foods that contain gluten followed by possible substitutes. Particularly handy for shoppers is the "labeling terms" list; a useful tool that identifies other terms in an ingredient list that translate to gluten content. As for the recipes themselves, you'll find a decent variety including Tex-Mex, Asian, Mediterranean and even a few East Indian dishes, in appetizers, entrees and desserts. The recipes are clearly written, simple to follow and the results are tasty. I particularly appreciate the bread section. In a home where sandwiches were popular and baguettes were expected to accompany salads and soups, a good tasting bread that does not come crumbling from a frozen food section is important. Keep an eye out too, for the "Cook's Tip" notations - they provide useful info that applies beyond a specific recipe. One final note - while this is a great book for the gluten-challenged vegetarian, if you also have egg, nut or lactose allergies, there are other books that use less of those ingredients and so require less adaptation to the recipes.

This is an amazing cookbook...I have never eaten this well and enjoyed it so much...I now cook and extras are frozen so I can share them with others. The dishes are so enjoyable they are my mainstay now. I own a verity of cookbooks and this is clearly the best. Sorry I am so efusive but you can't miss this one.

As the mother of a 5 year old with allergies we were so excited to read this book together. My son has often felt alone with his allergies and was more than a little excited to read about another child with allergies.

The book is friendly, warm, inclusive and eased my son's fears. He felt understood and not so alone after reading it. In fact he like the book so much he slept with it!

I highly recomend this book to anyone who deals with children with food allergies or sensitivities!

Because our daughter is about to begin Kindergarten, we wanted her to have a book to read and reread about her peanut allergy and hopefully share with her new classmates. The story is gently realistic. Experiencing a peanut allergy reaction first hand, is an extremely stressful time for all. Teaching a 5 year old to constantly monitor what she eats is a big responsibility, but it is something she has to learn. Her dad and I feel that "Peter can't eat Peanuts" is a good book to read as a reminder.

This is a fantastic book for a parent of an allergic child. Both my son and I have read it regularly and he has even taken his book to school for his classmates to read it. It has changed the attitude of his classmates and their parents as they are now more aware of what my son will have to live with.
Great book!

A great book that makes it easy for younger kids to understand about peanut allergies. My daughter read this book aloud to her fellow second-graders, and it was a nice way to explain things to her friends.

I have a 2 1/2 year old who has severe food allergies and as he gets ready to go to preschool I wanted to start reading him books that he would be able to relate to in regards to his food allergies. I purchased this book and Cody the allergic cow (milk allergies). We have been very fortunate that he has never had an anaphylactic reaction but we do carry an epi pen and he has had other severe reactions to food. This book is centered on "Peter" having an anaphylactic reaction and having to go to the hospital. This book would be great for a child who had experienced that or who is a little older and can relate with Peter better but it goes over the head of my son and he can not relate to Peter. I find my self skipping the first part of the book and going to the end where it gives more general information. If you want a book a young child can relate to I would recommend the books in the Cody the allergic cow series by Nicole Smith.

Ok...I would not recommend this book to anyone who panics easily or does not have an 'iron' stomach. This book is not for the squeamish. Fox does an excellent job of researching the massive problems in our modern-day food industries. She not only includes the companies that prepare and can our foods (such as Gerber, Heinz, Del Monte, and the many less-well-known providers of meat), but she includes the cattle and chicken industries, and even restaurants.

This book caught my eye after the horrible breakout last summer in our local Chi-Chi's of Hepatitis A. Hep A is not supposed to be a killer, but the strain that hit this restaurant exposed a huge amount of people to illness...over 600. Among that group were people who had immune system problems such as diabetes, and there were four deaths from what is currently believed to be exposure through green onions. It was unfathonable to many that something such as green onions could lead to deaths; I still have a problem believing that was the source.

But Fox makes clear in this book that our foodstuffs are not as safe in many ways, as they used to be, due to modern industry practices, and the lobbying efforts of the industries in pursuit of the almight dollar.

The book is fascinating, and the only reason I gave a four star rating was due to the fact that many times Fox's writing seemed repetitious. I am certainly taking much more care of the way I prepare foods, and even which foods I shop for thanks to this book. Like many of the current books dealing with what could be 'doomsday' scenarios, I tend to take the books with a grain of salt...you can't spend your entire life being afraid of things. However, you can spend more time in care of your families, and I think this book is valuable for that reason.

Karen Sadler,
Science Education,
University of Pittsburgh

This book is a brilliant investigation into the present state of our food supply. Many of us have read scattered news items about food poisoning outbreaks here and there, but have never really noticed what's been happening to our food supply. In this book, Fox brings together hundreds of stories of outbreaks, and through them, brings the elusive big picture into focus. Fox takes us behind the burger counters back to the factory farm, where chickens are sick, and cows are fattened up on the dung and bedding from the sick chickens. The manure from the chicken-dung eating cows is spread on apple orchards, and all of the sudden organic apple cider must be pasteurized to kill the e. coli. Before reading this book, I wondered why eating raw cookie dough never made me sick as a child, but now we're cautioned never even to consider such dangerous habits. As Fox explains, eating raw eggs wasn't dangerous before, but thanks to modern agribusiness practices, chickens have salmonella in their ovaries, so all eggs must be assumed to be tainted As a result, the only safe egg these days is one whose yolk is cooked solid- -eating eggs sunny-side up is akin to Russian roulette.

Fox's main message is that it is vitally important to know who grew your food and how, as well as who cooked your food. If you choose to eat meat, you should know where the meat came from. In the interests of making a profit, factory farms feed meat and milk animals waste products including diseased animal parts and dung. Even if the animals are able to digest such a diet, bacteria and other pathogens from such a diet eventually end up on our plates. Hamburger meat is exceptionally risky since a single pound can include meat from hundreds of individual cows, and if any one of those hundreds carries a pathogen, the entire lot of meat will be tainted. The only way to be reasonably sure of getting healthy meat is to purchase it from a farmer that you know, someone whose farm you can visit in person. Meanwhile, food handlers and preparers seem to be less and less familiar with basic rules of food safety. Fox mentions supermarket workers who don't know the dangers of dented or bulging cans, and teenagers earning minimum wage frying meat at burger joints who have never cooked anything before in their lives. She stresses how important it is not to assume that food is safe just because it is on sale. Sure, the USDA, FDA, and threat of lawsuits give the consumer some protection, but a lawsuit is of little use in bringing a child back to life after a little case of food poisoning.

Living in Dubai, my husband and I experience at least one incidence of food poisoning per month, despite being cautious about where and what we eat. We have learned to inspect every package carefully in the supermarket, considering the country of origin, the condition of the container, and the manner in which the goods are stored. In restaurants, we choose our food not by what looks tastiest, but instead by what is least likely to be tainted. We've seen supermarket food handlers at the deli counter blithely lift dripping raw chickens over cooked ones and we've become vegetarians out of necessity. In this book, Fox argues that it's up to American consumers to see that their food supply doesn't continue to go the same way.

I have just read this book - it took me almost four months. The thoroughness and attention to detail held me spellbound throughout. Future readers must be prepared to read, enjoy, savour and ABSORB this book to give it its just desserts. Ms. Fox throws buckets of icy water into our faces to cause us to think about the food we eat. I will not become a vegetarian - as she has - because man is by nature and heritage a carnivore. Besides she cites as many - if not more - problems with fruit, vegetables (especially raw)and their juices as with meats, which we must learn better to prepare. Certainly a (pre)cautionary tale for all!

I found out about the book because it was referenced at the end of Robin Cook's book Toxin. The author gives detailed accounts of numerous outbreaks of contaminated food. She shows that what we were lead to believe was an isolated incident, is not an isolated incident. I was amazed to find out that Russia demanded higher standards for the chickens that are shipped to their country, but as American citizens we have not asked for higher standards.

She points out that consumers have been blamed for not using proper food handling when in fact the food producer is at fault for not providing safe food.

While I really liked the book, I gave it only 4 stars because at times the book can be a little too detailed. I found it difficult to keep reading the book at times.

Fox's well-researched book is shocking. Mad Cow Disease is a trivial problem compared to some of the others revealed in this fascinating investigation into the underbelly and oversights of America's food industry.

But also check out Peter Phillips' CENSORED 1999's top censored news story for an additional jolt: a government near you soon will be wholly beholden to any corporation which chooses to violate the already-established food laws. If the powers that be get their way, the stories in fox's SPOILED will be barely the tip of the iceberg in a few short years.

Wake up, America! Read this book and raise some hell! How? Call your local, state, and federal representatives and tell them you're not going to take it any longer!

I've been in the alternative health world for a long time so was very interested in perusing this book. I was pleasantly surprised how thorough and concise Alan Smith's book is. Concise, yet, full of very valuable and researched material, this book gives the reader glimpse into a variety of therapies available to enhance health.

I can see this book being of great importance to those entering the field of alternative health, or those wanting to know what alternative/complementary therapies are available and what they consist of. The options are plentiful and it doesn't look like Alan missed any.

Great resource, a must-have in the library, and informative, Alan gives the reader options to healing. Highly recommend.

This is the most comprehensive complete listing of alternative health approaches. I am very familiar with about a dozen listed and all were given a even balanced write up. Well done. A complete reference work. Achieving health without meds.

For some reason, I thought this was going to be more of a guide to help those of use with health problems instead of just a list of complementary and alternative therapies.

It wasn't that long ago that your family doctor was the only option when you were faced with health issues. You'd make an appointment and he'd prescribe a pill. If that magic pill didn't help you'd get another. Finally, given no other alternative, you'd just learn to live with your pain symptoms.

Today, it seems that more and more people are becoming open to complimentary and alternative health resources. Many are unhappy with their present care. Others are simply looking for ways to compliment their current treatments.

Although the actual methods vary substantially, most of these therapies look to the root cause of dis-ease and then seek to understand, release, or heal that issue. Still, the sheer number of options can be overwhelming for the average person. Where to even start?

In my opinion, reading UnBreak your Health is a very good way to begin. This book provides quite an extensive list of possible alternative and complementary therapies. Moreover, for each method, the author provides important contact information and comments from individuals who have actually tried the option.

Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (1/08)

"UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies" by Alan E. Smith presents a comprehensive guide useful for when you want to explore other options beyond traditional medicine. If you are considering complementary or alternative therapies you are not alone! According to a statistic presented in the introduction, in the year 2002 over half of all Americans turned to trying one of these therapies. Complementary and alternative therapies are positive on many levels. They focus on the fact that each person is a "unique individual composed of mind, body and spirit (or life-force energy)" and that each problem should be solved by tailoring the treatment to the specific person. Instead of focusing on the specific symptoms or issues as traditional medicine oftentimes does, complementary and alternative therapies often look at the body as a whole and work to heal the entire entity to make the body function in a more efficient manner. They go to the inner source of the problem rather than just treating the topical symptoms.

The author divides the different therapies up into three areas: the body, the mind and the energy/spirit. The "body" section presents an overview of such therapies from the familiar like chiropractic care and massage to the lesser known like Emei Qigong and the Nambudripdad Allergy Elimination Technique. The "mind" chapter focuses on therapies such as Art Therapy, Guided Imagery, Hypnosis, and Traumatic Incident Reduction. Finally, the "energy/spirit" section focuses on therapies which use human energy to heal such as Acupuncture, Crystal Bowl Therapy, Polarity Therapy and Qi Gong.

Each therapy examined in the book has a description explaining the origins, beliefs and techniques used in the method. After most descriptions is a favorite part of mine called "user comments" which aids in understanding how effective these therapies are. These are comments from actual users of these particular methods. It is very interesting to see the results that these people have had using the different techniques. This section makes the book more personable instead of strictly a reference guide. Websites are listed for most therapies if readers would like to seek out more information or specifics.

I recommend this thorough guide to complementary and alternative therapies to anyone who is frustrated with conventional medicine's approach to his health issues or to anyone who just wants to educate himself as to what is out there in terms of non-traditional care. "UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies" presents so many different options and techniques, some of which I never knew existed, and the information is presented in a very reader friendly and easy to use way.

This is a necessary stable item to have in your kitchen.The recipes are all very easy to follow and require simple ingredients.If you are just beginning on the road of special diet requirements or in the midst of coping with gluten sensitivity this is the book for you.Using this book becomes second nature because of all the delicious recipes that will keep everyone guessing,is it really gluten free.Enjoy!

Made a few of the potato-based recipes & they are great. My sister, who has had gluten allergies for over 10 years, say she hasn't seen so many successful and tasty recipes ever since she's had to stop using gluten.

Because I use it so much. This is a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone starting out on the gluten-free diet. These quick and easy recipes are great for those of us who cannot afford to spend long hours in the kitchen just to get a homemade meal at night. This is a great buy for anyone with kids or young adults who are still learning about cooking. Roben did a great job with this book!

This is a great book for finding a recipe that is quick, easy, and not as expensive. I have tried several of Roben's recipes, and I don't think I have had a bad experience with any of them! Granted, I wish there were more cookie recipes (I had to buy a different book with Christmas coming and all) but this is a top notch book if you enjoy preparing quick and easy dishes from scratch. If you have ever made biscuits from scratch, gluten or not, you know how much of a joy it is to be able to make them in 30 minutes, start to finish!

Try the cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, rolls, biscuits (my favorite!!), muffins, soups.. just try them all! It's exciting to see that you can make nearly anything, using one flour that matches your dietary needs (I'm addicted to potato starch now) and have fun with it!

Not as thorough as Bette Hagman's series, but for a busy family person who is looking to mimmick gluten-filled foods, this is the PERFECT book for you!

I feel so bad for the people that gave this book a good review. Those poor souls must be eating the worst food ever and must be miserable with their GF diets.
Not only are the recipes awful but the author isn't even gluten intolerant and would probably never eat these dishes even if she was paid to. She knocks very quality, highly nutritious grains like quinoa and teff while telling people that it is okay to eat oats. People with gluten intolerance should be warned that oats are not gluten-free unless certified. The cross-contamination of oats with other glutinous grains are something to watch out for.
I was really excited at first to see a chapter on pasta dishes until I discovered that the author instructs the cook to go out and purchase gluten free pasta!! I mean, what kind of GF book is this? A good GF book would teach me how to make GF pasta from scratch.
And every "from scratch" recipe in this book I tried turned out to be a runny, oily mess or tough and hard to chew or crunchy and crumbly. It seems as though these recipes were never even tested. And it is obvious that the author hasn't done any research on gluten-free baking or food science. She doesn't seem to understand that in order to have great results, you MUST COMBINE A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT GLUTEN-FREE GRAINS!!!
This book is so awful that I'd rather be sick from eating gluten than to eat anything that comes out of the gluten-free recipes.

If anyone wants to eat some truly delicious gluten-free baking and cooking, please find any of Bette Hagman's 6 Gluten-Free Gourmet books. I only have Living Well Without Wheat but EVERYTHING that I've made from it has knocked the socks off of all my gluten loving friends. Now THOSE recipes are certainly sure to inspire.

I have developed Infectious Asthma from an Upper Respiratory Infection a couple years ago. The Water helped alot, but if anything cures it, it will be the 12 week Zithromax regimen advocated by Dr.Hahns research. Search for Infectious Asthma on the web to find the regimen. In a nutshell, I take 500mg Zithromax for 1st 3 days, then for the next 11 weeks, you take 750mg of zithromax one day per week. After the 2nd day of starting the regimen, I feel much much better and the symptoms have all but disappeared.

After a lifetime of being told that salt is bad for me, I finally let go and started to use celtic sea salt liberally (as prescribed in the book). At first I only drank the water, but adding the salt completely maximized my progress. At 4 separate times this past weekend, I stopped my own asthma attacks at each onset. It took me about 7-10 minutes each time. It took alot for me not to use my inhaler, and to just give the water & salt a chance to work. I am extremely grateful and rather emotional about it, since I thought I would be on my proventil inhaler for the rest of my life. The inhaler has caused a number of side effects, and I am now planning a detox to remove the residue of this drug from my body, which I've been dependent on for more than 27 years. And I've only been doing this seriously for 2 weeks, (and getting better with each day). I thank "Dr.B" for giving me my health back (along with hundreds of others whose testimonials I've read on the www.watercure2.com site). These are the same testimonials I was so compelled to read again and again, because I just could not believe and accept that something so simple could cure this disease that left me so weak and scared about the future of my health. Not to mention, very likely preventing other diseases I would be on the road towards. I suppose this is my own testimonial, because it really happened, and I hope that readers searching for an answer will forget their fears (that it won't work) and try it. Yes, it is still hard even for me to believe...even though it continues to work for me. But I do know for sure that I will never stop Dr.B's water & salt prescription. I will say this - if you want your health back, just take it back by taking action.

The book is about water and SALT. Unless you incorporate the SALT along with the water, your body will not correct the problem 100%. But if you incorporate the SALT, along with the water, and avoid the dehydrating caffeine in tea, coffee, soft drinks) and chocolate, you will not believe the results unless you experience them or are close to someone who experiences the results.

The contents of this book are amazing, and the letters from MD's confirming this discovery is too revealing of the dilemna we have allowed to persist - that of "treating" and "milking the problem" without taking the corrective steps to eradicate the problem and educate the public. The fact still exists that each one of us is responsible for what we do and for what we accept as truth. Don't take anyones word for anything, try it for yourself - you be judge, jury, and prosecutor. Are you not already the victim?

This a most remarkable book, and along with Dr. Batman's earlier book, "Your Bodies Many Cries For Water", answers the questions we all ask, and for which the answers will not come from the NIH, AMA, and "support" groups for asthma and many if not all others. Dr. Batmanghelidj calls it the "Sick Care Industry". And why will the simple answer not come from these institutions? Simply because "there is no money in it" - there is no money in water and salt. But there are billions in "treating" asthma, allergies, cancer, lupus, ms, diabetes, and the list goes on.

Use your God given head, and your God given common sense.

What's the first thing given to patients when admitted in the hospital due to severe illness of any kind?

Yes, great guess, a SALINE SOLUTION DIRECTILY INTO THE BLOOD.

Cause it's the best thing for your sick body.

Hello? Hello? Hello? Is anyone out there? Is anyone listening? Is anyone using their God Given Common Sense?

Get this book and READ IT, and DO IT.

Then see if you don't start to look around you and begin to ask "uncomfortable" questions.

Get on the web and search for water cure, salt cure, etc.

And, by the way, if you believe what you find on snopes as if God Himself had written it, then you will have a difficult road to travel.

No real info other than what I already knew. There was a small two sentence reference to the info I was seeking. A real rip-off! I'm going to return the book.

How often have we heard the advice through our lives to drink at least 8 glasses of 'water-water' (as opposed to other beverages) per day? How many of us do? I thought I was drinking enough since I always seem to have a glass in my hand as a lifelong habit, but after actually counting glasses for several days, I realised I'm coming up a little short every day.

Just that one change of conciously drinking more water and getting a little salt every day has made me feel immensely better and diminished many of the symptoms of dehydration that I never knew about before Dr. 'Batman's book came to me. A great book! It's connected so many other things together for me that I already knew about health and nutrients. Startling and yet such a simple sensible idea.

Dr. Theron Randolph was the foremost pioneer in his day of allergy theory, diagnosis, and treatment. Over the years, much has changed in the world of allergy treatment. Dr. Randolph's theories are still pretty solid, and give the layperson or medical professional a sound foundation for understanding allergy and chemical sensitivity. Everyone should be aware of the facts presented in this book, because everyone in the world is affected by the pollution in our world.

That said, the diagnosis methods Dr. Randolph used, though a vast improvement over what else was available at the time, are nowadays unnecessary. There are very gentle and quick methods for diagnosing allergies, but they are outside the scope of mainstream medicine.

The treatment methods are challenging, to say the least. Avoiding what you are allergic to seems like a no-brainer these days. However, it is far easier said than done, in fact, it borders on the impossible. Strict diets like the rotation diet mentioned in this book are very difficult to maintain, as well as socially isolating and psychologically exhausting.

There are ways for completely transforming allergies without injections or dilutions administered as drops under the tongue. Mainstream medicine, however, will never help you find these methods! Whether or not you are interested in subjecting yourself or your loved ones to the diagnosis and treatment delineated in this book, the understanding of allergies you can find here is invaluable. Highly recommended reading, though the treatment and diagnosis methods are not neccesarily recommended.

T. Randolph's book is filled with interesting and provocative ideas about food, allergies and addiction, however, his version of the rotation and is just about impossible to implement, even for the most disciplined. Although I anticipated finding a book about how people are affected by and deal with common environmental allergens (dust, mold, cats, etc.) or the odd food allergen (peanuts, etc.) it is mostly a discussion of how we are affected by eating a limited and repetitive diet.

After being plagued with skin problems, headaches, tiredness, hay fever, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), depression, etc., etc., etc. for much of my late teens and all of my adult life, and going to over fifteen regular allergists and M.D.s for much of my forty-five years, I read Randolph's book: An Alternative Approach To Allergies.

Realizing that Dr. Randolph had discovered a major piece to the health-puzzle, I finally went to a M.D. in New York who changed the entire basis of his practice from being a "classically trained" allergist to a transformed Clinical Ecologists M.D. After being diagnosed with MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) and delayed food allergies--for which I was tested--I removed all the offending chemicals from my home and work environment; I also eliminated the foods causing delayed allergic reactions: The improvement in my health was rapid and live-changing.

Thinking such may be psychosomatic, I went back to eating my delayed allergic foods and returned to using normal household chemical products, e.g., Tide, bleach, Comet, fabric softener, Cling, perfumed soaps, etc., and, within a few days, all my chronic health symptoms returned with a vengeance. I once again eliminated such foods and chemicals from my diet/environment, and with five days I was much better.

Today, five months after visiting the NY Clinical Ecologist, I have all the energy of a 20 year old; am sleeping far less and feel more rested; exercise five days a week (I had little to no energy to do this in the past); my headaches are gone; my IBS has improved to a point where I do not even notice it; I am not experiencing hay fever any longer (I can now own a cat which before I could not even enter a room where a cat resided because within minutes I was itching and becoming tired); and my depression is a thing of the past. And since my life-changing experience, I have introduced many others to this new way of treating food and chemical allergies: All have had similar improvements in health as I experience--without exception.

I thank the late Dr. Randolph for writing this wonderful book and for establishing the branch of Medicine Clinical Ecology and educating doctors regarding MCS and delayed food allergies...and thank you Dr. W. of NY for your diagnosis, treatment and compassion.

I can say from experience--and vastly improved health--the information in Dr. Randolph's book clearly takes the medical field in the area of food and chemical allergies from the Dark Ages into the 21st Century. I only hope more classically trained allergy doctors will read Dr. Randolph's book and make a transition from Dark Age medicine to 21st Century medicine.

This book saved my life....

I have MCS from hell and I would never have beaten it without discovering Randolph's sane and elegant approach.

The case studies enabled me to understand what was happening with my hyper-reactions to chemicals and foods....

...AND to see how my mental and physical dysfunctions were related to my environmental exposures....

...I am 'almost' well now thanks to Dr Randolph

this book was written by the father of the enviromental and nutritional allergy.it represents the causes of allergy and shows how it began (from enviroment&from wrong nutritional habits as well as from the chemicals in food).there is also a chemical quastionary in this book in order to detect the poisionous chemicals and a rotatory diet plus other explained tips and strategies against allergy.headache/deppresion/arthritis/ are only some of the diseases that are considered symptoms of food and or enviromental allergy. the ways that the author is sujesting in this book are very practical,and eventhough they demmand (at the begining of the plan)a lot of attention,it is very practical for the allergy sufferers=i as a orthomolecular-nutritionist see the resoults with my patients.very highly recommanded!