Do you have a favorite book to recommend? Let us know and we'll add to this list.


Whole Foods Companion This revised and expanded edition updates key nutritional information in six categories: Fruits, Vegetables, Grains , Legumes, Nuts, seeds, and oils, Herb, spices, and other foods. Each entry includes nutritional value, general information, buying tips, culinary uses, and, when appropriate, health benefits, lore and legend, by-products, and descriptions of the more popular varieties. In the face of staggering confusion and conflicting claims about the nutritional value of different foods and herbs, this book is a detailed and invaluable guide to natural foods. It is a perfect companion to cookbooks and should be required reading for chefs everywhere. No mere collection of dry nutritional information, Whole Foods Companion also explains the origins and naming of different foods and relays some of the legends and traditions with which they have been associated.


Wellness Foods A to Z Written by an internationally recognized UC Berkeley nutrition expert, this comprehensive encyclopedia covers more than 500 foods—in a quick-reference A to Z format.


What to Eat by Marion Nestle. Nutritionist Nestle's newest volume aims to help the American consumer determine what best to eat to improve or to maintain good health. Pursuing what she hopes is a unique and beneficial approach, she surveys a supermarket on a food-by-food basis, noting for each category what nutritional benefits are claimed and what really are the advantages and dangers in consuming any grocery offering. She documents how food industry concerns have perverted nutritional and origin labeling, dismayed that economics has once more trumped open information.

SuperFoods Rx Steven Pratt's 14 foods that the author says provides the nutrients we need to prevent disease, improve physical and mental functioning, and delay the impairments of old age. We also have many members that have lost weight while following this plan.

Do magazines count? "fresh" magazine is a UK publication, and the whole focus of the magazine is fresh cooking, fresh living. The recipes are primarily whole-foods based, utilize a lot of superfoods, and the articles are geared towards organics, nutrition, and health.

Our local bookstore carries it - other bookstores can often order it in if they don't regularly stock it.

The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley Filled with information about organic foods, reading labels, vegetarian dishes, information on whole foods, and most importantly recipes to use these ingredients.
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy by Walter Willett While I wouldn't say this book is about whole foods exclusively it is a wonderful book about making healthy nutritional choices. It is quite technical so if it is too much reading try his new book Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less. I don't think this book is as informative as his first and he does play into the "diet" hands a bit. But I guess that is what people want. I also know that it is a better option to read the second book than to read neither book.

Eating Well magazine For the most part the recipes in this magazine have only whole food ingredients. The magazine also has wonderful articles about nutrition, foods, and nutritional news. For example the June/ July 2006 has a great article about how a whole community in Finland transformed their lifestyle to become more healthy. The article also included information on how some Amercian communities are doing the same. Hopkins, Minnesota...Columbia, Missouri.... Upper Valley, Vermont/ New Hampshire

I am loving The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It's not so much of a how-to for eating healthy foods, but an investigation of the entire food industry, from small organic farms to "industrial organic" to conventional food industry. I got it from the library and liked it so much that I bought my own copy to read and share.

I recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It's somewhere between low carb and Paleo, so not really for vegetarians.

I just got it and have tried 1 recipe. So far, so good.

ETA: It's not a book, but www.whfoods.com is a great resource. Lots of recipes and nutrition info.

I second the Omnivore's Dilemma and What to Eat recommendations..very good books. After reading them, I subscribed to the Nutrition Action Newsletter, which is published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (http://www.cspinet.org). I describe it as a Consumer Reports for Food. Some typical topics are hidden calories in restaurant food, label reading in the grocery store, and health issues in the news.

I just bought The World's Healthiest Foods by George Matelajan. It's close to 900 pages of great information. I like the way he explains why a certain food is good for you, then tells you how to choose and store it. He also tells you the healthiest way to cook it so that the nutrients aren't destroyed. He has recipes, tips and serving suggestions as well. One thing I learned, if you let onions and garlic sit for 5 minutes after chopping, the nutrients are more readily available. Who knew? It's easy to read, too. I'll be referring to this book a lot.

I am really enjoying Whole Grains Every Day Every Way by Lorna Sass.

Here's the write up from Amazon

In this incredibly thorough, A-to-wheat berries guide to whole grains, Sass (Cooking Under Pressure) begins with a thoughtful and extensive primer on whole grains, including detailed profiles and basic cooking instructions for each. She covers no fewer than 20 kinds of rice (Bhutanese red, black Japonica) and just as many types of wheat before launching into recipes for soups and salads, main courses, side dishes, breakfast foods and desserts. The dishes are surprisingly tempting and varied, and the entries are more sophisticated than one might expect in a whole grain book. Thai Chicken Soup with Chinese Black Rice; Quinoa and Calamari Salad; Corn Polenta with Sausage and Peppers; Popcorn-Crusted Catfish; and Wild Rice Medley with Braised Chicken in Balsamic-Fig Sauce. And the sweets and desserts, like Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cookies, Popcorn-Almond-Caramel Balls, and Tarragon-Scented Rustic Nectarine Tart, prove that incorporating whole grains into the diet can be downright decadent. (Nov.)

I recommend anything by Christina Pirello. I use my “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Whole Foods” cookbook quite a bit. Before the recipes it’s got some really great introductory chapters about nutrition. She also has a cooking show on PBS.

Her personal story is really interesting. She reversed her leukemia with diet. Officially her doctors called it “spontaneous regression”, but she didn’t have a bone marrow transplant or chemo and she has been cancer free ever since. Some might call it coincidence, I say food (the right food of course) has more healing power than we give it credit for.

Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is pretty great too, and it has the advantage of being a memoir.

OMG! I thought my dad and I were the only subscribers!!!! My dad will "subscribe" me to things (Newsweek, Vegetarian stuff, etc...) and I thought is was junk mail until I read it... always insightful

I read Nutrition Action Newsletter cover to cover each issue. I love the no-nonsense style of that magazine.

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The Body Sense NAtural Diet by Lorna R. Vanderhaeghe

It focuses on organic foods and a natural way to lose weight and create a lifelong healthy living lifestyle!

Lots of info on natural supplements, foods, and exercise you can do at home!

Jonny Bowden's The 150 Healthiest Foods On Earth, and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense Of Food are a couple of favorites. I also like to read these websites: Natural News Mercola.com, and The World's Healthiest Foods blog.

Also, there is a new magazine called Clean Eating. It's pretty good.

I'm going to check out some of the other food books you mentioned.

I second Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon