The Philosopher's Diet

The Philosopher's Diet
Author: Richard Watson
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2018-04
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1567924530

This toothsome classic takes on the combined challenges of discovering the meaning of the universe and eliminating fat at the same time. Its topic sentence contains a promise that should sell millions: In this book, I tell how to take weight off and keep it off. He doesn't stop there, but continues, The book also embodies a philosophy of life. The weight program is the content of the book, the philosophy of life is its form. If Descartes had sat down to write a treatise on losing weight as a metaphor for maintaining discipline amidst life's vicissitudes, it would have read much like this.Clearly, Mr. Watson has not written a low-fat, new-age, easy-fix solution for the weight challenged. After all, losing weight is hard work. But for our money, it is the most erudite, fascinating, and eccentric book ever written on the subject of weight control, a combination of common sense (driven by human experience), Cartesian philosophy, and the presumption that understanding the mysteries of weight loss and the universe are somehow compatible, even sympathetic, ambitions.The author is (of course) a professional philosopher, and this extraordinary exegesis is at once a moral manifesto, a philosophical discourse, and a practical manual (although the chapter on How to Live and How to Die take it a few steps beyond the ordinary). We love this book for its humor, its iconoclasm, and its weird and wacky mixture of high seriousness and low humor. Read it. Even if you're not overweight, it's a book to treasure.

The Philosophy of Food

The Philosophy of Food
Author: David M. Kaplan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-01-07
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0520269330

This book explores food from a philosophical perspective, bringing together leading philosophers to consider the most basic questions about food. Each essay analyses many contemporary debates in food studies. Slow Food, sustainability, food safety, and politics, and addresses such issues as happy meat, aquaculture, veganism, and table manners.

Raw Veganism

Raw Veganism
Author: Carlo Alvaro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2020-02-05
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1000037940

Human beings are getting fatter and sicker. As we question what we eat and why we eat it, this book argues that living well involves consuming a raw vegan diet. With eating healthfully and eating ethically being simpler said than done, this book argues that the best solution to health, environmental, and ethical problems concerning animals is raw veganism—the human diet. The human diet is what humans are naturally designed to eat, and that is, a raw vegan diet of fruit, tender leafy greens, and occasionally nuts and seeds. While veganism raises challenging questions over the ethics of consuming animal products, while also considering the environmental impact of the agriculture industry, raw veganism goes a step further and argues that consuming cooked food is also detrimental to our health and the environment. Cooking foods allows us to eat food that is not otherwise fit for human consumption and in an age that promotes eating foods in ‘moderation’ and having ‘balanced’ diets, this raises the question of why we are eating foods that should only be consumed in moderation at all, as moderation clearly implies they aren’t good for us. In addition, from an environmental perspective, the use of stoves, ovens and microwaves for cooking contributes significantly to energy consumption and cooking in general generates excessive waste of food and resources. Thus, this book maintains that living well and living a noble life, that is, good physical and moral health, requires consuming a raw vegan diet. Exploring the scientific and philosophical aspects of raw veganism, this novel book is essential reading for all interested in promoting ethical, healthful, and sustainable diets.

Philosophy Comes to Dinner

Philosophy Comes to Dinner
Author: Andrew Chignell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2015-10-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1136578072

Everyone is talking about food. Chefs are celebrities. "Locavore" and "freegan" have earned spots in the dictionary. Popular books and films about food production and consumption are exposing the unintended consequences of the standard American diet. Questions about the principles and values that ought to guide decisions about dinner have become urgent for moral, ecological, and health-related reasons. In Philosophy Comes to Dinner, twelve philosophers—some leading voices, some inspiring new ones—join the conversation, and consider issues ranging from the sustainability of modern agriculture, to consumer complicity in animal exploitation, to the pros and cons of alternative diets.

The Happiness Diet

The Happiness Diet
Author: Tyler G. Graham
Publisher: Rodale Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1609613171

How to fix the Modern American Diet and reclaim our minds and waistlines “An insightful, eye opening adventure into diet and nutrition. Concise and witty, this book kept me engaged from cover to cover. A must-have for anyone serious about getting happy and healthy naturally.”—Andrew Morton, MD, Board-certified Family Physician; Former Medical Corps, US Navy and Army Infantry Medic, Desert Storm For the first time in history, too much food is making us sick. The Modern American Diet (MAD) is expanding our waistlines while starving and shrinking our brains. Rates of obesity and depression have recently doubled, and though these epidemics are closely linked, few experts are connecting the dots for the average American. Using data from the rapidly changing fields of neuroscience and nutrition, The Happiness Diet shows that over the past several generations, small, seemingly insignificant changes to our diet have stripped it of nutrients—like magnesium, vitamin B12, iron, and vitamin D, as well as some very special fats—that are essential for happy, well-balanced brains. These shifts also explain the overabundance of mood-destroying foods in the average American’s diet and why they predispose most of us to excessive weight gain. After a clear explanation of how we’ve all been led so far astray, The Happiness Diet empowers the reader to steer clear of this MAD way of life with simple, straightforward solutions, including: • A list of foods to swear off • Shopping tips and kitchen organization tricks • A compact healthy cookbook full of brain-building recipes • Practical advice, meal plans, and more! Graham and Ramsey guide you through these steps and then remake your diet by doubling down on feel-good foods—even the all-American burger. Praise for The Happiness Diet “Finally, a rock-solid, reliable, informative, and entertaining book on how to eat your way to health and happiness. Run—don’t walk—to read and adopt The Happiness Diet. This is the only diet book I’ve encountered that I can actually recommend to patients without reservation.”—Bonnie Maslin, PhD, Psychologist and author of Picking Your Battles “A lively, thorough, and iron-clad case for real food. You will never eat an egg-white omelet or soy protein shake again.”—Nina Planck, author of Real Food and Real Food for Mother and Baby “The book includes food lists, shopping tips, brain-building recipes, smart slimming strategies, and other useful tools to lose weight and keep the blues at bay.”—AM New York

The World Peace Diet

The World Peace Diet
Author: Will Tuttle
Publisher: Lantern Books
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2007
Genre: Diet
ISBN: 1590561309

Incorporating systems theory, teachings from mythology and religions, and the human sciences, The World Peace Diet presents the outlines of a more empowering understanding of our world, based on a comprehension of the far-reaching implications of our food choices and the worldview those choices reflect and mandate. The author offers a set of universal principles for all people of conscience, from any religious tradition, that they can follow to reconnect with what we are eating, what was required to get it on our plate, and what happens after it leaves our plates.

The Philosophy of Vegetarianism

The Philosophy of Vegetarianism
Author: Daniel A. Dombrowski
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1984
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9780870234316

Examines the opinions of Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and other ancient Greek philosophers concerning the morality of eating meat.

Cooking, Eating, Thinking

Cooking, Eating, Thinking
Author: Deane W. Curtin
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 1992-08-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780253207043

Philosophy has often been criticized for privileging the abstract; this volume attempts to remedy that situation. Focusing on one of the most concrete of human concerns, food, the editors argue for the existence of a philosophy of food. The collection provides various approaches to the subject matter, offering new readings of a number of texts—religious, philosophical, anthropological, culinary, poetic, and economic. Included are readings ranging from Plato's Phaedo and Verses of Sen-No-Rikyu to Peter Singer's "Becoming a Vegetarian" and Jean-François Revel's Culture and Cuisine. This reader will have particular appeal for philosophers working in social theory, feminist theory, and environmental ethics, and for those working on alternative approaches to such traditional subject areas as epistemology, aesthetics, and metaphysics.

The Aesthetics of Food

The Aesthetics of Food
Author: Kevin W. Sweeney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2017-12-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783487445

The Aesthetics of Food sets out the continuing philosophical debate about the aesthetic nature of food. The debate begins with Plato’s claim that only objects of sight and hearing could be beautiful; consequently, food as something we smell and taste could not be beautiful. Plato’s sceptical position has been both supported and opposed in one form or another throughout the ages. This book demonstrates how the current debate has evolved and critically assesses that debate, showing how it has been influenced by the changing nature of critical theory and changes in art historical paradigms (Expressionism, Modernism, and Post-modernism), as well as by recent advances in neuroscience. It also traces changes in our understanding of the sensory experience of food and drink, from viewing taste as a simple single sense to current views on its complex multi-sensory nature. Particular attention is paid to recent philosophical discussion about wine: whether an interest in a wine reflects only a subjective or personal preference or whether one can make objective judgments about the quality and merit of a wine. Finally, the book explores how the debate has been informed by changes in the cooking, presenting, and consuming of food, for example by the appearance of the restaurant in the early nineteenth century as well as the rise of celebrity chefs.

From Field to Fork

From Field to Fork
Author: Paul B. Thompson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199391696

Paul B. Thompson covers diet and health issues, livestock welfare, world hunger, food justice, environmental ethics, Green Revolution technology and GMOs in this concise but comprehensive study. He shows how food can be a nexus for integrating larger social issues in social inequality, scientific reductionism, and the eclipse of morality.