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Eat Up: Nutrition Advice and Food Ideas for People Living with HIV/AIDS
By Charlie Smigelski, PhD
Review by Stephen Byrnes, ND, RNCP
I pity the poor souls who will have to suffer through, with and because
of this book. Smigelski, a Harvard-trained dietician who runs the HIV
Nutrition Coalition with several other RDs in the Boston area, opens
by saying that those who are HIV positive need to eat as many "healthy
foods" as possible. But Smigelski's idea of what makes up "healthy food"
is standard dietician fare: the Food Pyramid with "tons" of grains and
foods that are "lowfat, high fiber, whole wheat, dark green and low
sugar." This is his advice if one is asymptomatic.
However, if one has fought off a major infection, Smigelski recommends
foods that are "buttery, sweet, rich, creamy, fatty, fried, syrupy,
heavy" to put back lost weight and muscle mass. Further, if one is fighting
a major infection, he recommends "candy, vitamins and supplement drinks"
if one is feeling "very sick and uncomfortable." He doesn't say how
eating candy will help a sick body fight off an illness.
Some of his food suggestions are: Wheaties, Cheerios, or Total for
breakfast; Pretzels, potato chips, and soda with lunch; Milk or hot
chocolate with Fig Newtons or other cookies for a snack; A slice of
pie or cake, or three or four cookies with milk or juice as a late night
snack; and "easy foods" like doughnuts, peanut butter with Marshmallow
Fluff, a two-inch slice of angel food cake, and canned peaches.
Apparently, it's OK to guzzle entire quarts of fruit juice and Gatorade
during the day, but not OK to put some extra butter on your boiled parsnips
and canned pears because it might be too high in fat!
Smigelski offers food tips for people with diarrhea. Recommended are
white rice, Gatorade, Egg Beaters, tofu, gummy bears, Twizzlers licorice
sticks and gum drops. Smigelski also recommends MCT Oil as a fat option
during diarrhea, but fails to inform his readers that excessive MCT
Oil causes diarrhea. Smigelski gives eight recipes for white rice for
"when your intestines cannot handle milk, fats, and fiber."
For supplements, Smigelski recommends low levels of synthetic vitamins
which could not possibly supply an ailing body with any "nutritional
insurance." His advice on antioxidant supplementation (absolutely critical
when dealing with AIDS) is pitiful and woefully inadequate.
Perhaps the most despicable thing about the book is the fatalism that
is brimming under the surface of almost every page, the fatalism that
the reader, no matter how many food tricks he may pull or how many cans
of Ensure he drinks, will die of AIDS. "As you know," says Smigelski,
"HIV slowly destroys the immune system so that it cannot fight infections
as well." Later on he reminds the reader that, "You will most likely
need special drinks . . . . A tube-feeding might be necessary." One
can only imagine the negative psychological impact of such horrific
statements on an unsuspecting reader.
Instead of offering his readers choices for real nutrient-dense food
and easy ways to prepare them, Smigelski stays mired in the muck of
TV dinners, high-sugar sports drinks, sodas and packaged convenience
foods that are devoid of any life-giving properties. Instead of reminding
his readers that virtually all of their diarrhea and other side effects
come from the toxic, carcinogenic drugs that they are terrified into
taking, and that they'd be better off not taking them at all, Smigelski
offers an endless array of white rice recipes to "cope." Instead of
offering his readers hope for the future and a sound supplement regime
to stay on top of oxidative stress, Smigelski offers generic, synthetic
vitamins and thoughts of death.
This book should have been titled: "How to Eat if You WANT to Die
of AIDS."
About the Reviewer
The late Stephen Byrnes was a nutritionist and naturopath.
His books include Heart Disease: It's Not What You Think and The
Lazy Person's Guide to Whole Foods Cooking.
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