Food-- Your Miracle Medicine: How Food Can Prevent and Cure Over 100 Symptoms and Problems

Columnist Carper ( Jean Carper's Total Nutrition Guide ) here provides preventive and antidotal foods for innumerable ailments: colic, gas, gallstones, cancer, ulcers, colds, asthma, osteoporosis and even headaches. Organized to be thumbed through readily, the book carries many catchy subheads jauntily: under ``Coffee Calamity,'' readers will find the warning that caffeine may worsen gallstones; under ``Milk Gone Sour,'' we learn that diarrhea can be an allergic reaction to cow's milk. Besides its practical applications, the book is interesting just for its facts, some familiar, some not: red wine, chocolate, cured meats, MSG, and even fava beans may spur headaches; tomatoes and other nightshade vegetables, some believe, bring on arthritis. And nursing mothers who consume garlic before feeding time will induce their infants to drink longer and better. (Aug.)