Stanford Life Plan for Healthy

Targeting a wide audience, this comprehensive guide offers strategies for defense against heart disease, which, the authors say, kills almost 500,000 Americans every year. The volume's four-part approach includes a primer on heart disease, a nutritional guide, a meal-planning and shopping guide for a healthier lifestyle, which suggests Fat Tracking methods for help with processed foods and restaurant eating, and a cookbook. While the impact of such factors as heredity and habits such as exercise on cardiac disease is acknowledged, the focus here is on diet, which, in the Stanford 25 Gram Plan, limits saturated fat intake to 25 grams a day. Page is a chef who coauthored The Whole Family Low Cholesterol Cookbook with Schroeder, who teaches cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University; Dickson is a dietician at Stanford University Hospital. Their 200 recipes, e.g., Pork Medallions with Two Marmalades and Chocolate-Crusted Raspberry Cheesecake, are for flavorful, low-fat dishes capable of pleasing highly discriminating palates. Toques off to the trio for this comprehensive, accessible approach to health of the heart. (Jan.)