The Diet Test: Food Body Mind

Who is this book for?

Walrabenstein wants to help people adopt a new healthy (more plant-based) lifestyle. To live longer and to stay physically and mentally healthy. So live longer in health.

First impression

What is striking is the personal story of Walrabenstein at the beginning of the book. Once she herself hardly thought about what and how she ate, how much she moved and whether she was sleeping enough. But by living in Italy for a while with her (much older) partner, she realized that there were so many more fit people over eighty in Italy than in the Netherlands. She wondered how that was possible and the interest in nutrition and lifestyle was born. Ultimately, this resulted in her retraining as a dietitian. In this book, which is a real reading book with a lot of text and few pictures, she gives a lot of background information and explanations about how you can stay healthy for longer by adjusting your diet. When you’re on a third part of the book, you’ll start drawing up your own ‘food plan’ based on the advice she gives. In addition, the book contains a 21-day inspiration plan with complete daily menus, tips for exercise and ideas for relaxation. The last part of the book consists of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The book also contains a schedule for 5 days of fasting including recipes for those days. The book ends with a very extensive source list of scientific articles of no less than 16 pages.

What do we know about the author?

Wendy Walrabenstein has retired from a career in banking to study nutrition and dietetics. She is now a dietitian and is doing PhD research on the relationship between nutrition and rheumatic diseases. Walrabenstein accompanied Jan Heemskerk a few years ago, who wrote the book about his slimming process If Jan can do it.. Healthy and slim for ordinary men wrote. And Karine Hoenderdos spoke to her earlier about what nutrition can do for rheumatism.

What’s New About This Diet Book?

This book is a revised edition of the same title from 2015. It deals with the complete picture of lifestyle: nutrition, exercise, relaxation and sleep. The emphasis of the book is on the prevention of inflammation (that is, low-grade inflammation). According to the author, this reduces the risk of (ageing) diseases.

Read on

Walrabenstein has a pleasant way of writing. The book reads very easily. That’s a good thing, because she goes into the issues very deeply and explains a lot. Now and then you have the impression that you are working on a textbook, but the smooth way of writing makes you continue reading. I am charmed by the super-clear explanation of how to interpret the results of scientific research. She shows that the claim “research shows” says nothing. What kind of research is it? Can the research really provide ‘evidence’? And can you translate the results to your own situation? For example, she says that you really cannot translate the results of research done with mice or rats to humans. She herself therefore works with an extensive list of scientific sources used. I was a bit disappointed to see animal research in that list, and it’s a shame that she occasionally bases advice in the book on such research. For example, in a chapter about green tea, she mentions that it keeps you slim. The source she cites is a study in mice.

What can you do with it in practice?

The book is full of tips and lists of action points to get started. How can you move more, ways to meditate and take rest, tips to sleep better and more. Central to the book are the 10 tips for a long and good life. They offer a clear guideline: eat real food, don’t eat too much, eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, go crazy with legumes, limit animal products as much as you want, try vegetable substitutes for dairy, fat is healthy but in moderation, eat more fiber and enjoy a glass of wine every now and then. This list already shows that Walrabenstein is a proponent of plant-based food. For herself, she has made the choice not to eat animal products anymore. However, she does not want to impose on anyone to go completely vegan, she writes. But… the inspiration plan is completely vegan. And that also applies to the recipes, which are completely without animal products. That is something you have to realize if you want to get started with this plan. A large part of the recipes were taken from a website, from a book or from a colleague. Unfortunate!

What does the dietitian think of the diet – does it really help?

I agree with many things that Walrabenstein recommends. I can largely endorse her plan for a better lifestyle. But do you really have to go vegan? Eating less meat is healthy for everyone and better for our environment. But switching completely to a vegan lifestyle is quite something. Her advice is expert on supplements to take if you’re eating completely vegan. Walrabenstein writes in the book that she does not want to force anyone to do this and that 80 percent vegetable and 20 percent animal are also good, but when you read the book you get the idea that you are only doing well if you really do all animal leave products. That is not true and I think for many people also a step too far. But suppose you want to take that step? Then I think you need more recipes and inspiration than the 30 recipes in this book. This is already apparent in the inspiration menus for the 21 days: many recipes come back several times. Not really what I mean by variation. Sure, you can get recipes from other books or websites, but if you buy a book with a plan, you also expect enough recipes to carry it out.

Verdict:

Pros

• Smoothly written
• Clear explanation of scientific research
• Attention to sleep, stress reduction and exercise
• Nice inspiration plan

Negatives

• Big step to completely plant-based
• Few (original) recipes
• Lots of text, few pictures/photos
• Some advice not properly substantiated