Monday, February 7, 2011

Review: Crazy Sexy Diet

I bought Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr early in January thinking it would be great to get a feel for a veg diet program. What to eat, healthy portions, all that kind of info. I finally got around to giving it a closer look over the weekend and I was so disappointed I returned it to the bookstore. While saying it's OK if you don't want to go all the way vegan it was still pretty negative about ALL food from animals, even eggs and dairy. Personally, with my soy issues, I don't feel I can give up eggs and dairy and still maintain a healthy diet. I don't need someone lying and telling me I'm eating "chicken fetuses" if I choose to eat an egg from a source that is as humane as I can find at Whole Foods. Last time I checked, they do NOT sell fertilized eggs for human consumption at the grocery store.

While there may be a lot of legitimate reasons to forgo eggs, such as protesting battery cages, the nutritional profile, and so forth, making the claim that the eggs are somehow baby chickens is a flat out lie that I found patronizing and irritating. In fact, if the chickens are treated well, eggs are the least offensive animal product. Chickens are going to lay eggs no matter what. If they are kept away from roosters the eggs will not be fertilized. If we don't eat them they go to waste, and where's the sense in that?

I didn't read the whole book. I read through the table of contents and only a few sections caught my interest. There was a lot of justification for eating a plant based diet (which is a good thing, but I get it already!) and not a lot in the way of practical recipes, meal plans, that type of thing. When I read the few sections that caught my interest, I found myself irritated by the author's chummy writing style. It was just too, I don't know, Valley Girl for me. Not with the "like, you knows", but very teenager-y, and gee, aren't we great pals?

I was really disappointed. It was like a nutrition text written by teens, for teens. I'm sure the author meant well and this might be THE book for some people, but it's not for me! I'm thankful the bookstore took it back.

2 comments:

Vegan Aide said...

Hi Kim,

While I understand that you have the soy problem and feel you have to eat some animal product, the eggs that chickens lay that don't get fertilized are eaten by the hens in order to return the calcium and other raw materials to the hen that she needs. The eggs don't go to waste. And unless you visit the farm you can't be sure how humane the care of the hens is. A lot of labels on eggs are just that - labels. Hence, laying hens are the most abused farmed creatures along with sows.

Kim said...

Hi:
I didn't know the hens would eat the eggs so I've learned something new! I know we can't trust the labels but I do my best. I'm hopeful that if I spend the extra money to get eggs that are labeled cage free then companies will see there's an interest, and maybe their actions will follow suit, and hopefully the government will decide to regulate so that they can't continue to lie to us!! I mainly buy one brand from my regular/corner grocery with a web site at http://www.countryhen.com where you can check out the farm. I also buy eggs from Whole Foods, who seems to be on top of things as far as not selling products with lies on the labels. I don't eat a lot of eggs, but when I do I try my best to make sure they are from hens treated with dignity and respect.

I think going vegan is great and, although it's not the right path for me, I have a lot of respect for that. There was no need for the book to lie to try to convince me of that. Making any old argument, true or not, to sell your point is just spin and turns me off. ~:-P (Even if I might agree with your point otherwise.)