Good Carbs, Bad Carbs: An Indispensable Guide to Eating the Right Carbs for Losing Weight and Optimum Health by Johanna Burani and Linda Rao. Marlowe & Company; 2002. 159 pages, paperback, $9.95.

The title exquisitely captures the books purpose and the authors are pleasingly zealous on the topic. Anyone with even casual interest in a healthy diet could profit from reading the book. Complex topics are presented descriptively and made accessible to the average reader. Anyone who has particular health and eating habit concerns could profit from reading and heeding the central message of the book, which would be impossible to miss. Basic information about carbs is contained in Part I, followed by readable applications of that material to health concerns and specific diseases in Part II.

The authors engage the reader conversationally. Good conversation contains multiple points of view and different styles of expression. The material in each chapter is broken into short sections mimicking the style of expression in conversation. Particular points are repeated frequently in different ways. The points being made are easily identifiable and become memorable because of tactful, tasteful repetition. Each chapter ends with a recipe. The diet suggestions in a table at the end of the book incorporate all of the recipes into meal plans. In Part II, sections entitled "True Story" are incorporated to illustrate the lives of individuals with the disease conditions and/or the health challenges being described.

The authors are diligent in staying focused on their topic: good carbs, bad carbs. Occasionally they acknowledge the temptation to discuss other nutrients in more detail, but they refrain from doing so except to make clear the points they are making about the topic at hand. The importance of carbs to the diet is stressed. Distinguishing "tricklers," high fiber, slowly digested carbs from "gushers," carbs that provide a surge of energy, is a skill introduced early and reinforced in every subsequent chapter. The glycemic index as a way to rank carbs is well explained and connected to current research without giving unnecessary details of the research that would divert attention from the primary thrust of the book. Sources are cited for learning more, for example: http://diabetes.about.com/library/mendosagi/nmendosagi.htm.

At one level, the book reads like a restatement of common sense. It is a sensible book. What it offers, which could be of use to anyone casually interested in the topic or seriously needing to make specific dietary and exercise changes, is a primer for thinking about the changes that need to be made. The reasons for change are clearly stated without being preachy and multiple suggestions for making changes are provided.

So much current information on nutrition comes to the public in the form of advocacy for a brand. Good, accurate, accessible, straightforward information about nutrition is surprisingly hard to find. The authors challenged themselves to introduce people to carbohydrates because of the centrality of carbohydrates in a healthy diet. If they are advocating anything, it is the usefulness of knowing differences in carbohydrates and ingesting them wisely. Eating the right carbs in the amounts a particular body needs can make a difference in health and energy level. The book could be useful to anyone who wants and needs the introduction and is definitely a lay-language book that any health care provider could refer patients/clients to with confidence.