Michal
The book did not disappoint. Great antidote to mass media fuelled hysteria.
I might not agree with his stance on GMO or biomass burning, nevertheless he has some good points there.
This book shows how important it is not to blindly believe the experts. There is a limit to how specialised you can get, before you literally become a tool, a hammer looking for a nail.
Like Upton Sinclair said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
The fact is the only reason I am writing this and you are reading it is because we are consuming huge amount of energy, more than Sun can provide at the moment.
Everyone wants to live in harmony with nature until they have a nasty fracture, then suddenly civilisation with ambulances, trained specialists, disposable clean plastics, 24/7/365 on hospitals with MRIs and all other infrastructure doesn't look so bad.
We can't live without nature and we can't live without technology. We need to find a path to a future where 10 billion people (Hans Rosling explained it beautifully) can live sustainably, enjoy nature and marvels of civilisation.
This book is a step forward on this path.
It's a good book overall, although in the 20 years since it was first published we know significantly more. It has a good chapter on cholesterol. An interesting part on health in ancient Egypt. There are some newer books around, with more up to date information. This one for me was a good supplement to all other books about nutrition that I have read so far. I would even give it 5 stars, if it wasn't so old and hence less relevant.
Amazing book. I rarely give 5 stars, but if there were 6 to give, this book would get them.
If you have plants in pots you'll want to read this book, if you have a lawn you'll want to read this book, if you want to start a orchard/garden, you'll want to read this book.
Perfectly balanced between theory and practice. A wealth of practical advice on how to help the soil thrive. It's a complex topic, this is not the first book I've read on the subject,
but definitely one I will come back many times.
This is a good book, most of the advice given is very useful and has been scientifically validated either before or after this book was written. Book needs references. You have to keep in mind that Mark is very smart guy and spent endless hours reading, thinking and talking about all that he has put in this book. The book is written from a perspective of a wealthy Californian so it can be annoying in some ways (like the slight obsession with organics and wild caught), but no use spilling the baby with the bath water.
Good read, definitely quality over quantity.
I loved how it makes philosophy approachable and inspires
to go and read the classics (at least it inspires me).
How do we connect the West and the East philosophically?
What is quality and how and can we define it? After all it is relative.
Reminds me of Ferdydurke by Gombrowicz.
This book is a work in progress, as the author states himself. It's constantly being upgraded, like code.
I hope it becomes better. It lacks depth and refinement at this point.
Author treats peace, security, prosperity as given, it has been the case so far and we have embedded a lot of energy into solutions, both physical and conceptual (code, science, construction). Still those solutions require energy to maintain, otherwise things break and knowledge gets lost.
It's still worth reading, an interesting thought exercise, that can help us make world better, by empowering people and giving them more agency.
This was my second attempt to read the book. I only tried reading it the second time because of great opinions about this book of people who I think know their stuff (aka books they recommend are mostly amazing for one reason or another). This book is not for everyone and you can't blitz through it. It is difficult. There are also parts which are outdated, it is 46 year old after all.
For the first 80% of the book I was trying hard not to doze off, so much complexity, so many examples and you don't see the point. But then you get to the epilogue and everything makes sense.
It's like you are sitting with Campbell with at a table and he shows you through a landscape and there are all those interesting meticulously made pieces, they are nice, but you don't see the point. Then you get to the epilogue and he suddenly says: Come on now let's fly a balloon and every 1000 m or such you are repeating: “Aha!”, “Wow!”, “I get it now”.
The thing is you don't, not all of it, not at first. This book is a big steak for the brain, it takes time to digest and get all the nutrients out. Wile shall see how I will look at it in a few months...
Dobra książka. Zdecydowanie polecam każdemu kto chce lepiej zrozumieć stan w jakim znajduje się Polska. Aż chciałoby się przeczytać część drugą, o
miejscowościach, które odniosły sukces.
You could just title the book, “why naive view of the world doesn't work.” I gave up after 1/3rd of the book. Author thinks buying cheap from abroad is the great, because free market. What if you are buying from someone who uses that money to conduct genocide, use slave labour, child labour, sponsor terrorism or just exploit workers? How do you factor in human rights into the price? Liberalism, rule of law, human rights, they don't just happen.
What an incoherent hodgepodge of ideas and concepts. I tried to finish and failed more than 5 times. This book is a waste of time and money.
Great story on how good intentions get corrupted by greed, politics and short term thinking. How too much of a good thing leads to disaster. A must read for better understanding of the world we live in.
Wow, what a book. A monumental work.
I admit I skimmed over some of the physics chapters.
Good to have them though.
A bit of a hard read at moments, due to details.
Still relevant after 10 years and I think it will be for a long time.
A great no-nonsense approach to energy.
Worth putting on a book shelf.
How do you find meaning in all the suffering and inhumanity of Nazi concentration camps. You write a book about finding meaning, which in turn is the proof of life having a meaning by itself.
I don't have the capacity or skill to do this book justice. It's a must read.
Short, but powerful. Much more practical than power of habit. A book to keep and re-read now and then.
TL;DR;
Book is inaccurate and suffers from bias. While I do believe in authors sincere intentions to help, I also believe that due to bias he finds data that fit his initial hypothesis that animal protein is bad.
Keep thinking for yourself, critical thinking is the best tool you have. Remember that correlation is not causation and good science is hard.
Now the full version
I approached the book with an open mind, the more I keep listening the more I was evaluating my approach to eating meat. I kept listening about correlations between eating meat and cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, cancer. Maybe I should shun all meat and turn vegan?
But all this revelations sounded a bit too good to be true, what the man was proposing was truly revolutionary and could save millions of people from sickness and untimely death, but yet there was no widespread turn to plant food only diets. Were we so biased by what is and what certain foods represent that we couldn't change. Has the debate become so politicised that we can't separate the lies from the truth and do what's best for us individually and as human species altogether? Maybe I was missing something?
Before going in and dissecting the data myself I did what anyone in this age would do, I searched.
I found a blogger Denise Minger and while I was VERY sceptical at first, it's a blog after all, but after reading through 1/4th of her 9000 word critique of the book I kept reading and then I read the rest of her entries about the book. Then I returned the book.
Don't get me wrong I still believe that eating veggies is good for you and even here in Poland we eat too much meat, I can believe Americans (who the author is referring in his book) eat even more.
But I also believe that author of the book made some significant errors in interpretation of the data and hence the conclusions represented in the book are wrong.
In the end I smiled, because the irony is really thick here, come to think of it. In the beginning of the book the author criticises the reductionists for trying to find miracle solutions using only one specific nutrient and then he does the same thing by blaming everything on animal protein.
Well written, good plot.
The interaction between two main characters
is becoming a bit schematic, I hope that changes in part 3,
not completely though, it just needs a twist.
Only 3 stars because the book is old. Nevertheless it makes some important points that are transferable to present.Some glyphosate resistant weeds started appearing and it's effects on humans are by no means negligible.
There are some brilliant ideas in this book, but unfortunately they are scrambled together with some utter nonsensical pseudo-science and product promotion. (Earthing for example).
Take each strategy (maybe except the blue-light regime, that's scientifically proven) and verify it.
There is also some sound advice about things like coffee and importance of sleep.
I watched Shawn's talk @ Google (check youtube if you are interested) and really liked what I saw,
but the book dissapointed.
I bought it on amazon for 3,68$ but still returned it
The book starts slow, with a detailed stage setting using scientific evidence, but then builds up to a very interesting hypothesis about humans and dogs. A nice book to read if you love dogs.
What a weirdly amazing book. I didn't expect to give 5 stars. Practical and spiritual at the same time. One similar book that comes to my mind is “4 Hour Chef” by Timothy Ferriss.
I love Fast Metabolism Diet, it did great things for me, I lost 13kg, started exercising (more energy), but I couldn't move below those 13kg, hoped burns would get me unstuck. Unfortunately the D-burn soup turned out inedible, I don't feel like wasting more money on other burn recipes, especially that default recipe sets are crazy expensive. Disappointment overall.
