Now Hear This. And That, Too.

By Jennifer Huget
Tuesday, January 13, 2009

People trying to eat more healthfully or to lose weight fall into two basic camps: those who like to be told exactly what to eat and when, and those who bristle at being told what to eat and when.

I fall firmly into the second group. Telling me to chomp carrot sticks at snack time is the surest way to send me searching for the Cheetos.

So how to explain my strong attraction to three books with "Eat This, Not That!" in their titles?

Written by Men's Health editor in chief David Zinczenko and the magazine's food and nutrition editor, Matt Goulding, the first "Eat This, Not That!," published in December 2007, steers readers through the menus of fast-food and quick-serve casual restaurants, pointing out the worst and the best choices among their offerings. The second book, "Eat This, Not That! For Kids!," issued last summer, does the same, but with a focus on, well, kids.

The third in the series, the "Eat This, Not That! Supermarket Survival Guide," which just came out, takes readers on a romp through the grocery store, highlighting the best choices within each of about 75 food categories and noting the nutritional assets and pitfalls of common items. (Other books have taken similar tacks, of course, but Zinczenko's are graphically arresting and so jammed with detail that they're hard to resist -- and hard to put down. Just ask my kids, who have pored over each edition and now routinely set me straight when I stray from an ETNT! tenet. Don't even try to sneak a trans fat past those two.)

But the reason I find the ETNT! books so compelling is that they don't actually dictate what to eat and what not to eat, but rather offer information that help you make your own decisions, at McDonald's or in the grocery aisles.

I've written before, in this column and in The Checkup blog, about movements to improve nutrition labeling on packaged foods and to require restaurants to provide nutrition data to their customers. These are complicated issues: Who should decide what kind of nutrition information should go on packaging? The companies themselves? The federal government? The supermarket chains? Which aspects of a product's nutrition profile should we focus on? And will consumers actually change their buying habits if they have easy access to nutrition information?

While we wait to see those matters sorted out, Zinczenko gives us the tools to make our own decisions. And that's very empowering.

Apparently, others agree: According to Rodale, the books' publisher, the third ETNT! sold 40,000 copies in its first six days.

Zinczenko is bolstered by the success of the series and sees a new breed of consumers emerging -- and making their opinions known. The first book, billed on its cover as "The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution," is dedicated "to fast food and chain restaurants like Burger King, Chili's, and Panera, among others, that have made it a priority to provide comprehensive nutritional information for their products." The dedication prods others to follow suit, saying "we hope this book plays some part, small or large, in compelling you to provide what every diner in America deserves: full disclosure."

The ETNT! ethos emerges at a moment in nutrition history when experts are touting the benefits of whole, unprocessed or lightly processed foods over heavily processed foodstuffs. People like Michael Pollan (author of "In Defense of Food," whose key advice is to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"), Zinczenko notes, "have painted broad brushstrokes. We're here to provide exact specifics, general rules to apply to every level of your diet."

"It's become a movement and a mission for us," Zinczenko says.

Since the first book's publication, Zinczenko says, several of the restaurants whose menus took a hit in its pages have contacted him with pledges to reform their ways. Many, he says, have dropped items from their menus, and others have changed their recipes to make them more nutritionally palatable. Some of the best-selling foods on chain restaurants' menus have been removed or altered, he says, and individual products have been improved, too.

For instance, Zinczenko notes, the main line of Capri Sun juice pouches has been reformulated with 25 percent less sugar. "The biggest food purveyors in the country are updating their menus and reaching out to us for guidance," Zinczenko says.

Now Zinczenko and Goulding, whose ETNT! franchise includes a hugely popular blog on Yahoo and a twice-weekly e-mail newsletter, are taking that fight to the supermarket. But here the pressure's not so much on manufacturers to change their products as on consumers to pause before they buy.

"If this book gets you to stop and think about what you're putting in your body, you're going to lose weight," Goulding says. "It's an education campaign on our end."

The book walks you through the produce, meat and dairy sections -- the perimeter of the grocery store, where you'll find the freshest, least processed foods -- doling out insights and advice. Those claims -- "all natural," "no growth stimulants or added hormones," "organic" and the like -- that you find on packages of meat and chicken? Zinczenko and Goulding translate them for you: "All natural," for instance, is "all but meaningless to the consumer" because the government doesn't carefully regulate the term's use.

In the produce section, we learn that "beautiful doesn't mean delicious," and we get an illustrated primer on choosing the best fruit and vegetables. "Shop with the seasons," the authors suggest; doing so is "cheaper, it's better, and it's better for you."

Because it can't possibly comment on each of the, by their count, 50,000 items in the typical supermarket, the book moves beyond specifics to offer broader guidelines and techniques for making your own intelligent choices. A "snack matrix" shows how to pair up dozens of individual snack items to create 200-calorie snacks; they're all healthful and tasty alternatives to 100-calorie snack packs (which everybody eats two of, anyway).

Similarly, a "beverage label decoder" sorts through common claims found on soft-drink and juice bottles. Hint: "All natural" has little meaning here, either.

The supermarket guide, like the previous two books, offers a handful of healthful recipes (complete with shopping lists) plus handy tips throughout. Use canola instead of olive oil for dressing salads and cooking, the guys advise: It costs about a quarter of what you pay for olive oil, and it "happens to have an even better ratio of monounsaturated fat to saturated fat than the vaunted extra virgin." Similarly, the authors advise that you swap your ketchup for salsa, which is "more nutritious . . . and twice as versatile."

When it comes to comparing snack crackers, cereals, breads and other processed foods from the center aisles, distinctions are sometimes a bit murky, and caveats abound: On the sweet cereals pages, for instance, a tiny note reads, "None of these cereals are ideal for daily consumption, but if you must have sugary stuff in your pantry, stick to this page." Apple Jacks and Froot Loops come out on top of this dubious pack: "In the world of sugary cereals," the book notes, Froot Loops -- with 110 calories, one gram of fat and 12 grams of sugar per cup -- are "a surprisingly sober pick."

The "Eat This, Not That!" books are compact but a bit too heavy to carry around in your purse; too bad, because I'm certainly tempted to take mine to the grocery store. (Luckily, you can arrange to subscribe to a mobile version at http://www.eatthis.com; you can also sign up there for the free weekly ETNT! newsletter.) Still, I keep my copy handy while making my weekly shopping list.

And I don't feel bossed around at all.

Check out today's Checkup blog post, in which Jennifer reports on how lack of sleep can affect the common cold. Subscribe to the weekly Lean & Fit nutrition newsletter by going to http://www.washingtonpost.com and searching for "newsletters." Go to the Wednesday Food section to find Nourish, a new feature with a recipe for healthy eating every week. And e-mail your thoughts to Jennifer at checkup@washpost.com.