Thursday, February 18, 2010

Nutrition DVDs from Dr. Greger – A review


For the last two days I have been watching these DVDs about recent studies regarding nutrition. I ordered these after one of you asked me if I had heard of Dr. Greger. Since I had not, I wanted to find out what I was missing and purchased the DVDs.

The doctor summarizes the relevant nutritional studies from the prior 12 months and presents them in a quiz show type of format. I have found the DVDs to be fascinating and thought a review was in order so you could decide if you want to purchase them as well. I will list my pros and cons in bullet order.

Positives:

• Information is presented in a format that makes it easy to absorb regardless of your current knowledge on the subject of nutrition (even my husband, the one that only wants nutrition cliff notes, found the DVDs to be both useful and interesting).

• The doctor does a nice job of summarizing the most recent studies and shows the cover page of those studies so that you can find the specific paper if you want more detail.

• DVD length appears to be based on the relevant science from that year. The 2009 DVD had 114 chapters while the 2008 was only 52 chapters. The first two DVDs were 90 minutes long the most recent was 3 hours in length.

• Content is not targeted to one disease; he covers heart disease, cancer, diabetes, fertility, dementia, etc.

• He also covers supplements, vitamins, specific foods, and nutritional deficiencies.

• The DVDs are packed with information. So much information in fact that I plan to watch them again this week to take notes and make certain that I didn’t miss anything. I also need to compile a list of articles I want to read in detail.

• Very reasonably priced and the purchase price goes to the Human Society.

Negatives:

• Those that like detail will feel that the information does go deep enough.

• I would have loved to get a list of the studies referenced by chapter to make them easier to find so that I can read the entire article.

Overall:

These DVDs were very well done. Much of the information they contain I have read before, but not in this format. Both my husband and I enjoyed the DVDs and found them to be useful. I am the information junkie in our house that reads this type of thing all the time. When my husband also found the DVDs interesting I knew they were well made. It isn’t easy to put something together that everyone will like, and I think the doctor has achieved that. If you are interested in nutrition, disease prevention, or vitamin supplementation these DVDs will contain something that you find interesting. I will be buying the future DVDs when they are available. They are a wonderful summary of the science from the prior 12 months.

If any of you have any specific questions about the DVDs please feel free to send me an email or comment here and I will be happy to respond.

Unrelated Note:

Regarding the almond milk yogurt experiment, the taste is quite nice. However, the texture is not like yogurt. I had hoped that it would get thicker in the refrigerator (like dairy yogurt), but it is still too thin. Since the flavor is good I think I can overcome the texture issue. I am going to work on that today. I have some ideas of how to correct the texture that will hopefully not change the taste. I will keep you all posted. With some luck the recipe will be ready to post tonight or tomorrow.

For now I am off to exercise. I will be back later today. I hope you are all having a great day. Where I am there is actually sun and little blue sky today. It may be a good day to get outside for some fresh air.

2 comments:

  1. Hi, I recommended the Greger DVDs to you back in relation to a chai green tea post so I'm glad you liked them. The production values and format seem to improve every year. I think I saw somewhere if you email him he'll send you a bibliography of the publications he reviewed. I learned some surprising new things as well as reenforcing what I knew. And that lard ad was unreal!

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  2. Elisabeth,

    Thank you so much for the recommendation. I couldn't find your earlier post to thank you sooner.

    I agree the production value does seem to improve every year. The quiz so format isn't my style, but it gets the information out there, which is the most important thing.

    Great tip that you can email him and get the list of publications. That would be very helpful. I will try that before attempting to list them myself from the DVD.

    There were a couple of things that really surprised me too. Of course, I am going to do a little more research on those items. Can't help myself. ;)

    The lard ad was a bit unbelievable, as was the DDT ad. But we have our own version of it now from the high fructose corn syrup lobby.

    Thanks again for the recommendation. If you have any others please let me know. I am a bit of information junkie. ;)

    Alicia

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