The Right Start: Guidelines for Your Baby's Nutrition and Lifelong Health

That peanut butter may be carcinogenic is one of the more questionable assertions in this book, which is undermined by a misleading title, unsubstantiated claims and a repetitive text. The Youngs (she is a medical writer, he an officer of a biotechnical company) purport to offer disease-preventing nutritional advice to parents. But the first 100 pages consist largely of well-known general information. When the Youngs finally consider food for children, many of their recommendations echo those of a pediatrician or standard child-care textbreast feed, use rice cereal for the first solid food, don't serve doughnuts for breakfast. But in their quest to prevent food-related allergies, they sound like zealots. Furthermore, some of the data is contradictory (although they warn that raisins can cause diarrhea and choking, the rather mundane section of recipes includes dishes that utilize the dried fruit). (September 18)