The DASH Diet Younger You: Shed 20 Years—and Pounds— in Just 10 Weeks

The latest in dietician Heller’s DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) series (The Everyday DASH Diet Cookbook) ably serves as an addition to her expanding product line, but offers few new diet ideas. Ambitious claims of being able to decrease inflammation, rejuvenate your sex life, and reduce chances of a heart attack and cancer, not to mention reverse hypertension in 14 days, are based on what’s essentially common knowledge: exercise, cut back on sugar and salt, avoid processed foods, exercise, meditate, and get a good night’s sleep. Once she’s made her case, Heller moves on to what a DASH diet looks: eating plans for vegetarians and meat eaters alike and recipes for healthy staples like curried chicken salad and barley risotto with butternut squash. None include nutrition information or portion suggestions, an odd oversight for a dietician, but her dishes do have the virtues of all being from scratch, fairly easy to source and assemble, and not reliant on low-fat or overly processed ingredients, so dieters could certainly do worse. DASH devotees will welcome this sequel, but healthy lifestyle aficionados may want to look elsewhere. Agent: Laurie Bernstein, Side by Side Literary Productions (Jan.)