The Cheese Trap: How Breaking a Surprising Addiction Will Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Get Healthy

The average American eats 33 pounds of cheese a year, and physician and veganism advocate Barnard (Power Foods for the Brain) asserts that giving it up could be a route to improved overall health. Cheese, he warns, is an essentially unhealthy product—filled with fat, cholesterol, and sodium—and has addictive properties as well. Despite an overly alarmist tone, Barnard is effective in explaining how the “ultimate processed food” is manufactured, and, with plenty of statistics to hand, why it isn’t healthful. To this end, he raises the array of medical problems potentially associated with dairy or obesity. Barnard’s antidote is a standard plant-based food plan. Readers can eschew cheese and create healthier versions of favorite foods by following 70 recipes developed by vegan cookbook author Dreena Burton for meals, snacks, and desserts. The book also lists versatile cheese replacements employing nut butters, non-dairy plant milks, coconuts, and soy. There’s more here than most readers may care to know about cheese, but despite Barnard’s proselytizing, he details a feasible transition to plant-based eating. Agent: Brian DeFiore, DeFiore and Company. (Feb.)