Book excerpt: At last, a book about eating (and eating well) for health -- from Dr. Andrew Weil, the brilliantly innovative and greatly respected doctor who has been instrumental in transforming the way Americans think about health. Now Dr. Weil -- whose nationwide best-sellers Spontaneous Healing and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health have made us aware of the body's capacity to heal itself -- provides us with a program for improving our well-being by making informed choices about how and what we eat. He gives us all the basic facts about human nutrition. Here is everything we need to know about fats, protein, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins, and their effects on our health. He equips us to make decisions about the latest miracle diet or reducing aid. At the heart of his book, he presents in easy-to-follow detail his recommended OPTIMUM DIET, including complete weekly menus for use both at home and in restaurants. He provides eighty-five recipes accompanied by a rigorous and reliable nutritional breakdown -- delicious recipes reminding us that we can eat for health without giving up the essential pleasures of eating. Customized dietary advice is included for dozens of common ailments, among them asthma, allergies, heart disease, migraines, and thyroid problems. Dr. Weil helps us to read labels on all food products and thereby become much wiser consumers. Throughout he makes clear how an optimal diet can both supply the basic needs of the body and fortify the body's defenses and mechanisms of healing. And he always stresses that good food -- and the good feeling it engenders at the table -- is not only a delight but also necessary to our well-being, so that eating for health means enjoyable eating. In sum, a hugely practical and inspiring book about food, diet, and nutrition that stands to change -- for the better and the healthier -- our most fundamental ideas about eating.