Eat This! Not That!

So, I've been really into sharing my favorite health and fitness items lately. This time I have a book series that I should probably let you know about.
I LOVE the book series "Eat This! Not That!". I remember my dad talking about this book that my aunt told him about. He lent her a copy to take home and that was the first time I ever saw that yellow book. I think it was the 2008 edition. So I guess that means I've loved the book series since I was 10 years old!
If you're thinking about a thick book with lots of words, you're thinking the wrong thing. The series is formatted with colorful pictures and pages. It's a guide that compares similar foods to each other, weighs the benefits, the micronutrients, the macronutrients, and the overall quality. There are tons of different editions. I think I own about 6 of them now. I have 2 versions of the original which compares the most popular restaurant chains, common pantry items, typical holiday meals, etc. I also own the drink edition, the best and worst of 2011, the kids edition, the supermarket edition, the comfort food edition and the dessert edition. I actually asked for those last two for my birthday this year (Yeah, that was a typical Sarah move to ask for health books) and my mom somehow found them both on Amazon for super cheap! Amazon should have almost all of the editions or the discount book store will have some too!
I love this book because it gives such great visual comparisons and ways to save yourself some nutritional sacrifices that you may not have otherwise realized. Plus these books aren't the type that you read through once and never touch again. I love to refer back to them every few months when I need a refresher or something new to learn about. It's impossible to catch every bit of information just by reading them once. I always seem to miss something and find it the 3rd or 4th time I read it.
My all time favorite edition is the supermarket edition. It's only comparing groceries and not fast food. I like it because it's relevant to me since I rarely ever eat out. There are lots of different categories for whatever you favorite types of food are. If you love crackers, there's a whole section about the popular ones and the slightly healthier versions of them. There's a frozen food section, a dessert section, a condiments section, bread section etc. It's super helpful to me because there are so many choices at the store that sometimes I can't compare them all on my own. I take what I learn from the books and apply it to my own groceries so I know what to look for (It's how I learned about sodium and sugar content.) It's really relevant and helpful when out in the real world. I feel like it could even double as some type of plan. My dad eats fast food every day (We're polar opposites) and he used this as a tool to lose a bit of weight a while back just by being more wise about his choices. For example, he loves Burger King Whopper Jr.'s and he started ordering them without mayo and saved himself a significant amount of fat in his meal. It's not something everyone thinks about doing.
I definitely recommend these books for an easy and interesting read if you're interested in health swaps! (587)