You Can Count on Nutrition At Your Fingertips for Food Advice

Everybody eats. But not everybody is a food and nutrition expert. Good advice can sometimes be as hard to find as an H1N1 vaccine! But don’t fear, registered dietitian and author Elisa Zied has you covered in her latest book “Nutrition At Your Fingertips” (NAYF). I scored an interview with the MSNBC contributor. Read on to find out more about her book and get some excellent nutrition advice from a real expert. Can you give me an “insiders peek” into NAYF, what is it? Nutrition at Your Fingertips is part of Alpha Books’ At Your Fingertips series of books. It is designed to give you answers to your basic and not-so-basic nutrition questions quickly, accurately, and reliably. The book is highly formatted and jam-packed with food, nutrition, and even fitness information and it’s very easy to weave in and out of chapters to find the information you’re looking for. The best thing about Nutrition At Your Fingertips (besides the fact that, like other books in the series, it’s well organized) is that it’s a fact-based nutrition book–I did my best to compile and organize the latest and best information that’s out there from highly credible and reliable sources. It has certainly become a book I refer to everyday, whether I’m doing a media interview, writing an article, or answering a friend, colleague, or consumer question about food or nutrition. Why did you decide to write it? Ruth Winter, with whom I wrote my first two books (Feed your Family Right! and So What Can I Eat?!, both published by Wiley), actually recommended me for this project. I love to write, and because my first two books were informational but also very personal, I thought writing a great all-purpose reference-type book would be a much different albeit challenging experience. I had no idea what I was getting into with this book until I actually dove in and began writing. But as grueling and exhausting as it was, I truly loved writing it, organizing it, and researching every topic under the sun. How do you think NAYF will help people? I think Nutrition At Your Fingertips has the potential to be the go-to reference for people who care about healthful eating and fitness habits and at the same time, who want reliable information from a credible source. People who care about what they put into their bodies and who want to help their children or family members (or significant others) do the same without making drastic, complicated lifestyle changes. The book can help people of all ages figure out their individual daily calorie and nutrient needs, and make the appropriate adjustments in their daily habits (for example, lowering saturated and trans fat intake and increasing fiber intake). This book provides people with concise, easy to understand answers to their nutrition questions as well as practical tips–so thy won’t just learn what to do and why to do it to improve their health, but how to take action to move in more healthful direction. Though the book has been out for only a week (it debuted on November 3rd), already I’ve heard from colleagues and personal trainers as well as consumers that the book is easy to read through, so informative, and a great resource–this makes me extremely happy and proud to have written this user-friendly book! Since you’re a nutrition expert, and literally wrote the book on all these nutrition topics, what’s a good piece of advice you can give to people to live just a little bit healthier? The best advice I can give anyone who wants to live a more healthful lifestyle is to not think in black or white but in shades of grey. All-or-none thinking does nothing to help any of us be healthier. Giving up favorite foods does not help either, and often sets people up to feel deprived and can even backfire completely and make you want the foods you’re trying to avoid even more desirable! My attitude is you only live once, and you have to choose your battles. Try to eat as many healthful foods as you can–those foods from the basic food groups (fuits, veggies, lean protein sources like fish, chicken, beans, nuts and seeds, and lean meats, low fat dairy foods, and healthful oils. Try to limit (but not eliminate, which would be very hard if not impossible to do) foods and beverages made with added fats and sugars, and stay as active as possible–walk more, play sports, take exercise classes or work out to music or videos, or even videogames at home. Don’t kill yourself or feel guilt if you overdo it at one meal or for a few days–just get back on a healthy eating track and remind yourself how great you feel when you’re in good shape, fit into your clothes comfortably, and have energy for all the things you want to do. Oh and one last question… how can people order this book?

You can find the book almost anywhere online..amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and borders.com all popular. You can also contact the publisher at penguin.com to get bulk discounts on the book for groups, conferences, book fairs, or any other events that would find the book useful. To sign up for my newsletter and view video tips or read my blog (called TheZiedGuide), you can go to www.nutritionatyourfingertips.com.

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