The Perricone Promise: Look Younger Live Longer in Three Easy Steps (Hardcover)

In the first part, dr. Perricone describes superfoods and their purposes. The description of different foods made my mouth water, especially with the idea that most of my favourite food also happens to be super healthy food. The superfoods are:
1. Açaí
2. Garlic, onions and any other members of the allium family
3. Barley
4. Wheat grass, barley grass, blue-green algae and other green foods
5. Buckwheat
6. Beans and Lentils
7. Hot Peppers
8. Nuts and seeds
9. Sprouts
10. Yoghurt and kefir

In addition to this, any deeply coloured food or “rainbow food”: tomatoes, blue grapes, oranges, dark green vegetables etc.

Another vital part of using these superfoods is that EVERY meal should contain (lean) protein, low-glycemic carbohydrates and healthy fats (olive or fish oil). (For those doubting the necessity of using healthy fats to look good, let me refer you to my seventy year old Spanish auntie: not a wrinkle on the old bird and she still has a waist).

The second and third chapter are somewhat commercial: dr. Perricone uses the opportunity to promote his own products. The second chapter describes pills and powders to be added to your diet. You might already take some supplements (vitamin pills, power supplements), but the supplements described are a bit different. From the supplements suggested, fish oil capsules are the only ones I’m considering to actually use.
The third chapter describes topicals. Does that word sound strange to you too? He means facial creams and gels. Again, different from the ones you would know from the shop around the corner, but nothing that convinced me to buy them (yet).

Now, you may think that the commercial chapters of the book put me off it. Not so. In fact, if you focus on the first chapter only (which happens to also be the major part of the book by the way), you will be pleased. It took about three days of following this diet (which I enjoyed very much) before looking at my surprised reflection: I actually looked better than I had in a long time.

The book ends with a 28-day program and recipes for the dishes proposed in it. Great recipes. The annex contains a lot of potentially useful where-to-buy information, but unfortunately most of them are US based stores, so not much help to the folks on this end of the ocean. Not a problem, most of it is simply food that you can buy in any (organic) supermarket.

The book is also filled with stories (no telling if they’re real of course but let’s assume they are) which helps read through the sometimes quite academic, but therefore quite well-founded, explanations of the benefits of certain products.

The harshest critique on this book is that the food dr. Perricone suggests is expensive. True. That is, if you compare it to the food you would normally buy. Now, I propose you compare it to the food you normally buy, plus the day cream, the night cream, the foundation and the special eye cream you normally buy. It is THAT effective.

Did I mention my husband bought me this book for my 35th birthday, when I really started freaking out about looking old? I love him so much...