Hunger and lust of Uwe Knop

Book review: „Hunger and desire“ by Uwe Knop.

(16.09.2010) Uwe Knop, the PR expert in the field of medicine and graduate nutritionist, has published his second edition of the book in Vito by Eichborn's Edition BoD „Hunger and Lust - The first book on culinary body intelligence“ written a frighteningly illuminating work.

Knop has used three-digit studies of medical and nutritional care for his book in recent years and added a large number of studies published in 2010 to the second edition itself. Basically, it's about our food intake being over-influenced by dogma and beliefs. The basic rules that apply, such as the best way to eat five meals, to drink at least one and a half liters a day or to eat after 10 pm, are as firmly rooted in German minds as the belief in the sports section of the Bild newspaper.

In the first part of the book, Uwe Knop relativizes any universally valid nutritional wisdom through well-founded studies and their counter-studies. He commits but thankfully not the mistake of outdrawing individual topics too excessively and in detail, but summarizes himself extremely „user-friendly“ short in the chapters and brings the key messages succinctly and humorously readable without becoming superficial or polemical.

In the following part Knop describes his conclusions: Knops' thesis is that meanwhile, due to the many rules imposed from the outside, food intake demands a maturity from those who eat, which is almost impossible to cope with. But just this step puts Knop in the foreground of his book. By depicting the absurdity of the nutritional rules, Knop again gives people confidence in their individually felt hunger and pleasure in eating and drinking.

He avoids, as others in the field of medicine or nutrition, to extol their own words as the new dogma, but puts the critical questioning of any rules in the foreground. After all, mind-controlled eating makes Knop lose confidence in one's own body and one's own perception. And so the soil is prepared for eating disorders.

Representations of studies show impressively that through or after diets or, for example, sweetener, people tend to increase and thus achieve the opposite effect of their actual efforts. Ultimately, Knop is still dealing with the food supplement market and formulated „The elf essences of the real eaters“.

Nevertheless, this book is not about bringing a new wisdom to the market, but about giving people confidence in their own feelings. The concern and the appealing writing style Knops make this book a must in our country, where the insecurity in dealing with food and drink and in the final deficiency with himself and his perception, in the wide range of diet and nutrition guide literature and eating disorders expresses. The book rightly got the BoD Autoren Award 2010 for it. (Tf)

Uwe Knop: Hunger and Lust - The first book on culinary body intelligence
Books on Demand (BoD) 210 pages ISBN: 3839175291
Further information at: www.echte-esser.de