Creating Radiant Health
Keys to Releasing the Healing Power Within
A lay guide to making healthier choices, Creating Radiant Health is empathetic and supportive.
Jeanie Traub and Frank A. Lucas’s earnest health guide Creating Radiant Health is about cleansing oneself of all kinds of toxins.
Drawing upon personal experiences with cancer and hypoglycemia, this book speaks to those who feel they may have been “poisoned by the chemicals in … packaged, preserved, and processed foods” or failed by expensive, ineffective medications. It proposes an alternative approach to seeking health, proffering instructions for maintaining cleanliness, lists of parasites to avoid, suggestions for achieving acidity-alkalinity balance, and sharing background on the history of germ theory. Its background information is concise, as where it details the transition from the hypotheses of Louis Pasteur (“unchangeable microbes as the primary cause of disease”) to New York physician William Howard Hay’s idea that “all disease is caused by autotoxication (or self-poisoning) due to acidosis in the body.” Its own perspective reflects psychologist Theodore A. Baroody’s idea that “the countless names of illnesses do not really matter. What does matter is that they all come from the same root cause … too much tissue acid waste in the body.”
Though it addresses complex topics like intestinal microbes and their vulnerability, the book’s language is direct and accessible. On topics like weight loss, it asserts that missing meals triggers a reduction in basic metabolism rates, increasing fat storage, and recommends the use of nutraceutical supplements instead to establish high daytime metabolic set points, suggesting benefits like keeping cravings under control, increasing energy and alertness, and positive weight change. Furthermore, its description of the digestive process is delicious: “an orderly process” and “an intricate dance between enzymes, stomach acids, and intestinal microbes—one partner preparing food for the next with one goal: optimal health.” However, such recommendations too often come without the benefit of supporting citations, which, combined with the lack of background information on the authors, undermines the book’s authority.
In the few places where sources are named, they are often credible, as with the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on the topic of chronic acidosis among middle-aged women with hip fractures. But the book also makes use of less professional resources, as with its dictionary definitions of terms. Less reliant on expertise is the book’s lighthearted recipe section, which is filled with a diverse array of cleansing shakes and asides about water substitutions like unsweetened almond milk and aloe vera. The book’s “Healthier Choices Guide” is also useful, listing ingredients that can be substituted for those that the book asserts are more harmful, as with milk, meat, and some condiments.
An empathetic wellness guide that advocates for alternative approaches to achieving good health, Creating Radiant Health is an encouraging text.
Reviewed by
Stephanie Marrie
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
