The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness

This may be helpful to some people, but as a student of all of the more famous whole food plant-based diet books, there was absolutely nothing new about the subject in this book. I got the impression that it was going to be about the latest science on the subject. I was wrong.The book is written at the 6th grade level and spends a lot of time rehashing history that all of us already know. I was amazed that a book like this would be marketed as something special, when there is really so little new information presented. Perhaps it has value as an introduction to these concepts or as a sales brochure for their True North clinics.

At first, it was kind of hard to get into. I read half of it and then put it down and didn't read it again until I became really ill with allergic reactions to more and more things. I was getting hives and psoriasis to the point of my body feeling like it was burning on fire. I went to several different doctors, including naturopaths and functional medicine doctors. But all seemed to want to ADD this or ADD that. Take this to suppress it or that to heal your gut or this for more nutrition. Well, what I needed was to REMOVE all of that. This book gave me the push I needed to go on a fast to heal myself. I was stubborn about it for over a year, but I just couldn't stand suffering anymore and having tried EVERYTHING. I followed Dr Klaper's online protocol for doing a fast and elimination diet. I made it 65 hours on a water fast at home, but was so weak I didn't want to go further without medical help (you should never fast more than 3 days unless you are at somewhere like True North where they can monitor yo. Well that's all it took for me anyway. So I ate some watermelon and started a strict elimination diet. My hives were gone. All my inflammation healed! And now it's been over a year and still doing good- I eat a gluten free vegan diet. I know what to do if I feel inflammation. Cut out the processed food, drink water, do a fast for a day and give the body a break. It does wonders.

Wow. This book gives us an overview of human diets and how we have gotten here. I feel like a curtain has been pulled away. I read this book after seeing it in a doc What The Health. The book talks about water fasting, which I haven't tried bc that's a huge comittment. But the information in this book will help you see how western diets are killing us. If you are questioning what eating meats, cheese, eggs, oils, salts, sugars, and chemicals is doing to your health, this is an easy read that will spell it out of you. and give you the big picture. and tools for change.

What an incredible book! This book is all you need to know about how to get started on a Whole Food Plant Based lifestyle. If you’re wondering what’s next after watching Forks Over Knives, or What The Health, and you still want more hard science. Than, this book is the one for you. It’s a very easy read, and it’s not packed with science language that you need a Ph. D to read. Ok, that’s long enough. Go buy this book. I wish I had learned this years ago!!!!Written by a guy who wanted to change his health.

I am glad that I bought this book and find that it has been quite helpful for me in dealing with desire to eat heart healthy. There are certain foods that call out my name and this insightful reading was so helpful! I did not realize how addictive certain foods can be and this helped me to understand and attain my goals much more readily. I highly recommend this book to those wanting to understand why we eat the way we do.

Some very esoteric knowledge and life enhancing-even transforming knowledge contained in this book. Kind of stuff the media, pharmaceutical companies, meat and dairy industries don't want you to know!I loved to learn that eating a vegan plant based diet results in losing 5-10 pounds a month. When one reduces their fat intake to 10% or less or less of calories consumed, the body begins to reverse atherosclerosis.Four stars because I felt the book was too wordy in parts and overly clinical and lacked humour.Definitely worth taking the time to read.

EXCELLENT. An eye opener to some of my own instinctual behaviors. Looking at toxic foods as an addiction helped me to purge oil, refined food, and animal products from my diet. It is a little redundant, but very clear so I think anyone can understand it and benefit from it. If you need another tool to fight to change your lifestyle change this should be the book to turn to!

I found this book quite readable and interesting, so much so that I'm now reading it a second time two years later. Although the basic concepts are indeed quite simple, the explored implications for modern human life are not. I am surprised how much insight I am now getting into the effect of behavior beyond just diet (especially passive entertainment, like TV, internet surfing, etc.), I am realizing new ways to increase my happiness.

My life changed considerably 6 years ago when I was looking into the right food for my daughter to eat - she had cancer at that time. I came across some amazing stuff - Colin Campbell's The China Study having the greatest impact on me. I understood why a wholefood Plant-Based diet was the right diet for people both with and without illness. My journey has been fascinating. And I have worked my way through many other books and authors. Whilst aware of The Pleasure Trap, I have only recently read it. And it has had an effect similar to China Study -namely it is mind-blowing. It makes sense of so many issues and answers so many questions. And it makes it easier to avoid the attractions and addictions of the modern world, knowing why we act in the way we do. My family, including my well daughter and now my grandchildren all eat and love a Wholefood Plant-Based diet. If you are interested in this (and you should be) then the Pleasure Trap is a must-read. It has also provided me with a favourite new quote, albeit from Albert Schweitzer, 'Example is not the main thing when influencing others. It is the only thing'

As with most personal improvement books it's just a long tirade full of metaphors and anecdotes, which stretches the information that could have been contained in a single blog post. What's worse, the majority of this book is just the author preaching a certain lifestyle. There's almost no actual information about addiction or pleasure mechanisms or how to "master" the forces behind them. It could be okay, if the book had a completely different title.The book also gets extra negative points for:* A clearly non-objective tone. The author uses an emotionally loaded language, mentions typical truisms the society likes to repeat, and sparsely quotes scientific references, which give off an impression of being cherry-picked to support his point.* Sweeping statements for which it's easy to find counterexamples.* A typical for this kind of books narrow world view. Everything good is attributed to what the author proposes and everything bad is attributed to not doing so.If you want to know all the information that the book contains about the pleasure and addiction themselves, just watch the 5 minute (!) TED talk by the book's author.

As a health practitioner with 35 years experience on a mission to find the aetiology of health to help my patients enjoy a long healthy life I would rank this remarkable book number one. If we understand why we behave the way we do then we can learn to change our behaviour, this book gives anyone willing to learn this vital lesson a succinct simple explanation.

Excellent book.....I thought it was going to be a dry read, but I found that I couldn’t stop reading it. Full of new and useful imformation that I found to have been of great benefit to me, I learnt so much from this book it been a real life changer, something that I have never gained from reading a book before. I was so impressed that I bought a second copy to send to my daughter who also read it straight through. My husband is now reading it.Do yourself a big favour, improve your life and get a copy.

Absolutely brilliant book. Been getting into reading health and have ranged from How Not To Die, CHINA study, Protronaholic, to Robert Morse and Arnold Ehret teachings and toxemia. None of these compare to the insightful reasons as to how we have got into this health crisis we have reached now as good as this book.