Joan Brookhyser Hogan is a registered dietition who has packed this new book "The Vegetarian Diet for Kidney Disease," with clearly stated, up-to-date information on the most effective methods for managing kidney disease. Her focus on vegetarian nutrition comes from a growing awareness of its value in wrestling kidney disease down to size, or, in the best-case scenario, stopping the progression of this destructive disease in it"s tracks. When the author first became a dietition several decades ago, it was a different story. Plant proteins were then considered inferior to animal proteins, a belief based on the erroneous conclusion that plants contained high levels of certain minerals thought to cause complications in chronic kidney disease. Thanks, however, to ongoing research in the intervening years, this false belief has since been reversed. Vegetarianism has not only become acceptable, it is now considered superior to animal-based diets for the prevention and treatment of chronic kidney disease. This valuable book has a great deal of specific informaion to assist you in implementing, or continuiing, a plant-based diet that can help, not harm, the health of your kidneys. Hogan first outlines the benefits of vegetarianism, and follows that wih chapters on the stages of Kidney disease, on common problems associated with the disease, and on the relationship of this disease to other disorders. An enlightening discussion of the link between kidneys and diet precedes a diet plan that also includes herbals, supplements, and other natural products, with a final chapter on detailed meal plans and recipes providing the core of the author"s program. Along with numerous, detailed tables and graphs and a smattering of case histories printed throughout, there are Appendices, Resources, and References situated in back that serve to round out the guidelines and highlight the benefits of this relevant book that anyone with chronic kidney disese will find useful, even indeispensable.