The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and Spirit

Rating:
Summary: Good Mix of Healthy Culinary Advice.
Review: 'The Healthy Kitchen' by holistic medicine expert Andrew Weil, M.D. and professional chef Rosie Daley promises to be the very best union between expertise on food and health. It is not limited to simple weight reduction or to curing any other specific medical problem. It is true to the holistic doctrine of treating the whole person.

The book generally takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors. The contributions of the two different voices / areas of expertise are clearly delineated by printing them with a header indicating the speaker and differently colored pages to signify which voice is speaking.

Regarding the good doctor's contribution, I believe it is all sound, reflecting a synthesis of the most recent conventional wisdom on health and food. The value of this material will depend much on how much you have read in this area before reading this book. If you have read any of Weil's earlier books, especially the title 'Eating Well for Optimum Health', you will have already read almost all of Weil's material reproduced on the his green pages in this book. Much of this information has also appeared in other recent books on nutrition; however, I believe there are several tips in the book on kitchen practices which are unlikely to appear in a book general nutrition. One example is Weil's comments on cooking oils, especially the recommendation to never heat oils to the smoking point and to never breath the smoke of heated oil, as it is highly toxic. This is why he recommends grapeseed oil, as it has a very high smoke point.

I am especially happy with Weil's bringing out the distinction between simple and complex carbohydrates and that in spite of the current low carb diet fads, one should not avoid all carbohydrates. Even more important is his discussion of the glycemic index of foods, which is a measure of how fast a food is converted from the gut into glucose in the blood. High glycemic index foods such as most sugars and starches have the undesirable effect of quickly raising blood sugar, triggering the production of insulin. This also has the effect of making you feel hungry again, soon after eating. Low GI foods remain in the stomach longer and maintain satiation longer.

The culinary half of the partnership is shared by the two authors, with Ms. Daley providing the recipes and Dr. Weil providing 'color commentary' and comments on the health benefits and risks of various cooking techniques. All recipes include a nutritional analysis, giving the weight in grams of calories, fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, cholesterol, and fiber per serving. The serving size is not indicated directly. Rather, the recipe gives the number of servings in the dish. Given the totally acceptable variability in the practices of home cooks and the variability of nutritional content of ingredients, I would use these figures only as a means of comparing one recipe to another. As usual, portion sizes seem to me to be rather small.

The recipes are divided into very familiar headings, giving us chapters on: Breakfast, Beverages, Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Entrees, Accompaniments, and desserts Desserts. The last chapter gives a week's worth of menus with a composite nutritional analysis for the entire day's menu.

The selection of dishes fits your expectations for a healthy eating book. There are no beef or veal dishes and the authors flatly state that they are excluded to avoid saturated fat and environmental toxins. On the positive side, there are several pasta dishes. Dr. Weil offers the very wise suggestion that he typically looks to Oriental cuisines for his pasta recipes instead of to Italy, as Oriental dishes have less fatty sauces. There are many fish, shellfish, chicken, and tofu dishes, plus an emphasis on grilling and roasting techniques.

Overall, the book borders on but does not enter the world of dietary extremism parodied by a menu of tofu, bean sprouts, and wheat germ. It celebrates things like garlic that many people enjoy and which are also good for you. It devalues carob as a pale imitation of chocolate and endorses chocolate in moderation, especially as an accompaniment to fruit.

If you have a limited budget for cookbooks and are concerned about food and health, this is a very, very good book. The list price is lower than almost any other recent hardcover cookbook you are likely to find and the recipes are very good. They are not simple. This is not quick cooking a la Rachael Ray. My only concern with the book's nutritional advice is that it may be just a bit dated. It touts the benefits of garlic; however, I think the nutritional value of garlic has been devalued recently. It is still tasty and quite safe.

My main concern with the culinary material in the book is that it does not adequately provide a good substitute for white bread. While bread appears in one chapter title, it does not appear in the index and the closest I can find to a bread recipe is a recipe for blueberry pancakes. This may be too much to ask from a $27 book, but it would have made the book a lot better.

Highly recommended, especially if you own no other books on nutrition by Dr. Weil. Requires some preexisting culinary skill. Not fast cooking.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly, disappointed
Review: After reading Andrew Weil's Eating for Optimum Health, I was very excited that he was coming out with a cookbook. I thought the recipes in Eating for Optimum health were very flavorful. I bought The Healthy Kitchen the week it came out and have tried about half the recipes. My overall reaction is disappointment. Andrew Weil only contributed a small number of recipes (his greens with Tangy Dressing is fantastic) and they are as excellent as the recipes in Eating for Optimum Health. The problem is with Rosie Daley's recipes. First of all, she doesn't always use healthy ingredients (some recipes include butter, large amounts of sugar, sour cream, etc.) By far my biggest complaint is how careless her recipes are. The measurements are frequently inacurate. Some recipes are so spicey they are inedible and others so bland they need a lot a doctoring. The fish tacos is the only recipe of Rosie's that I haven't had to alter in some way. That being said, I would still recommend this book if you are trying to cook in a healthier way. Just approach Rosie's recipe's with a dose of skepticism and your intincts intact.

Rating:
Summary: Love this Cookbook!
Review: I absolutely love this cookbook. My new year's resolution was to start cooking better. I got tired of walking around the grocery store with all of the sodium, preservative, fat and sugar laden products. Before I found this cookbook, I would rarely stumble on a healthy recipe from a magazine or cookbook that would actually taste good. It was really quite discouraging to learn to cook healthy.

There is not a single recipe in this cookbook that I do not like. Everything turns out perfect and the flavors are incredible. It's amazing to me that my husband, who lives for burgers, pizza and red meat, really loves the food from "the Santa Claus dude book" (referring to Dr. Weil).

Sure, it takes longer to shop for the ingredients and make the recipes. Instead of grumbling, I use the time to practice mindfulness -- using all of my senses (sight, taste, smell, etc.) to get lost in the process. It relaxes me at the end of a long day. The rewards are a wonderful meal and knowing that I did something positive by choosing to eat healthy.

Rating:
Summary: This is supposed to be healthy?
Review: I was very disappointed upon receiving this book. Once skimming through the pages I noticed that most of the recipes were quite high in caloric intake. Example: a recipe for wantons EACH wanton is over 100 calories, if you have 3 that is as much as a meal and not quite as fulfilling. Some entrees had as many as 700 calories a serving!

Many of the ingredients are not only high in calories but also high in fat. Rosie makes an effort to create a mock sour cream with non-fat yogurt, yet many recipes call for low-fat sour cream (not exactly healthy). Then there is the butter. In one section of the book you read that one of the authors does not have any butter in their refrigerator at home. They go on to lecture about the sins of butter. Upon reading that I figured ther would be no butter in the recipes. I was wrong. A number of desserts call for butter. Where is the consistency?

To be quite honest, my own cooking is much healthier than anything Dr. Weil and Rosie have suggested. What a waste.

Rating:
Summary: Belongs in most American's kitchens
Review: OVERVIEW: This book is not only about healthy and delicious recipes. Intermixed is also basic nutritional information, tips about shopping and stocking your kitchen, food preparation techniques, a menu-planning guide, and the introduction of foods and ingredients not commonly used.

I believe this book is intended for a typical American consumer who: 1) wants to eat more healthy but doesn't know how or where to start, 2) is confused about what nutritional information is important and what isn't, 3) is unaware of food alternatives (such as olive oil or nut milk), or 4) wants to add healthy and delicious recipes to their repertoire (try the muesli for breakfast!).

FLAWS: As some reviewers have noted, additional editing would have caught some the errors and discrepancies in the recipes. A time estimate could also have been included for the recipe preparation. However, the errors are at most an annoyance (you are still be able to make the food), and I believe there is good number of quick and simple recipes, along with some that are more elaborate.

Some of the reviewers who gave low ratings appear to be "hard-core" nutritionalists, who complain about the use of some ingredients. These people have already researched their diet and eating habits and are not the typical consumer, yet I am sure they have picked up a few insights and recipes.

OVERALL: As Dr. Weil stated, "good nutrition is one of the most important influences on health". Most people can benefit from eating healthier, and this book serves as a great resource for both recipes and nutritional information. This book has a great chance to be a hit for people on your holiday shopping list.

Rating:
Summary: Good taste, but hard to assemble
Review: The beauty of this cookbook is that it offers interesting, tasty foods that are healthy beyond being low fat or low calorie. In other words, they offer healthy food, not diet food. Each recipe includes a nutritional guide, but there are also notes on the actual nutritional value of many ingredients and on various food groups. The problem I've found is that many of the recipes call for foods that just aren't easy to come by. This is a cookbook for the focused chef with time to shop and prepare full menus, not for the casual health-conscious cook.