Product Description
Two of America’s most well loved authorities on healthy eating and cooking join forces in this inspiring, simple-to-use cookbook. This is not a diet book. It is a lively guide to healthy cooking, day-by-day, packed with essential information and, above all, filled with enticing food.
Andrew Weil, M.D.—author of the best-selling Eating Well for Optimum Health—brings to this perfect collaboration a comprehensive philosophy of nutrition grounded in scien… More >>
The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and Spirit
I have made quite a few recipes from this book, and have found mistakes in nearly all of them. It’s as if nobody tested the recipes before the book was published. In one recipe the cooking time had to be nearly doubled, in a recipe for muffins there was no mention of using any liquid (juice, milk, oil, etc.) to bind the ingredients together, and a recipe that was supposed to serve 6 people called for using 12 avocados. I have had to adapt most of the recipes because of this problem. I also found that the directions for preparation were sometimes vague. For example, the recipe would say to broil something for 3 minutes, but not tell you if that was total time or on each side. I would have given this book 5 stars if it weren’t for the errors. Most of the recipes appealed to me and the commentary by Rosie and Dr. Weil was fascinating to read. I suggest that they make corrections and reprint this book.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is not your standard cookbook and if it’s bought with that expectation, the buyer will no doubt be disappointed in it. The book serves as much as a philosophical treatise on healthy eating as a cookbook, and from that standpoint it’s fascinating and successful as both a resource and motivational statement. But, the philosophizing takes up quite a bit of space and that results in a surprisingly small number of actual recopies.
That scarcity would be a problem if there were a lot of stinkers in the mix, but that is certainly not the case–this is very certainly a “quality over quantity” effort. I gave this to my wife for her birthday early this year and we’ve tried quite a lot of the recipes, and all have been tasty.
Some caveats: These are by and large recipes for the more sophisticated palate–don’t expect to find a lot of things that children will like very much. Quite a few of the recipes are time intensive. Plotting is essential. One the more intricate offerings, plot to do them on the weekend or when you can take the time to do it right. My personal advice is, when the authors have different visions of how to proceed (a common event here) go with Dr. Weil–Rosie tends to like thing on the blander side. Finally, this isn’t really constructed to be a “full meal” cookbook. While there are sections for all major meal sections, there isn’t often tremendous harmony on a “whole meal” basis. In other words, pick what of this work you want to use and work around it.
This is, essentially, a specialty cookbook. Use it that way and you’ll find it’s a gem.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is an brilliant book — full of fantastic information … the only problem is that all of the recipes I have tried so far are lacking something or have an error in the measurements. I am shocked that none of the other reviews have mentioned this. I have always found Dr. Weil’s books to be fascinating and informative and this book is no exception. Rosie Daley adds a delightful and educational point of view as well. This could be a fantastic cookbook but I am frustrated with having to scrutinize each recipe. I want to see this book reprinted with the right recipes.
Rating: 3 / 5
I was excited at the prospect of this cookbook because I really admire Dr. Weil, his philosophies and his books. Unfortuately the book was a disappointment in many ways.
Many of the recipes are complicated and time consuming. I am the mother of four children and don’t have the time that’s necessary for many of these recipes. Some examples include; Baked Wontons, Vegetable Nori Rolls, Vegetable Lasagna and Savory Lobster-Mushroom Crepe. These were all multi-stepped recipes.
You’ve probably guessed something else at this point, many of the recipes are not small child/family friendly. The thought of Lobster-Mushroom Crepes is enough to send my five, eight and eleven year ancient to get the cereal. My sixteen year ancient may appreciate it.
The largest disappointment to me was that some of the recipes didn’t taste excellent. I made Apple Cake Squares and they were so dry not even a dog would eat them. I made the Eggplant Rollatini with Spinach and Cheese Filling and although the eggplant part was fantastic the Tomatoe Mushroom Sauce it called for was only passable.
What I did delight in was the health tips interspersed throughout the book and the narratives by Dr. Weil and Rosie Daley. I would say again, that this book is not for people who are feeding young children or who are pressed for time at the dinner hour. The recipes are inventive, original, healthy and different but for me it wasn’t the best choice.
Rating: 3 / 5
`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 right 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 excellent 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 nearly 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; but, 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 pleased 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 vital is his discussion of the glycemic index of foods, which is a measure of how quick 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, stout, saturated stout, 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 really 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, part 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 stout 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 delight in and which are also excellent 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 excellent book. The list price is lower than nearly any other recent hardcover cookbook you are likely to find and the recipes are very excellent. 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; but, I reckon 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 excellent 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 question 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 quick cooking.
Rating: 4 / 5