Wednesday, May 31, 2017

*Review* The American Cancer Society New Healthy Eating Cookbook by Jeanne Besser


Genre: Coobook
Published: November 1, 2016
Pages: 232

Synopsis

Tasty, nutritious recipes backed by the American Cancer Society
 
Get cooking and eat your way to better health with the latest edition of this popular cookbook. It includes more than 100 simple and delicious dishes that will turn healthy eating into a celebration of good food. It includes healthy substitutions, simple tips in the kitchen, smart shopping ideas, and notes on how to judge portion sizes. There is new material on how to shop in a healthy way, how to set up your pantry for healthy meals, and guidelines for physical activity. With the latest research, revisions to recipes, and updated recommendations for healthy eating, this cookbook makes it fun and easy to eat well.

Review

I received a copy of this book from The American Cancer Society in exchange for an honest review. 

I'm just going to start by saying that as of right now, I have not tried out any of the recipes in this book. It just arrived yesterday, and I was so excited to see it, that I dove right in to read the front matter and scan through the recipes. But I'm just so excited about this book that I didn't want to wait until I've tried out some of the recipes to tell you about it. And y'all, there are some really good sounding recipes in here. There's one for a sweet chili fish burger that my seafood averse husband is even willing to try (and this is a man who gets pasta when we eat at Red Lobster and chicken at Long John Silvers). 

So I read through the introduction, and it has a fair amount of helpful information with a lot of bullet lists so it's fast and easy to read. It did give me pause about my new love for edamame, because apparently soybeans are high in calcium and I'm kidney stone prone, so I'm gonna' need to limit my consumption of edamame, and I wouldn't have known that without this book (because it's vegetables and those are healthy, so why bother learning more about them right?) And it's not like most of the information provided is stuff I didn't already know (I knew it, I'm not stupid), but the way it was presented made it seem less daunting. With a lot of diet trends and whatnot, it seems like you need to make huge, drastic changes to your life to see any results, but that's not the impression I got from this cookbook. This book made me feel like I can actually do something about my weight without feeling like a failure within a week. And I'm excited to try some of the recipes.

While scanning through the recipes last night to come up with a couple meal ideas for this week, I picked five things to try (I was only going to pick two or three, but I just couldn't stop myself when I reached three. Also, recipes four and five are more like side dishes.) For the most part, the recipes look really easy, although they include some ingredients that I am not at all familiar with (which made shopping today interesting.) And there are a few recipes in here that I will never try (everything with eggplant), but I think it would be a miracle if I were to find a cookbook without a single recipe that made me go "Ew, nope!" 

Now since I haven't tested out any of the recipes yet, I'm giving this book a tentative four stars, because the introduction was informative, many of the recipes sound really good, and a lot of them seem pretty easy to make. This rating is subject to change, however, as I start testing things out. Stay tuned for my recipe reviews over at Cooking with Katie. - Katie 

Buy the Book


About the Author

Jeanne Besser is a former food columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and author of numerous cookbooks, including the American Cancer Society’s The Great American Eat-Right Cookbook and What to Eat During Cancer Treatment. Among her other cookbooks are The 5:30 Challenge: 5 Ingredients, 30 Minutes, Dinner on the Table; The First Book of Baking; andWorking Mom’s Fast & Easy Family Cookbook. She is coauthor of Tell Me the Truth, Doctor: Easy-to-Understand Answers to Your Most Confusing and Critical Health Questions. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Recipe Reviews

As I test out the recipes from this book, I will be reviewing them individually on my new blog, Cooking with Katie, and then I will link to them here, so be sure to check back for those.

Peanut Noodles with Snow Peas and Broccoli

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