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Category: Diet & Weight Loss

Review: The Ultimate Allergy-Free Snack Cookbook by Judi & Shari Zucker

[ 1 ] March 31, 2012

Reviewed by Jenna Arthur

Judi and Shari Zucker are two twins on a mission – to bring delicious and nutritious vegetarian snacks to children and adults alike that have common, as well as, uncommon allergies. Starting at a ripe age of 11, these twins became vegetarians. They wrote their first snack book at age 16 and are continuing to spread the word that there are alternatives for traditional snacks that make allergy sufferers sick.

The Ultimate Allergy-Free Snack Cookbook is not only filled with dozens of kid friendly treats and sweets but also has a lot of information for parents and adults new to coping with allergies. The beginning of the book explains common allergies while also explaining foods and additives to avoid. The delicious recipes to follow are easy to make and taste amazing.

I tried the Really Raspberry Sorbet, the Lemon Drops, Mummy’s Yummy Hummus and the Burritos 2 Go. Being lactose intolerant, I was delighted that the Raspberry Sorbet was luscious and full of fresh ripe raspberry flavor and the Lemon Droops smooth and tangy. Perfect for serving to little ones! Mummy’s Yummy Hummus  and Burritos 2 Go were a hit with my two picky nieces and nephews who have combined nut, dairy and other food allergies.

I look forward to trying more safe for the stomach recipes. I definitely recommend this cookbook to allergy sufferers and parents with little ones that have allergies. Because why shouldn’t everyone be able to have gourmet tasting, allergy free snacks? Look for the sisters’ other books as well!

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Jenna lives in the bustling city of Pittsburgh, PA with her fiance and her two beautiful cats. Along with her passion for reading and the literary world, she is also an artist, writer, environmental activist, creative coordinator and aspiring culinary genius. She believes there is nothing better to her then a good book, and lives one cover to the next.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Square One Publishers. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: From Fat to Fit by Carole Carson

[ 4 ] March 24, 2012

Reviewed by Poppy Johnson

From Fat to Fit follows the author, Carole Carson, on her weight loss journey. The book reviews the psychological and physiological benefits of following a weight loss program. This program itself is structured to allow the dieter to stick with it and effectuate a life-style change.

Carson encourages readers to find a weight loss plan that they can stick to on their own. There are progress reports for each week, ideas for weekly exercises, and advice on how to find spiritual guidance. Carson also shares tips on curtailing the self-indulgences that leads to weight gain.

Carson participated in Meltdown, which was a fitness program intended to be free for the participants. She had team promoters and support staff to manage and launch events in Nevada. The Meltdown featured organized teams with rules, leadership, free passes to fitness clubs, and support meetings. The meetings were a success and Carson became an inspiration to others as a result of her weight loss suggestions.

From Fat to Fit is full of Carson’s self-deprecating humor. It was difficult to read some of these passages but I understand that she felt the pain and burden of her weight throughout her life. Therefore, I applaud her new found commitment to being and staying fit. The personal photos and witty stories will serve as an inspiration to anyone participating in a weight loss program.

I would recommend From Fat to Fit to anyone interested in losing weight. I was not particularly fond of the clichés, but if the reader can get around the style of writing, which was a bit dated, there is still useful information in the book to begin a successful weight loss program.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

After a decade of working in several NYC law departments and teaching, Poppy decided she enjoyed writing full-time. She currently works as a freelance writing consultant, and lives with her husband and sons on the East Coast.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Carole Carson. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: The Smarter Science of Slim by Jonathan Bailor

[ 2 ] February 23, 2012

Reviewed by Poppy Johnson

The Smarter Science of Slim by Jonathan Bailor provides an explanation for anyone wondering why they gain weight or why they can’t lose it quickly. The book covers different foods and why they are good or bad for us, such as the inSANE foods (processed foods and sugars) that should be avoided and the SANE foods that include any foods that can be hunted or gathered (meat and certain veggies). Bailor also includes interesting facts that were news to me, such as the fact that long term weight loss comes from unclogging our fat metabolic system.

I though I had read everything there was in the area of exercise. However, The Smarter Science of Slim has surprisingly interesting suggestions for exercising. For example, the book offers diagrams for floor and weight exercise routines and gives instructions for maximizing the results. There are different types of workouts, such as Deep or Eccentric and they do not just work the muscles, but also unclog metabolisms. This leads the way to safe and consistent weight loss.

Bailor also offers advice on not misplacing energy during a workout. I learned that it was wrong to try to work abdominal muscles before unclogging my system and that dropping our fat set points is the first step to consistent weight loss – not additional reps in the gym. In regards to lifting weights, Bailor explains something I never considered before and which was a revelation to me: lifting weights (the concentric part of the exercise) is important to strengthening muscle, but the lowering of the weight (the eccentric part of the routine) offers the most benefits.

From The Smarter Science of Slim, I learned that working out and just jogging each day is actually not the best way to maintain optimum weight for life. The book explains that there is so much more to consider when deciding to live a healthier lifestyle and it gives the best answers to the questions: what should I do now and what should I do first?

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Read a sample from the book here

After a decade of working in several NYC law departments and teaching, Poppy decided she enjoyed writing full-time. She currently works as a freelance writing consultant, and lives with her husband and sons on the East Coast.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Jonathan Bailor. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Special Diets for Special Kids by Lisa Lewis, Ph.D.

[ 5 ] September 22, 2011

Reviewed by Alyssa Katanic

For a little over a year now, our family has been shifting our eating habits in order to deal with various health issues including digestion problems, ADHD, and allergies/ food sensitivities. It has already been quite a journey, and we are still just beginning! There is so much to learn and it can be hard to figure out, “Okay! So what CAN we all eat and enjoy?” Thankfully, there are authors like Lisa Lewis, Ph.D. who have “Been there! Done that! Wrote the book!”

This version of Special Diets for Special Kids is actually a compilation of the previous volumes 1 and 2 with updated information and recipes from more recent research. It is an informational book and cookbook in one, and also includes a CD of over 200 Gluten-Free/Casein-Free (GF/CF) printable recipes!

What is “Gluten-Free/Casein-Free” any way? Lewis does a great job of walking readers through the meaning behind this term, and how and why such a diet has been beneficial for children with issues such as Autism, ADHD, allergies, and more. She also outlines a few other variations of the diet for those who are affected by different food sensitivities such as the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), the Body Ecology Diet (BED), and the Low Oxalate Diet (LOD).

If you are just learning about how your child(ren)’s (or your own) medical challenges can be helped through diet, Special Diets for Special Kids is a great starting point. If you already follow a GF/CF diet or variation, Lewis’ book is a great refresher course that will also add to your recipe choices. Lewis includes a variety of recipes to choose from (including four different pancake recipes!) to suit different tastes and sensitivities, as well as a range of cooking and baking abilities and level of cooking interest. Special Diets for Special Kids is full of resources and recommendations for other books, organizations, websites, and helpful and delicious products and where to find them.

Special Diets for Special Kids by Lisa Lewis is an excellent resource for dietary intervention. It is well designed and organized, and full of great information and good eats!

Rating: 4.5/5

Alyssa is a wife and stay at home, homeschooling mother of five, with two boxers, two cats, a soft shelled turtle named after Bob the Builder, and 7 frogs (admittedly a homeschooling project gone froggy). In all her spare time, she loves to read and believes that there is no such thing as having too many books!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Future Horizons and Sensory World. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Eat Naked by Margaret Floyd

[ 6 ] September 21, 2011

Reviewed by F. Scott

This book does not contain any pictures of nude people eating or doing anything else. In fact, there are no pictures at all except for the cover. Quel dommage. What Eat Naked, by Margaret Floyd, does contain is very sound advice on what to put into your body. A nutritional practitioner in Los Angeles, Floyd paints processed foods as the enemy—and they are. Essentially, these are “foods” found outside of your produce section at the supermarket.

Floyd as a self-confessed and reformed “junk-food vegetarian” tries to steer her readers away from unnatural and harmful foods that constitute what we all know as the Standard American Diet, or SAD (she herself doesn’t mention this term). Junk-food vegetarians or vegans are a common phenomenon among those ideologically opposed to consuming animal products. Instead, they eat all manner of stuff simply because “no animals were harmed in the making of this food.” But you can relax because Floyd’s book is intended for omnivores.

So, we’re talking about unprocessed, natural, whole, and organic foods, and Floyd tells us about why they’re better, why to eat them, and where to find them. Our fruits and veggies are full of pesticides, so one must be careful, she says. Buy organic. (I say just eat the damn fruits and vegetables however you can get them.) Beef, poultry, eggs, fish, and dairy products are all okay—provided they come from the right place, which is not your average commercial farming operation or your average corner grocery store.

Animal products come full of things like antibiotics and growth hormones. Other toxins find a home in the fat that always accompanies animal tissue. Grass-fed beef, cage-free chickens, wild fish, and raw, unpasteurized dairy are what you want to look for. The problem is that these things can be hard to find—and expensive, if not illegal.

Floyd’s presentation is in two parts: (1) the basics of eating naked and “What is naked?” and (2) how to get naked. (I’m sorry but this whole “eat naked” thing must be some marketing person’s idea of how to sell books; it is repeated ad nauseum. It is all just a bit too girly rah-rah for this man. And all those exclamation points really increase the value of the book, too.)

Nevertheless, Eat Naked is as good a place as any to start transforming your eating habits and in the process your body and your life. I find just about everything she says to be sound and accurate advice. Plus, the information she presents comports with my own dietary changes and experience over the last 10 months. However, I still don’t believe that drinking distilled water will leech my body of essential nutrients, as she claims.

Floyd directs you to her Web site, which I haven’t seen yet, so even more ideas await the reader there. That second part of the book, by the way, contains recipes, but they all seem to me to have too many ingredients. Thus, I offer you one of mine: Get an avocado. Cut it in half. Scoop out the green stuff. Eat it.

Rating: 4.5/5

F. Scott drinks a blended green smoothie every day containing kale or collard greens, two bananas, one apple, grapes, strawberries or blueberries, and two cups of distilled water.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Planned Television Arts. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Gluten Free Cookies by Luane Kohnke

[ 6 ] August 2, 2011

Reviewed by Shannon Hopkins

Anybody who is gluten-free or who knows someone with a gluten-free diet has likely thought or heard, “the thing I miss is dessert.” Even the healthiest diet includes the occasional sweet indulgence, and as more people are diagnosed with Celiac or choose to lead a gluten-free lifestyle it becomes more necessary to help them find new recipes to enjoy life’s little desserts. Luane Kohnke has put her baking expertise to the task, and in Gluten Free Cookies gives us “50 Recipes for Cookies You Crave”.

Kohnke starts with a short introduction and a comprehensive guide to gluten-free baking that not only highlights ingredients to use and avoid, but explains their purpose; discusses how to create a gluten-free baking environment; and functions as a how-to guide for even the most novice baker. Kohnke even relates the results of a test she performed with her gluten-free flour mixes (pp. 15-16) in which she had gluten-eaters test a wheat flour “control cookie” against gluten-free models of the same made with each flour blend, and provides a conversion table based on those results for converting wheat flour-based recipes to gluten-free ones.

Each recipe is accompanied by a colorful and crisp shot of what the finished treat will look like, and nearly all of the recipes occupy only one page. However, as the author points out, it is important to read the recipes all the way through before attempting — while the baking process itself is short, the preparation process for many of the recipes (especially those with filler) includes chilling the mix in the refrigerator or letting it sit for a certain period of time (e.g. the Oatmeal Almond Cookies with Dates, the batter of which needs to chill for at least two hours).

My family helped assemble a gluten-free baking party to test out some recipes. We found that many of the necessary ingredients are more expensive than your typical wheat flour, but it is definitely worth the cost to bring dessert back into the house. In order to test a variety of treats, we baked the Lemon Squares (p. 91), Double-Cherry Streusel Bars (p. 96), and the Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (p. 31). The chill/store process frustrated our efforts somewhat, but we worked out a groove in which we could finish one cookie while another was prepping, and having clear and easy-to-follow recipes was a big help. A first-time baker would have little trouble following the directions as they are written.

I returned the next day for my samples of our gluten-free treats, and I was impressed by how closely they resembled the pictures! Clearly, we did something right. Each treat stood up to taste testing as well, though we observed that the peanut butter cookies tasted more heavily like peanut butter but ended on a drier note. With the proper amount of preparation, I would bake any of these recipes for anybody — even a gluten eater will love what comes out of the oven.

Rating: 5/5

Shannon lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her fiancé and a room full of books that she peruses when she isn’t trolling Apartment Therapy for new decorating ideas. In her free time she enjoys maintaining her blog, The Writer’s Closet, planning her wedding, and baking tasty gluten-free treats.

Review and giveaway copies were provided free of any obligation by Sellers Publishing. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: 29 Days…to your perfect weight by Michele Bertolin and Richard Fast

[ 7 ] May 6, 2011

Reviewed by Poppy Johnson

If you don’t want to lose unwanted weight, don’t consider actually buying this book.

If you had to think for a second about meaning of the above sentence – you ARE ready to buy this book!

29 Days … to your perfect weight offers 100% positive reinforcement for whatever weight loss program you will use to lose weight. If you prefer to stay with your own regimen, you can add the program described in the book as a supplement to your own weight loss plan. 29 Days also includes a 29-day companion plan which offers online tips, articles, journaling, strategies, direction and coaching to help the reader reach his or her weight loss goal.

This not a book which offer you fad diets, low-calorie or high fiber food programs to follow, expecting you to exist on a strict regimen of only healthy foods and depriving yourself at every turn. Instead, you will get two online coach/buddy plan reminders a day for 29 days. There reminders include all of the tips and motivation that you will need to help you achieve your desired weight.

I started this plan excited and ready for change. I read the book, and followed the outline play strategies for losing weight. The best part is that after one week, my clothes fit differently. 29 Days taught me to set goals, and be more aware of my relationship with food. Anyone that is honest with themselves and is ready to commit to a new lifestyle is likely to succeed with this book.

I highly recommend 29 Days to anyone interested in developing healthier habits and relationships with food.

Rating: 5/5

After a decade of working in several NYC law departments and teaching, Poppy decided she enjoyed writing full-time. She currently works as a freelance writing consultant, and lives with her husband and sons on the East Coast.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Giveaway: Nutrition Diva’s Secrets for a Healthy Diet by Monica Reinagel

[ 102 ] March 22, 2011

I have 2 copies of Nutrition Diva’s Secrets for a Healthy Diet to give away!

About the book

Tired of trying to figure out what you should be eating for breakfast, or whether it’s ever OK to eat before going to bed? Want to know which type of milk, or cereals, or meats are best so that food shopping is easier?

Millions of people already eat, look, and feel better thanks to popular podcast host and board-certified nutritionist Monica Reinagel. In her highly-anticipated guidebook she sorts through all the conflicting nutrition information out there—and busts outdated food myths—so you’ll know exactly what to eat (and what to avoid) once and for all.

Monica walks you through every aisle of the grocery store and through each meal and snack of the day, helping you make healthier choices and answering your burning questions, including:

  • How often should you eat?
  • Which organic foods are worth the extra cost?
  • Does cooking vegetables destroy the vitamins?
  • Should foods be combined in certain ways for better digestion?

Complete with grocery shopping lists, simple, delicious recipes, and sample meal plans, Nutrition Diva’s Secrets for a Healthy Diet will have you feeling healthier, looking better than ever before, and no longer worrying about what to eat for dinner.

Check out QuickandDirtyTips.com for some sample recipes and free downloads from the book!

Mandatory entry: Please comment on this post with your e-mail address.

Extra entries (please post each entry separately, i.e. 2 posts for subscribing):
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This giveaway is open to US residents only. Deadline to enter is midnight on April 8, 2011.

Giveaway copies are provided free of any obligation by Macmillan. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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