205 of 207 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Source for Healthy Living. Better Recipes than Others, April 21, 2005
This review is from: 12 Best Foods Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes Featuring The 12 Healthiest Foods (Paperback)
'12 Best Foods Cookbook' by culinary journalist, Dana Jacobi presents nutritional information in what I consider a most delightful way, very similar to the excellent book, `SuperFoods' by Steven Pratt, M.D. and Kathy Matthews. As nutritional doctrine is getting more and more complicated, it is a relief to see these two books manage to present a very large body of nutritional wisdom in an easily digestible form.
To Jacobi's twelve (12), Pratt and Matthews present fourteen (14), but the agreement between the two lists is remarkably good. A list of the foods covered in both books follows:
In both:
Blueberries
Beans (Jacobi singles out black beans)
Broccoli
Oats
Salmon (Pratt specifies wild salmon. Jacobi has wild and farm-raised with a caution against the skin)
Soy (in all its gloriously different forms)
Spinach
Tomatoes
Walnuts
In Pratt and Matthews, but not in Jacobi:
Oranges
Pumpkin
Tea
Turkey
Yogurt
In Jacobi, but not in Pratt and Matthews:
Sweet potatoes
Chocolate
Onions
I suspect you could pair off the sweet potatoes with the pumpkin as sources of the `orange' nutrients. As fresh sweet potatoes are available the year around, I'll go for them instead of pumpkin, not to mention the fact that you can do with sweet potatoes virtually everything you can do with pumpkin, from soup to pies and back again. Tea and chocolate are also something of a pairing, as both are sources of caffeine and other nifty natural chemicals. If I had to pick, I would go with chocolate. That leaves Oranges, Turkey, Yogurt, and Onions unmatched between the two books, although I suspect some may claim that anything yogurt can do, soy milk can do better, but I do feel a real gap in Ms. Jacobi's discussion with no true milk product, animal protein, or citrus.
I think that all this means is that if you want excellent information in a very palatable form, get both books. If you can only have space or funds for one, I suggest Ms. Jacobi's book because, as someone who is much more of a culinary writer than a nutritionist, her very sizable selection of 200 very good recipes is more kitchen friendly than ophthalmologist Pratt and professional writer Matthews. This is probably due to both Ms. Jacobi's own talents plus her communications with some very distinguished culinary sources including Rick Bayless, Molly Katzen, Julie Sahni, Elizabeth Schneider, and Arthur Schwartz. And those are just the ones whose culinary credentials I recognize.
While Pratt and Matthews organize their recipes by their fourteen (14) foods, Ms. Jacobi organizes her recipes by type of dish or course. Her recipe chapters are:
Dips, Hors d'Oeuvres, and First Courses
Soups
Salads and Dressings
Poultry and Meat
Fish
Pasta, Sauces, and Grains
Eggs, Beans, and Soy
Sandwiches and Baked Goods
Vegetables and Side Dishes
Desserts
Breakfasts and Drinks
One of the better things about her recipes is that almost all combine two or more of the twelve best foods. The next best thing is that she does not avoid the kinds of meats and grains that make so many dishes so interesting.
If I were to suggest anything for improving these recipes, I would add several recipes for basic pantry items to replace recipe ingredients that call for commercial preparations such as stocks and fruit spreads. If you will go to the trouble of making your own Muesli, stocks and fruit purees are really not all that tough. Where Ms. Jacobi calls for a packaged blueberry jam in some recipes, similar recipes from Alice Waters would just have you mash up some fresh blueberries. Much more satisfactory to my mind. One thing I missed was a good recipe for a Muesli or Granola that has a decent shelf life. This is one of the things you will be inclined to make in large batches, enough for a fortnight or a month. For those looking for it, check out Molly Katzen's `Sunlight Café'.
What this buys us is the fact that Ms. Jacobi's recipes are generally pretty simple. Very few (mostly desserts) take up more than a single page. At the bottom of each recipe, there is an estimate of the calories, grams of fat, grams of saturated fat, grams of protein, grams of carbohydrates, and grams of fiber. I would stress that except for the baked goods where measurements will be pretty exact, these estimates may be off by up to 50%, especially if you have a heavy hand with certain ingredients such as onions.
Ms. Jacobi's list of sources is better than average and needs to be, as organic versions of many of these products may not be that easy to find. Many of the sources are also good places to go for additional nutritional information and recipes. The bibliography is also better than average, roughly evenly divided between nutritional and culinary sources. Note to publisher Rodale: The Bibliography seems peculiarly difficult to read with its oddly indented layout.
This is a really great book for presenting nutrition simply and in an extremely practical form. What few objections I have are a result of a search for a complete lifestyle. As a former Whole Earth Catalogue hippie, I like the whole picture. Not to say Ms. Jacobi will not talk you into a few good lifestyle changes herself, it's fun to see how her ideas fit into other healthy living precepts.
A very highly recommended book for healthy and tasty cooking. This is far more important than cooking fast, cooking local, cooking organic, cooking low carb, cooking authentic xxx, cooking to entertain, grilling, barbecuing, or cooking in a wok.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For the Long-living Epicurian, June 30, 2005
This review is from: 12 Best Foods Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes Featuring The 12 Healthiest Foods (Paperback)
Dana Jacobi is not above boasting. She takes pride in her reputation for creating dishes that are both lavish and healthy. Fortunately for us, she doesn't mind sharing either. For her 12 Best Foods Cookbook (Rodale, 2005), Jacobi looked for ingredients that not only had the most "nutritional bang for their caloric buck" and were highly versatile, but would also be pleasurable to our palates. The result is over 200 recipes that each include at least one of the following:
blackberries
blueberries
broccoli
chocolate (high in anti-oxidants, luck us!)
oatmeal
onions
salmon
soy
spinach
sweat potato
tomatoes
walnuts
But this book includes more than just recipes. There is a thorough introduction to each of the 12 ingredients - what makes it special, as well as how to buy, store, and use it. There are educational food facts scattered throughout the book, as well as side bars with recipe variations or cooking tips. And there are 44 mouthwatering photos that are sure to make you want to run to the kitchen. For times when you are in a hurry, there's an icon of a clock that readily identifies recipes that take 30 minutes or less to prepare. There are even specific recommendations about which brand or variety of food is best for what occasion.
12 Best Foods Cookbook contains a pleasing breadth of recipes, from the familiar to the exotic, and from appetizers and side dishes to drinks and dessert. The ingredients are easy to find and the instructions simple to follow. However, the recipes get a bit homogenous in two sections of the book: 9 of the 12 recipes in the "Fish" section use salmon, and 11 of the 13 "Breakfast" recipes use oatmeal. If you've been looking for ways to get more of these foods in your diet without being repetitive, you're in luck. Otherwise, it's a bit disappointing.
While Jacobi typically does a great job of keeping calories per serving down, many recipes in this book will please neither the low-carb nor the low-fat crowds. The `fettuccini with goat cheese and walnuts', for instance, while as delicious as it sounds, has 24 grams of fat and 83 grams of carbs per serving. The `chocolate-nut brownies' are the real thing - just as tasty, and just as caloric. The most wholesome thoughts regarding the nutritive properties of chocolate and walnuts aren't going to change the fact that these brownies best remain occasional treats.
This is not to say that there aren't plenty of recipes for calorie counters, but there are just as many that might qualify as a small, tasty respite from a diet. Jacobi's book isn't about control or deprivation, but about making enjoyable foods that have healthy properties. If your philosophy is different, don't worry: each recipe comes with nutritional information, including calories, fat grams, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber per serving, so you can plan accordingly.
The only other caveat to 12 Best Foods Cookbook is that it's not always obvious where a recipe might be located (some of the dishes in the "Eggs, Beans, and Soy" section could have just as well gone into the "Breakfast" part, and several of the "Sandwiches and Baked Goods" recipes seem to belong with the side dishes or desserts.) Just look in the index if you're not finding what you want - because, chances are, it's in there.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good addition to healthy living collection, June 15, 2006
This review is from: 12 Best Foods Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes Featuring The 12 Healthiest Foods (Paperback)
I found this book in the library, not long after I purchased SuperFoods. I checked it out 3 different times, and finally decided that both the information and the recipes were worth adding to my collection. I resisted at first, only because I am trying to scale down my cookbook collection. This was a great purchase, well worth the space on my (limited) shelves.
Recipes have thus far proven to be simple and tasty. Occasionally a "different" ingredient is called for, which is hard to find in my medium sized town. In fact, I even looked in a large city for tamarind paste, and was unable to locate it. No matter; in other cookbooks, I am instructed to substitute lemon juice for tamarind paste, and that's what I've done here. None of the main ingredients are hard to find, and in my opinion, a single tablespoon of one odd ingredient is not going to make or break a recipe. Certainly it could alter the final flavor, but I will not pass over a recipe just because I do not have a small amount of one minor ingredient.
There are some recipes which are found in various places (such as Huevos Rancheros), but with the author's own twist on them, still making them worth a try. Others, such as the Sweet Potato Salad, are new to me.
The 12 foods are primarily things that my family eats fairly regularly, and I am enjoying new ideas for preparing and/or incorporating them.
If your family refuses to eat fruits or veggies, this may not be the book for you. I am fortunate that my son (4)... as well as my husband... will eat most anything... at the very least, they will try it once. However, if you (and/or your family) are willing to experiment with fairly common ingredients, you may find some new favorites, as well as an overall healthier diet!
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