Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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59 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nutritious + Healthy = Eat Clean Diet Recipes, November 23, 2008
Having lost a ton of weight, and apparently good at keeping it off, Tosca Reno decided to write this book after her bestselling The Eat-Clean Diet: Fast Fat-Loss that lasts Forever!. I guess it was so popular that there was a demand for Eat Clean Recipes. After looking at the book, I can see why.
First off, if you're looking for any detailed explanations of the Eat Clean diet, you won't find it here- check out her other book instead, The Eat-Clean Diet: Fast Fat-Loss that lasts Forever!. But just to give you a very brief overview, it's a nutritional plan that maximizes your intake of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants by incorporating "whole foods" from every group. Some of the Clean Eating Principles include things such as: eat 5-6 small meals a day, eat every 2-3 hrs., avoid saturated fats, and stick to proper portion sizes. As you can see, it's healthy and sensible.
Anyway, the book is just loaded with recipes. A little bit about the layout. Major recipe sections include breakfast, soup, grains, sauces, one-dish and easy meals, proteins, vegetables, pasta, sweets and breads, and festive occasions. Most notable, perhaps, is that each recipe tells you the nutritional breakdown (total calories, fat calories, protein, carbs, fiber, sugars, fat, and sodium). Also included is the approximate preparation AND cook time. Nice!
So needless to say, I was well-pleased with the book. It's practical and healthy. A must-have if you're an Eat Clean fan or if you're just looking for a few healthy recipes. Readers trying to make healthy lifestyle changes might also be interested in The Sixty-Second Motivator.
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97 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome, delicious recipes, November 5, 2007
At first glance this book might not seem that different from other good healthful eating cookbooks, such as "EatingWell Serves Two" and its ilk. They all contain plenty of recipes with lean meats, whole grains, etc. They all contain great helpful hints to assist you through understanding how to work with healthy foods, how to make them interesting, etc. They all contain some nice photographs to make the food seem alluring and yummy.
However, to me there's one key difference. Tosca Reno's recipes aren't bland.
I'm well aware that there's a sizable contingent of people out there who want their diet food to resemble bland, "normal" American fare as much as possible; I'm not going to mark down a book for catering to that crowd, even though I don't personally enjoy that approach.
However, I'm certainly happy to sing the praises of a book that finally satisfies my desire for flavorful, creative diet food. I know it can be done, and it's my feeling that part of the reason a lot of people think diet food sucks is because they want flavorful food and most diet books cater to the safe, bland crowd. Well, Tosca Reno is one health and fitness advocate who doesn't seem to believe in that.
One of the recipes we tried from this book was a stuffed pumpkin recipe that involved things like ground bison and wild rice. It was incredibly delicious, even as leftovers---one of those recipes that don't taste like diet food at all (and that's the way it should be!).
Another was a breakfast burrito that wowed us so much that we use variations on it regularly now as a savory break from hot breakfast cereal.
There's a white bean tuna spread that I like as much as standard tuna salad (and it's a lot healthier!), and a couscous salad with chevre, oregano, and vegetables that's out of this world.
If you're the kind of person who finds most healthy or diet cookbooks to be bland and underwhelming, then I suggest you try this one instead. It challenges your creativity, suggests ways to work with unusual ingredients, and provides all the flavor those other books are missing!
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36 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, March 15, 2008
I was really excited to get this book. I regularly read Tosca's columns in Oxygen, and was thrilled to find a recipe book she'd written. I have to say I was pretty disappointed once I read through it. There are a couple of good recipes I can use, but the MAJORITY of the recipes use ingredients that are difficult to find (bison, quinoa, pumpkin oil???--you certainly won't find most of them at Kroger's or your average grocery store) and expensive to purchase once you find them. Some of these are fine for the occasional meal, but not practical to prepare on a daily basis unless you're independently wealthy, which I guess being Tosca, you would be. :) I wish she would have taken a more practical approach for those of us moderate income families that also wish to eat healthy meals.
I have 3 small kids that wouldn't DREAM of eating some of the stuff in this cookbook. I wouldn't be able to pass that off to them in even the sneakiest of ways. There were a few family-type recipes we enjoyed, like the whole wheat bread recipe or the summer roasted salmon, and would have liked to have seen more like those. But the majority of these recipes were geared for adults. And really, when you're a busy mom trying make time to eat clean and exercise, do you really have time to make a "kid dinner" and an "adult dinner"? Most of these recipes are just too exotic for the average family.
I'm sure this is a great book for many, it just didn't suit our needs. If you find yourself attracted to exotic recipes and food choices, this just may be the cookbook for you. If, on the other hand, you are trying to eat healthy and relatively inexpensively and feed your family the same way, look elsewhere.
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by Tosca Reno
