Customer Reviews

Everyday Vegan: 300 Recipes for Healthful Eating

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book really changed my life. It is written in more of a casual format, but its content is very good. It contains a great deal of diet guidelines, as well as a number of very good vegan whole-natural-food recipies. I own a number of vegan cookbooks but this is the one that I go to 90% of the time. In addition, following this book, I've lost about 50 pounds!

Jeani-Rose Atchison, author of Everyday Vegan, walks the walk. She grew up on a typical American diet as most of us did: "with no thought of nurturing, just the primitve notion of survival." This continued into her early thirties when she learned that she had compromised liver and kidney function. When she eliminated certain foods such as meat, dairy, and refined foods, she witnessed dramatic results: her body felt more relaxed, she moved easier, her joints were not stiff, and her breathing improved. Yes, this is a vegan cookbook, but more importantly, the first 70 pages are devoted to chapters on Conscious Living, Thinking of Children, Food Group Facts, and Food Philosophy. Attention is called to organic food and genetically engineered food, with case studies about the use of pesticides and children.
Recipe categories include appetizers/dips/spreads, condiments, soups, salads/dressings, breads, side dishes, entrees, desserts, and beverages. Instructions are given on how to sprout, and how to make tempeh. Winning recipes include Cashew French Toast, Asian Spring Rolls with a tamari/lime dipping sauce, and Carrot Cake that uses fruit as a sweetener. Everyday Vegan provides invaluable information, not just for those starting out on a vegetarian path, but for all health conscious individuals.

The self-righteousness of this book is annoying ("Using chemical cleansers in my home is not an option"), the new-age tone is cloying ("When I saw my midwife's face light up with joy and wonderment everytime she touched my womb... I knew she was living her soul's task"), and the sincere self-congratulation on her own wonderful, wholesome, healthful, spiritual lifestyle is irritating. But so what, I just wanted the recipes. So I skipped the seventy page long section on "the denatured foods of commerce" and tried some. I am already a vegetarian and I was looking for some good food without milk or eggs. But I was disappointed. My biggest problem was the ingredients. One example: every other recipe calls for "Vogue Vege Base" - I had never heard of it. I went to a couple of big natural food stores, and nobody in either of these had heard of it -and I live in CAMBRIDGE, MA, WHERE EVEN THE CONVENIENCE STORES HAVE NATURAL, ORGANIC FOODS!!! Another favourite ingredient is Bragg Liquid Aminos. Hijiki, sprouted wheat, brown rice syrup, agar powder, slippery elm powder, flax seeds... the list of things I don't have in my kitchen is SO long that it's overwhelming. It's not just ingredients - equipment is also a stumbing block. (Do you have a Vita-Mix Total Nutrition Center?) I did try a few things, they were only ok. Instead of this book, I recommend '150 Vegan Favorites', by Jay Solomon -easy recipes with straighforward ingredients that always turn out well.

Compiled by an expert health and cooking counselor Jeani-Rose Atchison, Everyday Vegan: 300 Recipes For Healthful Eating is a high-spirited, healthy-living cookbook featuring meat and animal-product free recipes for all occasions, and much more - facts concerning food groups, advice concerning the deleterious effects of pesticides, genetically engineered, and irradiated foods, and food philosophy. Recipes include mouth-watering dishes such as Gingered Butternut Squash Soup, Asparagus Flan, Lettuce-Wrapped Tempeh Meatballs, and so many more. A first-rate resource for creative and health-conscious vegan chefs.

The recipes in this book are interesting, tasty and enticing. However, and this is huge: There is no way to know the servings per recipe. So, far example, in the Butternut Squash and Leek Pockets, you need to make the dough to roll out for the 8" circles that will become the pockets. She doesn't bother to tell you how thick or thin to roll the dough AND she doesn't tell you how many portions the recipe feeds so you could use all the dough making 8" circles for 4 pockets and be short. I thought it was a quirk with just this recipe, but it's not. Every one is the same way. What the hell was the author thinking?!? And how about the publisher who bears equal culpability. This cookbook is a joke! The first third is her pedantic rant on the American diet. I don't disagree and I am a vegan for these reasons. But, giving voice to your beliefs doesn't relieve you of the responsibility you have to the good people plunking down a lot of money for a COOKBOOK that is missing vital information. This could have been a Five Star review because the recipes taste that good. Don't waste your money.

worst cook book i own. all the recipes have odd ingredients and she uses no wheat in any of the recipes? that means no seitan...which is amazing and i dont see how anyone could have anything against it. she should have written that on the back so i could have saved my money on this time waster. not to mention how she aims to make readers feel like idiots for not kissing the ground she walks on.

This book is fantastic for many reasons. Personally, I try to cook vegan only for eating healthy. I try to balance out healthy eating compared to when I do eat out. However, as we know with healthy eating it is really hard to commit to it long term, because usually it gets boring and sometimes not filling enough. Who wants to eat just a salad everyday?! Also, if you try to cook more interesting dishes, this is just time consuming. So it is super easy to fall off the healthy cooking wagon. HOWEVER, this book has two things. Healthy and tasty recipes (where you look forward to coming home and eating the dishes) and the proportions are large so that you can have a week or two's worth of meals that you can just dish out real quick and heat up. I also like that the recipes are genuinely healthy. You don't need salt in your dishes or any fat (oil or butter), and most of these dishes don't have either. So far my favorite is Spicy Kale and Chickpea Stew (never had kale before, I like it! I've been eating it for two weeks with pita bread, yum) and I just made the Wild Rice Soup which is pretty good too. As far as finding ingredients, they're in the supermarket (or just order online), you just have to look/ask. I didn't think I would find Bragg's Liquid Aminos (which I didn't even know what it was), but I did. Buy this book for genuinely healthy and tasty dishes.

I use this cookbook as frequently as I do better-known greats such as The Veganomicon and The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I love that Atchison is devoted to truly healthful cooking, not just any old vegan cooking. I also love that she creatively combines ingredients without making them unnecessarily long or complicated. For example, in her Rosemary Tofu Saute, she has the reader cook the kale in the same pan as the tofu, after the tofu has been placed on the platter. The hot kale is then placed on top of the tofu, and voila - dinner! I was especially pleased that this one wowed a table full of people who normally eat meat.

One reviewer was upset because Atchison favors a particular brand of veggie broth. You can just use a different brand, for goodness' sake. Atchison is all about health and flavor, and yes, she does have particular preferences at times, but give yourself permission to be flexible. Like many other cookbooks, this one consistently call for Braggs' Liquid Aminos, and I consistently use ordinary shoyu, instead. It hasn't caused me any problems.

This is an extremely well-written cookbook.

I wish I had read Maya's review sooner (see earlier post)!!

I found this on the shelf of a Wild Oats grocery. It was an impulse purchase because I needed a vegan cookbook in a hurry after deciding to go off meat and dairy for health reasons. Once I took the time to examine this book more closely, I realized I had made a major mistake in trusting that Wild Oats would have a good vegan cookbook for sale.

I totally agree with Maya Saran. She has very precisely described the problems with this book's tone and recipes. I couldn't cook most of the recipes without a major shopping trip, or a specialty order from an internet store. I am so glad I saved my receipt - this book is being returned as soon as possible!

ETA - I personally thought it would be helpful for me to simply say "I agree" instead of re-writing what an earlier reviewer already said so you'd know she has valid points. I personally don't have time to read an entire novel just to get someone's opinion. To sum it up - because I live in a rural area, I have to plan at least an hour commute to locate many of the suggested ingredients (and forget about finding some of the obscure ingredients already listed by Maya). If you live in a rural town far from a major city, I'd take a pass on this book.