Customer Reviews

The Food Matters Cookbook: 500 Revolutionary Recipes for Better Living

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

One day with the book, and I've made 3 recipes already and shopped for groceries to make several more. It's very encouraging and the 3 dishes I've made have blown me (and my picky housemates) away.

Breakfast: I tried the Anadama Waffles (p. 283). The flavor came out very hearty, wheat-y and otherwise ok. The texture was good and the flavor made a great base for what you typically put on a waffle. So I was happy and I'd make them again, although I might try another recipe before coming back.

Dinner: Corn and Sweet Potato Chowder with Chipotle. Amazing. I don't like veggie soup and I don't like corn chowder. My housemates don't like sweet potato or overly spicy foods in their respective peculiarities. However, we all love this dish so much that we had a little politeness war over who would have priority on the leftovers :) It's sweet and spicy and I'd make it again. This all coming from a household that loves pork pozolle!

Desert: I cheated a little. In his other book (the one with narrative and recipes), there's a nice recipe for fruit sorbet. I used chocolate and black cherry as the base and it turned out fantastic.

About the book in general:

I'm excited about the recipes I see and encouraged because I know they were built for healthy and responsible living. We'll just have to wait and see if we all magically lose weight.

The layout of the book is visually what you would expect. Information for prep time and yield is available and interesting descriptions appear above each recipe to tell you the background or whet your appetite and set your expectations.

The pages are white which makes the text much brighter than his big-red-book. Also, the pages properly lay open, even in the front and back of the book, without the need to hold the thing open (which would be cumbersome while cooking - I only mention it because some books are very good at closing themselves).

The recipes were clear and easy enough to follow as I've come to expect of Bittman. So far the taste has been great although I can't speak for the whole book as I haven't been through all of it!

Drawbacks:

1. No calorie counts. I know, he isn't about calorie counts and it'd have taken a lot of time and money to do that for each of 500 dishes, but I still hoped it would be there. Not a deal breaker.

2. There is no single list of the recipes in the book or each section. Many other cookbooks I own have a list of recipes in the front of the book or each section and this one doesn't which is a little annoying for meal planning purposes. There *are*, however, 3 lists in the back of the book for 'Fast Recipes', 'Make-Ahead Recipes', and 'Recipes for Pantry Staples'. So at least I have those.

I'll continue to cook my way through this and let you know what I find in an update, but right now I'm thrilled with my purchase and would recommend this book to anyone.

UPDATE: I'm adding a couple photos of things I've made so far. Just snaps from my kitchen, so don't expect studio quality ;)

UPDATE 2: Within a week or two I'll probably add more details about other recipes I've tried. It's still going great, but I wanted to add a comparison for reference. Yesterday I was making a recipe from a recent weight watchers cookbook. In the past, I've found their recipes to be light and tasty, though sometimes a little weird. However, after spending a while eating this plant-heavy food, I was honestly a bit sickened when cooking one of the weight watchers cookbook's chicken recipes. It's funny, but I just felt like it had way too much meat, sugar and fat. I guess it's a good thing, but now I'm a little concerned I won't enjoy a juicy steak dinner ;)

I am thoroughly enjoying this book. This is not a "health-food" cookbook. It simply looks at food through a slightly different lens, such that the emphasis is placed on fruits and vegetables, not meats and dairy. There is still plenty of meat and dairy for those of us who find meat and dairy quite satisfying.

We've been moving toward this kind of diet for some time now. I've lost 25 pounds over the last year by eating this way and by exercising. My blood pressure is at a record low, and my doctor is thrilled with the changes. However, while I'm a pretty decent home cook, I am not the most imaginative cook in the world; this book has given me plenty of fresh ideas.

We have tried enough recipes with success that I feel comfortable recommending this book to others. It's simple food, and my always-skeptical sweetheart has been cleaning his plate. It doesn't matter how healthy it is if they won't eat it.

I think this is a strong addition to any cookbook collection.

Edited 12/25/10: I just wanted to add that I've been using this cookbook for over two months now, and I still find it immensely useful and use it regularly. We've considered tweaking a recipe here or there, which is normal for us. Even though we had already been moving toward this kind of diet, we've made even bigger strides over the last two months. It was a bit of a surprise when we went grocery shopping for Christmas dinner and ended up with cart almost exclusively full of vegetables with half a turkey breast and nearly no simple carbs or processed foods. It's becoming more and more natural for us to eat this way, even on special occasions.

Another in Mark Bittman's corpus of work. I have always enjoyed his cookbooks, and I have incorporated a number of his recipes into my cooking "cycle." This book focuses on healthier dishes. Early on, he notes (Page ix): "If you swap the basic proportions in your diet--increasing unprocessed fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains--you'll wind up losing your weight and improving your overall health. . . ."

One thing that he aims to do in this cookbook is to reduce the percentage of calories coming from animal based food or highly processed food. The recipes come in several categories here: appetizers and snacks, soups, salads and dressings, pasta (and noodles and dumplings), rice and grains, beans, vegetables, bread (and pizza and sandwiches and wraps), and desserts and sweet snacks.

While Bittman's recipes cut the amount of meat, he does not present us with a vegetarian/Vegan cookbook. There is a provision of meat or seafood or poultry in a number of the recipes.

Some illustrative recipes: Cucumber-wasabi tea sandwiches; Olives, cucumbers, and tuna, Mediterranean style; Mini potato-parmesan rostis; Provencal soup (a play on ratatouille); Mushroom stew with beef chunks; Smashed potato salad with escarole; Thai beef salad; Pasta with asparagus, bacon, and egg (Odd, but yummy!); Black bean chili mac; Vegetable and shrimp fried rice; Chickpea tagine with chicken and bulgur; Scrambled tomatoes and herbs (easy and tasty); Grilled turkey hash with red wine glaze; Grilled tomato sandwich, with or without cheese.

All in all, an interesting cookbook if you wish to improve the quality of your diet. Recipes are doable. Some seem to me to be fairly bland. But it is a tradeoff--health versus our acquired taste for highly processed food and too much meat.

If you're looking for "health food" this isn't the book. The book features some fried dishes and others that use ingredients such as sausage, not exactly health food. But if you are looking for a tasty way to improve your diet, this cook book is an outstanding starting point. My wife has been moving toward more of a vegetarian diet and I still love my meat (and she hasn't totally abandoned it), so the recipes in this book allow me to have my beloved meat, while she can stay true to her move toward less meat in her diet.

In this book, meat no longer takes the center stage, as has been traditional in the US. Instead meat is used more for flavoring and texture, the way many Asian cuisines use it. We've tried about about 1/4 of the recipes already and have yet to come up with a clunker.

I own roughly two dozen cookbooks. With most I've tried a few recipes, after which they gather dust on my shelf. I only use 3 consistently (The Joy of Cooking, Cooks Illustrated's American Classics and The Barbecue Bible). Since I've purchased this cook book I now have 4 in my regular rotation.

I read Bittman's Minimalist column in the Times and have several of his cookbooks. I think he's a terrific guide to cooking, and I approach his recipes the same way he approaches them--casually and with a degree of improvisation. As someone who is trying to incorporate more whole grains and meatless meals in my diet, I was excited to see this book announced. I ordered two copies, one for a young friend who is just starting to cook and one for myself. As soon as I started reading the book, however, I realized that Bittman assumes a user who either knows her way around the kitchen or isn't looking for very detailed instructions. I decided that my friend needs more handholding than he offers and returned the second copy. I am delighted with the book in most respects. Everything I have made from it has been really good. The rice with coconut and apples is my favorite one so far.

My main complaint is the organization. If you are looking for an entirely meatless entree--or an entree for that matter--you have to page through individual sections to find some options. Some rice dishes, for example, are meatless but better as one of several dishes, so it's not helpful to have a section named rice and pasta that doesn't separate the meatless recipes. I get that the book is also aimed at prompting readers to reconsider the traditional approach to meals with meat at the center of the plate and surrounded by a vegetable or two and a starch. I like that aspect of it. But few of us have the time to go through the entire midsection of the book to plan a couple of meals. In the end, this is an editorial problem. The table of contents, index, and sections could be more user-friendly. Another editorial problem is consistency. A lot of recipes use coconut milk. In the ingredients list, some of them say "lite is fine." Others simply say coconut milk; are we supposed to assume that lite isn't fine in these recipes? This is where you throw up your hands in confusion, use whatever is in your pantry, and hope for the best.

I'm really happy with this book, it's had a spot on my kitchen counter ever since I bought it. I'm not a vegetarian, but I was looking to increase the amount of vegetables in my diet but didn't know any good recipes. A lot of other cookbooks have a vegetable section where it's just individual vegetables steamed or cooked some other way as a side dish. I wanted a book that gave me more interesting veggie-heavy main dishes. I don't have that much time to cook dinner and can't be bothered with a huge ingredient list. This book has a variety of good recipes that are tasty and fast. There are still a lot of recipes with meat, especially chicken, but that can be substituted with something else if I don't feel like eating chicken. Highly recommended!

This cookbook contains hundreds of recipes that don't require us to give up anything. He isn't promoting vegetarianism; just suggesting that we use less meat and more plant-based foods in our meals which he says not only helps the enviroment but is also healthier for our waistlines. Bittman also doesn't preach which I appreciate. Instead, he simply offers some great dishes that include updated versions of traditional recipes along with some most of us wouldn't have thought of such as Crisp Noodle Cake with Stir-Fried Greens and Shrimp.

Some of the recipes call for ingredients I'm not sure I will find in my local grocery store but with a little planning I can check at some of the specialty stores in the area. Most seemed to have regular ingredients I recognized. There are some vegetarian recipes in the cookbook along with those that include fish, poultry, and other meats, and of course one can always add meat to a vegetarian recipe or take it out of another if they desire.

I especially liked the soup, bread, and dessert sections of this book which have recipes I think I'm most inclined to try. The Asparagus and White Bean Soup With Parmesan was good and I plan on trying his fruitcake recipe which he promises people will actually like. The Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipe includes a choice of substituting vegan/vegetarian ingredients for the regular ones (i.e. soy or almond milk instead of regular milk, etc.)

This is a cookbook for everyone whether vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore; whether one wants to switch to a healthier diet that uses less meat or wants to be more environmentally responsible.

The only downside of this book is that there are no photos, but given the sheer volume of recipes, that can be overlooked.

This cookbook was given to me by the publishers for review. However, my opinion was not solicited and is mine alone. If I didn't like the book I would say so.

My wife and I love this cookbook. There are a lot of delicious meals that are easy to cook (less than 30 min). The thing I like most about this book is that it provides a way to eat whole foods in meals that actually taste good. If you are looking for a way to incorporate more grains, beans, tempeh, miso etc into your diet, then I highly recommend this book! We've cooked about 15 of the recopies so far and liked all but one. Three of our favorites were ginger miso chicken, lamb bulgur spinach meatloaf and chicken with chard and steel cut oats. We like this book so much we bought four from Amazon to give as gifts this Christmas to the in-laws and our siblings.

I've been a fan of Mark Bittman for years, and I love the new Food Matters books. This is a great cookbook for anyone looking to have a better diet without dieting. My boyfriend and I cook every night, but recently we had been in a bit of a food rut. We bought this book last week and have tried 4 recipes from it since - each one has been a huge hit, and healthy! We've tried the corn and sweet potato chowder with chipotle (so delicious!), the bok choy, daikon, and tofu stir fry (also great), the steak fajitas (amazing with tequila-lime glaze) and the black bean, corn, and chipotle quinoa. Everything we've tried will we liked enough to make again, and there are dozens more recipes we have marked to try. The little meat/lots of vegetable thing also makes the meals pretty inexpensive to make, which is great for people trying to save money. I would highly recommend it!

In his opening remarks author Mark Bittman mentioned that he had been writing about food for 30 years noted that the American diet had "undergone some changes, few of them for the better." At about the same time Mr. Bittman had also experienced some changes - he was over weight, his blood sugar and cholesterol were up, he had sleep apnea, and recently underwent knee surgery. His doctor suggested he become a vegan. Of course, Mr. Bittman strenuously objected to this suggestion, reminding the doctor that he was a food writer.

The doctor's reply? He reminded him that he was a smart guy and that his condition was serious. "Figure something out" was the doctor's injunction. As we now know Mr. Bittman more than figured something out. With his bestseller FOOD MATTERS he brought to light the impossible amount of meat we consume and the ensuing effects on both our health and environment. He devised a plan for addressing these issues.

Now, with THE FOOD MATTERS COOKBOOK he provides us with 500 recipes that are not only a pleasure for our palates but also intelligent choices that are healthful and environmentally friendly. His focus is on grains, vegetables, and legumes, reminding us that in no time this way of eating will become natural to us as we "shift the proportions of what you eat and make your diet as plant-heavy as you can." Bittman tells us it is a case of seeing and presenting animal products as garnishes rather than the main dish. We're not giving up meat, we're simply rethinking the way we eat it.

If there's anyone who doubts that these recipes are not gourmet quality, just taste Pasta with Cumin-Scented Squash and Lamb or Kohlrabi Stir-Fry with Pork, plus a multitude of others.

Not at all dictatorial in suggesting we change our eating habits, Mr. Bittman says, "Sane eating is about moderation, not deprivation, so feel free to eat the foods you'd miss, just in smaller portions and less frequently."

THE FOOD MATTERS COOKBOOK makes responsible, good sense - enjoy!