31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delicious and Healthy, October 13, 2003
This review is from: Healthy Foods : An Irreverent Guide to Understanding Nutrition and Feeding Your Family Well (Paperback)
"Quality nutrition can only come from quality food. Quality food is defined as less processed, more natural, more basic foods-like fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, etc. Easy stuff to get at the market. There are however, concerns that we are necessarily, having to deal with in this 21st century." ~Leanne Ely
Need a recipe for Pesto or want to learn to make healthier French Fries? How did mom make those mashed potatoes anyway?
Well, Leanne Ely has the answers and had created a cute cookbook filled with over 100 family-approved recipes.
If your kids are hungry for pizza and there isn't a frozen pizza in sight, you might enjoy making the Pizza Muffins. If you keep a bottle of spaghetti sauce around, some mozzarella cheese, various toppings and mixed grain English muffins in the kitchen, you will have an easy-to-prepare snack.
The first thing I noticed in this cookbook was an ingredient called "sucanat." If you are wondering what this is, well, I was too. I found the answer on pg. 51, where the author also lists, kamut flour, carob and whole wheat pastry flour. I was then sent to the glossary for explanations.
The glossary is not where you'd expect it to be, it is on page 59. Ok, so it is that natural cane sugar I've seen in health food stores! All the other ingredients seemed pretty normal to me, still, you might want to find a health food store in your area or most grocery stores seem to have an isle of natural foods. If you want to shop online, there is a resource section at the back of the book.
The basic recipe sections:
Breakfast in Bread and Other Comforts
Soup & Salad Bar
Life in the Fast Food Lane
The Main Thing
Dips, Snacks & Tricks
Just Desserts
Some of the recipes include: Buttermilk Cornbread, Mega Manic Muffin Mix, Lentil Soup, Tabbouleh, Mama's Mashed Potatoes, Quinoa Pilaf, Shepherd's Pie, Roasted Garlic, Pizza, Hummus and Mexican Chicken Salad. Want to try something sweet? Try the Apple Cake or Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.
Some of the highlights of this cookbook include the short essays on food at the start of the book. Leanne Ely explains why writing this book became essential for the health of her family and how you can also change your food and change your life.
Leanne believes we all know what works best for our bodies. She has been a victim of the experts who have given her ideal diets to follow. Finally, she decided to just follow the "guru" within. She explains the basics of protein, carbohydrates and fats.
Then, she delves into the dangers lurking in our regular grocery store shelves. After reading chapter three, organic foods will start looking pretty darn good to you. Do you have a child who has allergies or want to teach "manners to the not so mannerly." I recently read that the top food allergies are nuts, shellfish/seafood, milk, wheat, eggs, a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese, yeast and soya protein. So even "healthy" foods might not be healthy for everyone. It is really tricky. Before she gets into the recipe section, she also explains basic tools and how to stock the pantry.
Before you hand your very young child a peanut butter cookie, consider their age. Peanut butter should not be fed to children younger than 3 years old. It is almost as difficult to avoid peanut butter as it is to avoid cottonseed oil. It seems to be in everything. Even chocolate can have traces of peanuts as can soy protein bars, etc, etc. In fact, by avoiding cottonseed oil, palm kernel oils and peanut butter, you might notice your skin clearing up if you didn't realize you had an allergy to begin with. We all live and learn.
If some of the health information intrigues you, you might also want to read: The Metabolic Plan by Stephen Cherniske. It takes health to new levels! A must-read! It has become more and more obvious to me that to live a long and healthy life, you need to read a lot of books!
Choosing a healthy lifestyle seems to be key and it is really this huge puzzle you have to figure out on your own. You find some pieces in books and some pieces are the result of your own experience with food. Leanne Ely gives quite a few great suggestions on how to not only improve the health of your family, she also gives a basic overview of nutrition so you can feed your family well. There are a few puzzle pieces in this book, pieces I have never seen in any other cookbook.
Leanne's "irreverent" style is cute and you will learn a ton about nutrition and I'm even thinking about using "sucanat" in some of my own recipes.
~The Rebecca Review
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not Just for Kids!, June 19, 2001
This review is from: Healthy Foods : An Irreverent Guide to Understanding Nutrition and Feeding Your Family Well (Paperback)
You want to serve your family a nutritious meal but the children only want burgers and fries. Your son drowns everything on his plate in ketchup and your daughter gets chronic stomachaches. They eat too much or absolutely nothing. What in the world do you do? Leanne Ely, C.N.C., nutritionist, had problems feeding her children and was determined to find out how to help them and herself.
"Healthy Foods" is filled with easy to digest information on nutrition that suites the needs of children as well as adults. She doesn't try to sell you on a new diet or product that doesn't work. Instead, she provides clear facts along with her own opinions and observations, which are clearly labeled as such. She provides lots of useful links to websites with dietary information for further research. In her playful way, she also provides tips to get your kids to try new foods. How about cutting up food and letting your child pick up the pieces with toothpicks?
Mrs. Ely has come up with over 100 family tested recipes to choose from. These recipes are designed to be un-intimidating and good for you. Everything from snacks to breakfast, lunch, and dinner are covered. Recipes are very simply and use easy to find ingredients, though you may need to go to a health or natural food store for some. Some may take offense to the occasional use of processed foods used here and there but they are kept to a minimum and they are the more health conscious varieties.
I don't have children but I do want to eat right. I also have days were I don't want to cook anything too adventurous. I was impressed with the quality of the information she provided and in the way it was presented. Her guidelines are just that, "guide" lines. You need to make the necessary adjustments to suite your family's lifestyle and needs.
It was fun picking out recipes to try, especially since many recipes had funny titles such as Not Your Mama's Tuna Casserole, Poor Tater Supper, and Pumpkin Mumkins. I found several recipes I was already familiar with and others with a new twist. Recipes are easily adaptable to what you have on hand and geared towards experimentation. "Fast and Furious Chicken and Rice" has been transformed numerous times depending on my refrigerator's contents. I've substituted cooked ground chicken for chicken breasts and put taco cheese on top. On one occasion I added frozen vegetables and a couple of shots of Tabasco.
One of my favorite breakfasts, especially now that the weather's warming up, has become her "Smoothie Patrol". It beats a Slim-Fast shake any day, and I can make any flavor I want. If you have kids, here's one they'll never guess is good for them.
I thoroughly enjoyed this cookbook and will refer to it many times. I have already suggested it to several friends at work who have small children that are problem eaters. If I had to force myself to find a problem it would be that occasionally there is a recipe that is too tame for my taste buds. Here and there I would add a dash of spice to punch it up a bit.
I think that regardless of age, this cookbook would find a good home in anyone's kitchen. From college students to those more mature in age, this is a very useable cookbook indeed.
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