Customer Reviews

The New American Plate Cookbook: Recipes for a Healthy Weight and a Healthy Life

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I'm not a foodie by any stretch of the imagination, but I am trying to take off a few pounds and was looking around for something that had a little more variety than Atkins and South Beach, and a friend mentioned this book.

It's an attractively photographed, well-laid out book. I was worried that the recipes might be a bit fussy, but I've tried several, and they're all really good -- lower in calories and fat without TASTING like they're lower in calories and fat. Filling, too. Had some friends over and made the Sweet Potato Chili, one of the salads, and the corn muffins, and nobody suspected the recipes came from a "health" cookbook.

What I really like, though, is the overall approach. I try to keep up with the nutrition news, but there's just no way for me to get my head around "six servings of vegetables" or whatever. The common sense approach in this book -- just make sure that your plate's covered with at least 2/3 plant foods -- really appeals to me.

Being a foodie, I love to cook for friends and family. I often turn to the cooking classics for inspiration, but generally find these recipes too heavy for every-day eating.
When I opened the New American Plate cookbook, I found pages of attractive, tasty, healthy, and easy-to-prepare recipes (none of the recipes is longer than a page!). I also learned a lot - both about healthy meal composition and creative flavor pairings. I honestly never would have thought to make fettuccine with figs and chiles, but it's delicious!
The book is also visually appealing and well designed. The "cooking basics" section at the end is particularly helpful, and includes useful tips on food substitutions, proper storage and handling, as well as an extensive guide to the vegetables, fruits, grains and spices used in the recipes.
I'm so glad to have this wonderful book as a kitchen resource.
I just finished eating, but I'm already planning the menu for tomorrow night!

Published by the American Institute for Cancer Research (www.aicr.org), this book sheds light on how to compose meals that reflect the new food pyramid with an emphasis on portion control. The beginning of the book outlines the difference between the "old American diet" (8 oz. steak, potatoes and peas, for example) and the recommended "new American diet" (5 oz. animal protein, 2 vegetable servings and 1 starch flavored with herbs and less salt and oils). The book's focus is to steer people away from eating so much protein and to eating more complex carbohydrates. I would not recommend this book to those who are backlashing against the FDA's recommendations for a healthy diet. There are no recipes that include fois gras, brie, etc.

The book's recipe section is organized into 3 parts. The first two parts are two different approaches to composing a meal. The first part consists of recipes for vegetables, salads, animal proteins, sauces, etc with their own respective sections. Most of these recipes have suggestions (in their introduction) of what other items could be served with it to make a complete meal. The second part is one-pot meals, i.e., casseroles (yes, casseroles!), stews, stir-fries, pilafs, entree salads, frittatas and chilis. The third part consists of items that really should be eaten more in moderation, i.e., appetizers, soups, breads/muffins and desserts, with soups being the exception.

All recipes have nutrition summaries (calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber and sodium) and most recipes include the nutritional benefits of certain ingredients and recommendations on how not to destroy the nutrition in what you set out to cook (brussels sprouts, for example).

The photography is beautiful with an appetizing photograph on every second or third page. Having cooked nearly half of the recipes in this cookbook, most of the food really looks like the recipe's photograph and tastes delicious too. This fact makes it difficult to stick to the recommended portions. Ingredients that one may not have cooked with before, such as millet, quinoa, and kasha have very appetizing recipes as well. The recipes are diverse and include many common ingredients. Also, the recipe layouts are easy to read.

The book has a valuable section at the end which summarizes cooking basics and specifics on healthy foods (vegetable descriptions).

Overall, this book gets a full workout in my kitchen and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to incorporate healthy foods and cooking methods into their daily diet. Just do not forget to focus on portion control!

This book somehow ended up in the "special diets" section of my local bookstore, and I don't know why. This is my favorite new cookbook, period.

Fresh ingredients, paired in interesting ways. (There's a citrus sauce for pasta that my finicky family loves.) Meat used to impart flavor and texture, not as the sole focus of a given meal. Processed sugar, flour and saturated fat nudged aside in favor of natural foods, prepared simply and elegantly.

That said, there's a bunch of "comfort food" type recipes, updated so they're a bit lighter and more interesting. I NEVER thought I'd find myself making a casserole (too many memories of Mom's canned cream o'mushroom soup suprises) but there's a great potato, green bean and lamb casserole that turned me around.

There's a great deal in the book's appendix about the science behind the recipes, and nutrition principles, and how phytochemicals (natural plant chemicals)protect health, and I suspect that's why people are lumping this in with the health cookbooks. Me, I bought the book because of the photos, (they're quite lovely) and because I suspected that my vegetable-hating 8-year old would love the curried cauliflower recipe on page 26. And I was right.

As a physician and an experienced innovative cook, I am thoroughly delighted with this cookbook. It is right on target for what I believe to be the changes we must make as a culture: eating healthy,high quality food, adjusting our portions, and finding ways to exercise more. In addition, it is an exceptionally good cookbook; the recipes are clearly well-tested and the presentations divine. I've loved every recipe I've tried so far. If anyone is interested in learning more about glycemic index and glycemic load, I have found The New Glucose Revolution by Brand-Miller to be the most authoritative reference. The New American Plate Cookbook is one of the best cookbooks I've ever read (and I read it from cover to cover within days.)

I absolutely love this book. The lamb & green bean stew, veggie chili, chili burgers, beef stew, citrus tofu, corn muffins, chocolate angel cake... all so good, it is hard to believe they are low fat. The pictures are beautiful and make you want to head to the kitchen.

I love this cookbook. I'm buying one for each daughter and my mother. We all love to eat and we love to eat well which means a healthful variety of pleasure-giving dishes. I am home alone this week and still making a couple of recipes each day from this book because I can hardly wait to try them. As a breast cancer survivor I am thrilled to be actively doing something to keep myself physically fit. The informative reading in front and back is excellent and the pictures are superb. The simple format is easy and clear. Thank you AICR!

Absolutely the most wonderful cookbook I have ever owned. I have been buying cookbooks for many years, and if you must have only one cookbook, this is the one to have. The recipes are easy to prepare and the ingredients are easy to get (you don't have to go to gourmet and specialty stores for ingredients you never heard of). It is chock full of useful information, beautiful color pictures, and worth every penny. An absolute keeper. You can be happy cooking for a very long time just using this book and no others.

As someone who loves to cook, but doesn't have a ton of cooking skills or time, I found this book to be extremely easy to follow and fast. Most of the time put into these recipes is in washing and cutting produce. Every recipe I've tried has been delicious, with a huge range of flavors for every palate: Sesame Ginger Asparagus, Greek Style Scallops, Stuffed Peppers with Feta and Pine Nuts, Brazilian Style Seafood Stew, Quinoa with toasted pecans, fresh thyme, and dried apricots and cranberries, Yummy frittatas, Stirfrys, recipes for chicken, pork, lamb, beef ... Desserts and breads like, Gingerbread or Raspberry & Nectarine Cobbler & so much more.

I love just thumbing through this book just to gather more nutritional tidbits of information, and get inspired for the next meal. The pictures are enough to get to motivated. I also might add that I LOVE that this is a healthy cookbook, but there is nothing "diet" about it: they use butter, cheese, coconut milk, sauces, healthy oils and seeds and nuts, just in proper portions. And it's all about variety of flavors, textures, colors and the foods you regularly eat.

For anyone wanting to add delicious and good for you food to their plates BUY THIS BOOK! I'm buying a bunch of copies as gifts!

Last christmas, I put this cookbook on my amazon.com wish list, and (lucky me!) my mom and dad made my wish come true . . . the American Institute for Cancer Research compiled the recipes for this healthy cookbook with the philosophy that americans should increase the amounts of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that they consume, while reducing the amount of meat.

Following research showing the cancer-fighting benefits of fancy-sounding scientific terms like phytochemicals and lignans, the recipes are packed with delicious and sometimes surprising combinations of fruits and veggies. Bright and colorful, dishes combine reds, purples, greens, yellows, and oranges in a way that is both visually pleasing and tasty. In the past year, I've made lots of recipes from this book, from delicious little steamed packets of whitefish seasoned with orange and topped with spinach, tomato, and kalamata olives; mini falafel patties; southwestern red pepper dip; a variety of muffins and breads; and lots more. Recipes are not difficult and are explained clearly and concisely. I also like the introductions, which detail why these particular ingredients are cancer-fighters. Nutrition information is included with each recipe.

The food in this book is healthy, but doesn't taste or look boring. Recipes are fun to make and generally quite beautiful. I don't know if I like the term "foodie," but I consider food and cooking a healthy and exciting hobby. This book fits my lifestyle perfectly.