Customer Reviews

The PCOS Diet Cookbook

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

 

 

I was a little disappointed with this cookbook. The recipes themselves are good and contain a lot of useful and creative ideas. In addition to reducing the GI of dishes, it also aims to make them healthier all around by lowering fat and sodium. My favorite aspect is that many recipes are large and freeze well.. convenience foods have always been my diet downfall, and pulling something out of the freezer and popping it in the microwave is perfect for me.

BUT the book ONLY focuses on low-GI diets. I was disappointed that there was absolutely no mention of eliminating foods that throw off your hormonal balance by containing too many plant estrogens, and foods and food substitutes that contain hormones or hormone-mimicking chemicals. There is no mention of limiting things like soy and certain herbal teas and supplements. Did you know that aspartame blocks certain androgen receptors? If you have PCOS, you shouldn't be drinking a lot of diet sodas! Do you have any idea how many hormones are pumped into commercially-raised meat and dairy animals, and thus are passed along to you in their food products? Women suffering from PCOS need to know that they also ought to switch to organic meats and dairy, and try to reduce the number of complex chemicals in the pre-packaged food they buy. If you don't know what it is, you may not understand what it does inside your body. This book ONLY focuses on the insulin effects of PCOS and views a low-GI diet as the only nutritional consideration, to its readers' detriment.

Although this cookbook comes with some super ideas, I would not recommend it as my only reference for PCOS-related nutrition information. There is a great (but too-short) chapter on foods in Dr. Vliet's book "The Savvy Woman's Guide to PCOS", as well as a couple of nutrition books aimed at PCOS patients (which I've ordered but haven't received yet, so can't recommend).

As a woman with PCOS who is trying to use a low-GI diet and lose weight, this cookbook has given me LOTS of ideas! The recipes are varied and tasty and simple enough for people who aren't amazing chefs. I've tried about 10 of the recipes so far and have enjoyed them all! Especially the soups. The one drawback to this book is that the recipes make HUGE portions, some as many as 15 servings! I have tried halving the recipes with much success, however. Many of the recipes also freeze well, so if the recipe makes too much for your family, you can save some for another time! If you have PCOS, like me, and are trying to take better care of your diet and nutrition, I highly recommend this book!

I'm so disappointed. I was so excited to finally find a book related to cooking for women with PCOS....so I ordered the book 11/13, received it yesterday and returning it today. I simply was not impressed with the recipes or the content of information given. But to be fair, it could be though that I'm also on PCOS informatin overload. The recipes were just not appetizing. Don't get me wrong I LOVE vegetables,but these recipes were certainly not anything exciting, they were mostly vegetable side dishes turned into a meal. Which leads me to there was very little protein in the recipes as far as meats. Yes there was chicken and some fish, but truth be told not much... The culinary experts choice of beef was BRISKET and only 2 recipes, could it be because this meat is so high in FAT, there are so many lean beef recipes one can create and that's what they came up with? Are they serious? I know I didn't give the recipes a chance by even trying them, but my tasting palette already knew what I'd be experiencing and really it wasn't going to be anything exciting..yes this is very unfair of me. I don't want this book to be tossed and lost with my other books. So instead it will be returned and hopefully someone else will find value in it, it just wasn't for me.

I like this book. It has a lot of good information about eating healthy. I've tried only two of the recipes, but I plan to try more. One thing I've noticed is that you may want to try using seasonings that you are familiar with (in my case Cajun seasonings!) in some of the recipes. I had to really tweak the Easy Enchiladas to my taste, but made sure I kept within the lowfat guidelines, and they came out great! I am looking forward to trying more of the baked items using the alternatives to regular fat. I agree that the yield amount is large, but I think that's for the purpose of freezing it for later. It can however be a bit tedious to have to adjust the ingredients.

I was not impressed with this book. I think it is overpriced for what it is. And the recipes look OK but some of them seem like things I shouldn't be eating like muffins. The book information is very confusing and contradictory. For example, in the back of the book it lists 'good choices for low gi foods' and 'high gi foods'. Rice Krispies are on BOTH lists.
I ended up more confused and still lost on what to eat after reading this book. I would not recommend.

This is an excellent book to help you get an idea of what you need to be doing for PCOS. I am a very picky eater and a lot of the recipes had things in them that I may not like...but knowing that a lot of the things I eat now aren't going to help me lose the weight I need to lose is encouraging me to keep my mind open and hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by many of the recipes in this book!

I was really looking forward to receiving this book and cooking some of what I hoped would be great meals for my husband and I. Though some of the information about PCOS is helpful, there are a lot of unanswered questions and pagination issues throughout the book. There are lists of some good foods, however there is not a lot of detail on the best foods/brands to buy when you are actually shopping. It is less step-by-step and more guess work on the part of the reader. Additionally, many of the recipes take hours to make. Who has the time in addition to working, going to the gym and preparing all of your meals to cook for that long every night. Now I am going to have to buy another book, which is pretty frustrating.

The PCOS Diet Cookbook was originally proposed to me by Dr. Nadir Farid, who was an expert in PCOS, and who treated many PCOS patients at his London Endocrine Clinic. Dr. Farid passed away quite suddenly in January, 2010, but his pioneering ideas about treating PCOS through the low GI diet, as well as his overall treatment and approaches to PCOS are within the pages of this book.

We are greatly saddened by Dr. Farid's passing, but are grateful he shared his knowledge in The PCOS Diet Cookbook.


- M. Sara Rosenthal, Ph.D., Publisher, Your Health Press ([...])