Customer Reviews

The Paleo Diet Cookbook: More than 150 recipes for Paleo Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks, and Beverages

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a disappointment. I've never returned a book before now, but honestly, this one was a dust collector right off the bat. Baked apples? Seriously? I don't know many people who don't know how to put some cinnamom and nutmeg on an apple and put it in the oven. I need a recipe book for that? Maybe it's because of the incredibly strict rules that Cordain follows. Get off grains? Oh yes. Loose the sugar? Absolutely. Avoid soy, corn and other processed oils at all costs? Too right. Toss the processed food? You bet. Try to find grass fed, pastured, free range and organic? I'm with you. But if you then remove all dairy (cheese, butter, cream) and go low fat (why you would do this I have no idea), it's pretty darn hard to create a dessert.

Here's my take on paleo eating in a nutshell (it'll save you the price of a cookbook): Cook some grass fed, free range or pastured meat or wild fish (the size of your palm is about right), put it on your plate and fill the rest of the plate up with organic veggies and salad (raw is always good). Snack on nuts. Easy on the fruit (berries are the best!) and heavy on the veggies. Stay far, far away from sugar, grains, beans, soy, processed stuff and food covered in chemicals. Don't eat animals that were fed these things, either. Dairy? Some say no, some say okay. Honey? Same thing.

Want to approximate your old favorites? Cauliflower is life's wonder food: use it in place of rice or potatoes. Spaghetti squash is pasta, as is zucchini. Cabbage can be lasagna noodles. Romain lettuce leaves = wraps for just about anything you could put in a sandwich. Turnip and rutabagas do just about anything potatoes can do. High heat frying can be done in pork fat, beef tallow or (to some extent) coconut oil.

Want to make desserts? Bake with almond meal and coconut flour. Use stevia or xylitol to sweeten (both are natural sweeteners). Use coconut oil, butter and olive oil. Eggs and cream help a lot. Organic feta and cream cheese can be found. That's if you eat dairy. If not, you can still do some baking with coconut oil and eggs. You can make SUPERB ice cream with premium coconut milk (the high fat stuff), stevia, eggs and some melted Lindt 99% chocolate. No sugar, no dairy, total paleo, and you won't believe your taste buds.

Anyway, this book offered nothing new, and certainly nothing worth writing (or reading) about. No pictures, no new ideas, no fun, some items really hard to find...just not much there to love.

Pick up The Primal Blueprint Cookbook if you're looking for paleo meals, or a good low carb recipe book.

There are so few paleo cookbooks out that I hesitate to slam this one. I mean, any paleo cookbook is helpful, really.

But this cookbook seemed to take the tack that he was teaching people to make very basic food without using grains. There are zero photos (!!!), and the recipes consist of things like deviled eggs, kebabs, and salads with nuts, fruit or meat added. As a 30 year old person, I am well able to adapt my favorite burger recipe to a different type of ground meat. I am able to add a single herb to meat to make it taste better. I'm able to stuff a vegetable with other vegetables and meat. And I'm able to stick fruit in a blender and make a smoothie.

I read cookbooks to give me the creative solutions that I would not think of myself. How to make familiar foods that I miss, in a paleo, healthy style? And this book offered none of that. I dog-ear the recipes I want to try in cookbooks, and at the end of reading this one, I had two dog-ears. The other recipes just seemed, well - fine. It's just I eat simple stuff like that all the time. That's why I bought a cookbook, is to mix it up a bit and try something new. And this was just more of the same.

I'll give it two stars just because it is paleo, everything is lean and low-fat, and if you are brand new to cooking, this might help you. However, if I were new to cooking, I'd want photos, so I'd choose Mark Sisson's Primal cookbooks or Sarah Fragoso's Eevryday Paleo instead.

This is the companion to the Paleo Diet. I highly, highly recommend this. There are some great recipes. My favorite are the "taco's" - delicious filling put into a romaine lettuce leave and eaten like a taco! My son wants those everyday! Great book!! -MB

This book has great info about the Paleo Diet. However, what's a good cookbook without at least a few pictures?

So I've been eating paleo now for 2+ months, and found the intro chapters of this book to be pretty good. Unfortunately I'm not convinced though that the author actually tried out all the recipes in the book, or else his tolerance for spicy food is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than mine. Just to give you a reference point I regularly add Marie's Sharpe's habanero hotsauce to my meals (which aside from a little vinegar and salt is pretty paleo), and always ask for extra spicy when I go out for Indian, Thai etc.

So far the recipes that have failed me somewhat are:
Paleo Warrior Jerky: It calls for 2 tsps of cayenne and 1 tbsp of paprika per pound of meat. I'm not kidding when I say I had to move the dehydrator into the garage because my whole family started sneezing and coughing due to the amount of spice coming out of the dehydrator. I just made another batch today, and made it with 1 tsp of cayenne and 1 tsp of paprika, and that made if much better.

Cajun Blackened Turkey Cutlets: again 2 tsp of cayenne and 1 tsp of paprika was way to much for this dish.

Spicy Mixed Nutes: 1 tsp of cayenne was a lot of cayenne, and 15 minutes at 400deg completely ruined the nuts. I'm thinking 1/2 tsp of cayenne, and maybe 8 minutes.

Carb Lover's Cauliflower: Came out as a greeny pasty mess that tasted way to much of zucchini.

I agree that pictures would probably help. I have had success with a couple of the recipes, but we're at the point where my wife starts to worry when she sees me pull down this cookbook. Am I the only one running into problems with these recipes?

EDIT: I have upped this book a star after trying two new recipes. The Salmon Filet With Nectarine Infusion, and the Creamy Coconut Curry were both excellent. I've also had luck with the Tropical Deviled Eggs. Maybe just avoid any recipes with cayenne in them?

I was getting excited to receive my copy of this book when it just came out because I started following a Paleo lifestyle just 6 months ago and my friend and I have hit a very comfortable weight that we were never able to accomplish with other types of diets. Most of all Paleo allowed me to be happy with what I ate and feel full, satisfied, and energized after every meal.

After opening this book, it was apparent the quality is disappointing. The paper was rather cheap, no pictures or diagrams, only orange and black text.

The information presented in the first few chapters is very confusing because it goes against the mainstream belief of what Paleo foods are acceptable. The book for examples only lists 4 oils to consume (Olive, avocado, walnut, flaxseed) which is nothing wrong with those itself. But the book does not include coconut oil on the list and butter has been banned in this text. There has been a heavy amount of research that shows benefits of cooking with coconut oil compared to cooking with olive oils and the book does not reflect those findings.

Ask any Paleo individual and they will tell you how important animal fats are to the lifestyle and they'll even go as far to explain the importance of saturated fats and how there has been heavy research showing that there is no relationship to heart disease and saturated fats. The book again, fails in this area: it forbids bacon and fatty cuts of meats. To make it even more confusing the book says to throw out any salty meats including ham, sausage, etc. However later in the book it says to make your own beef jerky. Cordain needs to make it clear what his intention is towards elimination of foods because he certainly did not succeed in this department.

As for the recipes themselves, they weren't half bad. I've seen cookbooks that are presented in much more interesting and attractive ways and this book was one of the most dull. Just recipe after recipe with little to separate them or make them unique.

To summarize, I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone unless they want some more random recipes to add to their collection. Information isn't anything new that you can't already find online so you aren't getting you money's worth from purchasing this item.

Paleo diets are certainly nothing new under the sun as they've existed for tens of thousands of years. Modern-day advocates of Paleo/primal/traditional diets are simply trying to get people to hearken back to the nutrition and fitness principles of early man as a means for avoiding the modern epidemics of obesity and chronic preventible diseases that plague us. The influx of highly-processed garbage that has been passed off as "food" in the 21st Century has taken us further and further away from what Paleolithic man was really all about. Thankfully we have people who are championing what it means to be Paleo like Dr. Loren Cordain. His 2002 release The Paleo Diet put the Paleolithic diet front and center in the health debate and it has only gotten stronger from there.

His follow-up book The Paleo Diet Cookbook: More than 150 recipes for Paleo Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Snacks, and Beverages is a response to this increased demand for titles with a Paleo bent as more and more people are looking to eat this way and want to try some delicious recipes for themselves. Dr. Cordain teamed up with his wife Lorrie and well as Paleo nutrition enthusiast and athlete Nell Stephenson to make these Paleo-friendly dishes available in book form. The book itself was written over the span of one month and unfortunately you can tell. While the recipes are not horrible and certainly fit within the mold of the Paleo basics (grain-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free), there are no photographs of the recipes at all. WHAT?! I realize this is likely a cost-saving measure used by the publisher, but a good cookbook will ALWAYS show you pictures to make you drool over which dish to make first.

There are MUCH better options for Paleo-friendly recipes if you want to find a cookbook that fits your Paleo lifestyle:

Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking for a Gluten-Free Kitchen

Make it Paleo: Over 200 Grain Free Recipes For Any Occasion

Everyday Paleo

The Primal Blueprint Cookbook: Primal, Low Carb, Paleo, Grain-Free, Dairy-Free and Gluten-Free (Primal Blueprint Series)

Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals: Delicious, Primal-approved meals you can make in under 30 minutes (Primal Blueprint Series)

Don't let this less-than-spectacular Paleo Diet Cookbook turn you off from trying healthy Paleo living. It's an incredibly healthy way to eat that has helped improve the weight and health of millions of people. And the evidence supporting it continues to grow. Get on the Paleo bandwagon and experience the benefits for yourself!

I understand and agree mostly with the philosophy of the paleo diet and I have tried a few other books where the recipes allowed for cheaper cuts of meats (slow cook-save money). In theory this book has some interesting recipes but when I recreated them, I found them only adequate. I have tried about 5-6 recipes now and based on that, would not purchase this book. Thank you library system. Sorry but I'm sure there are better books out there.

My husband is in the infantry division in the military so crossfit and paleo are part of his daily routine, when we first got engaged I said there was no way I was giving up Ben and Jerry for Paleo. This book has made the transition to a healthier world of nutrition very smooth and stress free. I would highly recommend it, the roast beef wraps recipe in the snack section is AMAZING!

This book explains a way of eating, and offers recipes for a diet and way of life that will add years to your life and make you a better person. This diet takes away all of the foods that are actually killing us. Many of the foods we eat like grains, legumes, sugars, and dairy are causing health problems of epidemic proportions. This diet explains how and why. The great thing about eating Paleo, is there are no gimmicks, and nothing to buy except the right foods. You actually end up buying less. Also, you don't starve, you eat all you want, whenever you want.