Quick & Easy sure but healthy? I’m not convinced.
The Quick & Easy Healthy Cookbook
Carrie Forrest
December 3, 2019
Rockridge Press
Blurb: Cooking this deliciously healthy was never this quick
Organic, unprocessed ingredients are the building blocks of nutritious cooking. The Quick and Easy Healthy Cookbook is filled with 125 recipes using whole foods that can be on the table in 30 minutes or less!
Shifting to a whole foods diet can be difficult when recipes require expensive items and ample prep time, or assume a lot of prior cooking knowledge. But with The Quick and Easy Healthy Cookbook, shopping is simplified, meal prep is smarter, and food hits the table faster than ever.
The Quick and Easy Healthy Cookbook includes:
- Beyond organized—All recipes, from Loaded Sweet Potato Toast to Chicken Tortilla Soup, are arranged by time, serving size, and dietary breakdown, as well as helpful labels like “extra quick,” “kids love it,” and “freezer friendly.”
- Be prepared—The Quick and Easy Healthy Cookbook turns your kitchen into a well-oiled machine with helpful prep lists including tools, appliances, and pantry items.
- Simple shopping—All whole ingredients in this healthy cookbook are common and simple to find; no wandering the grocery store for obscure items.
The Quick and Easy Healthy Cookbook is your resource for putting faster, healthier meals on the table and adding more time back to your life.
We are at that time of year when “healthy” cookbooks hit the market, each offering the change many are searching for with their resolutions. Obviously, like with everything else, some are better than others.
The philosophy behind Carrie Forrest’s The Quick & Easy Healthy Cookbook seems good: eat whole, unprocessed foods. The recipes are quick; this is true. But healthy? Some recipes contain processed foods. So I’m not convinced that these are healthy recipes in the way most of us think of as healthy. The fact that some of the ingredients are processed, i.e. store-bought mayonnaise, bacon, and salami means that they don’t qualify as whole foods.
The calories and the amount of sodium also have me questioning the healthiness of some of the recipes. For instance, the “Vegetable Minestrone with Penne Pasta” recipe has a whopping 1,387 mg of sodium. Considering that dietary recommendations from the American Health Association suggest an ideal limit of no more than 1,500 mg per day for most adults, one serving of this soup would take up an entire day’s worth of sodium intake.
Likewise, if a serving contains 700 calories and you’re trying to lose weight, you won’t lose it this way.
Where this cookbook works is taking the hand of people who don’t cook or have never cooked and guiding them toward a more healthy lifestyle than one provided by eating out or eating frozen meals. The recipes are simple with simple ingredients. New cooks won’t be frustrated by difficult techniques or recipes that don’t work. That said, they might be frustrated by how bland some of the flavors will be. Guac without tomato and chili pepper?
I would have loved to see the incorporation of more nuts and leafy greens.
Advanced cooks won’t find anything new here.
The recipes have good notation, indicating whether the recipes is kid friendly, soy free, nut free, etc. There are also suggestions on how to modify the recipes for certain dietary requirements.
If you’re a new cook looking for quick and easy, this might be the cookbook for you.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating:
2 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies