As promised last time, here
it is, a review of the recently released, hot-off-the-press, new cookbook by the
Livin’ la Vida Low Carb man, himself, Jimmy Moore, and wildly
successful low-carb & keto diet coach, Maria Emmerich.
If you’ve become bored with your same-old, go-to, low-carb and ketogenic meal repertoire, and are looking to
rekindle your passion for this way of eating, this book is for you. If you can’t
stomach the thought of another plate of eggs & bacon for breakfast (that is,
if you’re a breakfast eater at all), or if you think you’ll scream if you have to
choke down another bunless cheeseburger, consider this book to be the
inspiration you’ve been waiting for. (Although, if you ask me, bacon, eggs, and
bunless burgers never get old!)
The book is called The Ketogenic Cookbook: Nutritious Low-Carb, High-Fat Paleo Meals
to Heal Your Body.
Before I say anything else,
I’d like to acknowledge right here, at the start, that I received a copy of
this book for free. Jimmy was kind enough to have his publisher, Victory Belt,
send me a courtesy copy. (Other awesome Victory Belt titles you might be
familiar with include Practical Paleo, Mediterranean Paleo, and The Paleo Solution.)
If you think my having
received a copy for free automatically biases my review, then feel free to stop
reading. You know how to close this window and go do something else. But I’d
like to think I’ve established a reputation for honesty. I’ve shared with you
my struggles
as well as my triumphs,
and I’ve certainly been open about times when my own diet has left a lot to be desired. So hopefully you know by now
that I don’t sugar-coat things (no pun intended), and I try not to let my views
be shaped by slick marketing. All of this is just my way of saying, here is my opinion of this
book, which I don’t think has been clouded by my having come by it gratis.
In the spirit of staying
brutally honest, I’ll start this review by pointing out
People who are totally
content with the variety of food they’re already eating, and who need
absolutely no help in figuring out what to eat on a ketogenic or very low-carb
diet. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands and keep on’ truckin’.
Here’s who could really benefit from this book:
People who are new to this and have no clue how
to approach keto cooking, and also people who are bored with their ketogenic, low-carb,
Paleo, or Primal diet. If you need to infuse new life into
your cooking repertoire, this book will not
disappoint! If you are at your wit’s end in coming up with new things to do
with ground pork, and if you absolutely, positively cannot stomach another bowl
of spiralized zucchini noodles, GET. THIS. BOOK.
Personally, I kind of don’t
understand people who say they “don’t know what to cook.” I guess maybe it’s
because I grew up with a mother who was an excellent self-taught cook, and
after years of watching her, as I got older and started cooking for myself,
I’ve never been afraid to throw some stuff in a pan and see what happens. (When
in doubt, use bacon fat and add salt!) My mother is no longer with me, but her casual and confident approach to cooking is.
I don’t get bored with the
same relatively small selection of food. I can eat ground beef or sausages with
roasted vegetables 5 nights a week and be perfectly content. My lunch routine
generally consists of a can of tuna and some raw bell pepper. If you are not so thrilled with leftovers, and
every night needs to be an all-out whirlwind of adventure and romance for your
taste buds, then this cookbook is for you.
And here’s who might want to get this book just for
the fun of it:
Foodies!
Anyone who likes gool ol’ food porn. Just like many of the Victory Belt books
& cookbooks that preceded it, The Ketogenic Cookbook is as much a work of art as it is a cookbook. I
think Maria and her husband did most of the photography, with assistance from
Bill & Haley from Primal Palate,
so kudos to all of them!
This book is suitable for
people on ketogenic diets, low-carb diets, Paleo diets, and also people who eat
whatever the heck they want, because the truth is, it’s just great food! Regardless of whether someone eats grains, or
dairy, or feeds themselves by going from state fair to state fair and following the deep-fried Twinkie circuit, this book is
chock-full of recipes to get people excited about the endless possibilities of very
low-carb cooking.
For me, that’s what cookbooks
do best: give me ideas. Even if I don’t follow the specific recipes in a
cookbook, looking through them gives me lots of ideas for things to try, new
ways to prepare old staples, and maybe some new seasonings to spice things up.
In this regard, this book delivers!
Jimmy and Maria have an entire section devoted to condiments,
which is awesome, because very often, all it takes to transform a dish from ho-hum
into WOW, is a dressing, sauce, or
marinade. (And, too often, all it takes to destroy
the carb content of an otherwise low-carb meal is a condiment that’s loaded with sugar.) Finally, there’s a cookbook that helps
us make homemade versions of these things without tons of high-glycemic sweeteners
and wacky vegetable oils. (Yes! Even BBQ sauce! So long & sayonara,
HFCS!)
If you just plain love food, this book is a winner.
Recipes run the ethno-cultural gamut, with keto bagels & lox (which warms
my NYC-born & raised Jewish heart!), keto naan, lamb tikka masala, huevos
rancheros, antipasti & Greek mezze, and a section on desserts that will
make you excited to start experimenting with the great & versatile low-carb
sweeteners out there. There are beef & lamb recipes, pork, poultry,
seafood, vegetarian dishes, and a whole section dedicated to appetizers &
finger foods, which can make you the host or hostess with the mostest at your
next dinner party, and, hey, who knows…maybe they would even convince a guest
or two to give low-carb a try!
Okay. Now you know what the
book is. Here’s what it is not:
This book is not a primer on
the whys and wherefores of ketogenic diets. It is assumed that, if you’re
buying this book, you already know
about ketogenic and VLC diets. You’re probably already following this type of
approach, or at least considering it, so you don’t need a bunch of information
about insulin, ketosis, obesity, neurodegeneration, and blah, blah, blah. There
are already other books out there that cover that stuff. (One thing I love
about the brief explanation the authors do
provide about nutritional ketosis, is that they make it clear that being in ketosis doesn’t automatically result in weight loss. If only it were that simple,
folks! I have experienced this firsthand, and I’ve also had to explain it to clients.
There are myriad reasons to “go keto” or low-carb that have nothing to do with
buying smaller clothing. So this book is not a diet program, and it offers no
gimmicky false promises about dropping some inordinate amount of weight in the
blink of an eye. Hallelujah for honesty!)
Use this book to reinvigorate
your cooking and broaden your horizons. Maria and Jimmy include explanations for some of the more esoteric ingredients that might be foreign to you, such as
kelp noodles, xanthan and guar gums, liquid smoke, and coconut aminos. Even
though things like this are absolutely not essential for keto & LC cooking,
they’re worth getting familiar with if you’d like to try to create keto
versions of old favorites you’ve been jonesing for.
Let’s talk about the subtitle
of this book: Nutritious Low-Carb,
High-Fat Paleo Meals to Heal Your Body. Why ketogenic and Paleo? Because: you can construct a ketogenic diet that
includes wheat, soy, and dairy, which would make it not Paleo, and you can, of course, construct a Paleo diet that is
not ketogenic. So the combination of the two (which implies ketogenic dishes
that are free of grains, legumes, and dairy)
marries the best of both these worlds. The recipes exclude grains and
soy, but some include dairy. So maybe, in the very strictest sense, they’re not all “Paleo,” but I can’t blame
the publisher for wanting to capitalize on the current popularity of both words, Paleo and ketogenic. I’m not about to get my panties in a bunch over that
(as Robb Wolf might say), even though I do sometimes get frustrated by semantics. I like that there’s dairy here. A ketogenic diet can be much easier to stick to—not to mention
more palatable and enjoyable—when you
include cheese, heavy cream, and butter. And even if you don’t eat dairy, this cookbook has a bunch of recipes that will
help you make mock versions of yummy dairy foods, such as compound butters using duck fat and lard or tallow, and nacho “cheese” sauce using
animal fats, egg yolks and nutritional yeast. (Hey, nutritional yeast is one
thing we can credit vegans & vegetarians with popularizing. They use it on
popcorn and other foods, to impart a cheesy, nutty, umami flavor.)
Let’s see…what else? Oh! Each
recipe comes with an easy-to-read guide to whether it’s nut-free, dairy-free,
and how ketogenic it is—meaning, how the macronutrients stack up. The higher
the fat and the lower the carbs & protein, the more ketogenic. So Maria and
Jimmy have taken all the guesswork out of things. Finding recipes that are
suitable for your individual needs couldn’t be easier!
I am so thankful for people
like Jimmy and Maria, Diane Sanfilippo, and others, who have the emotional
fortitude to write cookbooks. I love cooking, I love food, I love messing
around in the kitchen, and I love writing. So you would think creating a cookbook
would be right up my alley. But like
I said, I just kind of throw stuff in pans and let chemistry take its course.
So thank goodness for the people who write these helpful books, because if it
were up to me, we’d all be eating pork chops and roasted Brussels sprouts
approximately eight days a week. ;-)
And before we ajourn here, I’d
like to point out that Jimmy mentions me by name in the acknowledgements
section in the back! Holy moly! As if
that wasn’t enough all by itself, look at the people whose names my name is
even in the vicinity of: Taubes, Attia, Westman,
Volek, Phinney, Davis, D’Agostino,
Seyfried,
Eenfeldt, and more. Mind = BLOWN. BIG TIME.
I have been hearing from more
and more people out there on the Interwebs, and I think Jimmy has played a role in that. He has done more than just about anyone to
publicize the lifesaving potential of low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. He is
a true Southern gentleman, and I am so thankful to have connected with him.
P.S. You can read my Amazon reviews of
books I did not receive courtesy
copies of here*:
- Practical Paleo
- Cholesterol Clarity
- Keto Clarity
- Tripping Over the Truth (This is the book that inspired the series on the metabolic theory of cancer)
- Soul Food (Not a low-carb, Paleo, or health/nutrition book, but a damn good read!)
*Note: for any Amazon reviews
where it does not indicate that it
was a “verified purchase,” this is because those were books I purchased the
old-fashioned way, in person, at an actual bookstore. (And even though Big
Brother is everywhere these days, he still doesn’t tell Amazon when I buy a book
at a brick & mortar bookstore, thank
goodness!)
Remember:
Amy Berger, M.S., NTP, is not a physician and Tuit Nutrition, LLC, is not a
medical practice. The information contained on this site is not intended to
diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition.
No comments:
Post a Comment