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R. Cronise
5.0 out of 5 stars No matter what diet you follow, this cookbook has something for you.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2013
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I think this is a great place to start if you want to test the waters a bit and see what eating nutritarian is all about. The first 30 pages have everything you need to get started. It won't require the all out chaos in the family meal plan - occurring when the family is forced to eat what you are eating; rather, you can fix any one of these fantastic recipes as a side dish and skip the main course. They will like it too.
If you aren't familiar with what Dr. Fuhrman teaches, there is a enough instruction in the book to get a good overview. I didn't begin to eat greens regularly until 3 years ago when I started following the Eat to Live plan. Now, they are a normal part of my diet and I don't think twice about it - I wish I had THIS cookbook in 2009!
There are a couple of points that should be emphasized. First, he clearly explains that it's better to add vegetables and fruits to your diet than to be overly focused about organic/GMO/etc... Not that these are unimportant, but if cost or availability is a concern, eating regular versions of these vegetables is far better than skipping. He points out that most science studies cited for health benefits used conventional varieties of vegetables and fruits. There is an excellent guide on which produce is most likely to have pesticides and it can help you focus limited budgets where it will be most healthful. All the recipes for diabetes and metabolic disorder are clearly marked.
Next, he and the 6 guest chefs created guides on how to select the best vegetables, etc... These are throughout the book, so if you don't know what to look for our how to make the perfect selection, there's help doing it along with many other tips and tricks. These are sprinkled within the recipes and most are set apart from the text in green highlight or boxes. As well, if you don't know how to sauté with water or prepare an artichoke, it's here in easy to follow directions. He even has a guide to spices!
One helpful hint if you're not accustomed to eating fresh vegetables daily - start slow when shopping. Until you get the flow of fresh greens and vegetables, buying too much at one time will result in too much ending in the compost pile or disposal. Once you get the hang of it, you'll have a good feel for when and what to buy and you are in and out of the grocery store with just a few things. If you spread that out with some of the recipes made of staples, or soups and stews which can be stored/frozen, you're never far from a great tasting healthful meal.
There are suggestions on additions if you aren't eating a vegan diet, which may not be as healthful, but will be welcomed for mixed-diet households. Dr Fuhrman encourages people to eliminate the calorie dense animal food, but he doesn't beat people up with it. I choose the plant-versions, because that's what I prefer.
Finally, his AMAZING approach to making dressings deserves noting. This is the single item that allowed me to fully convert to eating this way. They are delicious and EASY to make. Once you make one or two examples, you can literally make unlimited sauces and dressings with his easy to understand 4-ingredient approach. I know others have "complained" a bit by him promoting his ingredients, but he always offers alternatives in the recipes that can be found at your local grocery store. Many of his items are available here on amazon if you'd rather buy than make. That being said, anyone can make dressings fresh in just a few minutes and if you keep just a few key ingredients in the house, you're always ready to go! Remember, they aren't just for salads.
I'm grateful to him on many levels - health and weight, but equally important is he is a fantastic man with an unrelenting drive and passion to help people get better using nothing but food. It works if you follow it.
In the past, getting started has been the biggest obstacle for most people and this cookbook is definitely a big help.
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MV
5.0 out of 5 stars I am writing you to thank you for giving me the tools to turn my life around after reading your books I feel that this sounds li
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2016
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For my review, I am posting a letter I just wrote to Dr. Fuhrman. It sums up the reversal of my diabetes and high cholesterol in just over three months;
Dr. Fuhurman,
I am writing you to thank you for giving me the tools to turn my life around after reading your books I feel that this sounds like a cliché, but it is the only think I can say.
The short story is that on March 9, 2016 I was being tested to see if I could lower my very high life-insurance monthly payments and I had my first A1C test done. It came in at 6.5. I knew I had some high fasting blood sugar levels (usually the highs between 109 and 130) but I did not know I was on the doorstep of diabetes. I don’t know why none of my doctors ever had me take an A1C before. This seemed like a death sentence since my father had lost a leg and died of causes related to his Type 2 diabetes.
I had picked up your book The End of Diabetes several years ago and tried it but stopped. Now I picked it up and read it with a new commitment. It is now three months later and the results are nothing but miraculous. I have lost 25 pounds (198 to 173 pounds). My A1C is now 5.5. My cholesterol went from the low 200’s to 142. My Chol/HDL ratio went from 3.3 to 2.8. All of my panel tests are in the normal range and I have stopped my statin. The icing on the cake is that when I received my new labs last week I submitted them to my insurance company and they just told me that I now qualify for their lowest rate for my age group and my rate is being reduced by 50!
Here is my situation. I am a 49 year old male who is half East Indian (my dad) and half German American. My adult life I saw my dad deteriorate from the horrible affliction of Type 2 diabetes.
This once Olympic athlete (Melbourne, Australia 1956 Olympic games), my dad was a powerful swimmer but after moving to the USA taking on all of the weight that comes with the meat-intensive American diet, I saw him diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when he was in his late 50’s. By the time he was diagnosed, he was really falling apart. This included heart disease, dialysis and the amputation of one of his legs. He passed away when he was 70.
My story is one of always trying to eat well and be mindful to exercise at least three days a week. I saw my blood sugar levels slowly raise over the last fifteen years since I started monitoring them through our family doctor. My big struggle always seemed to be my very high cholesterol levels which I have combating with a statin.
My first wakeup call to my ever increasing cholesterol and triglyceride levels was when our daughter was born six years ago and I wanted to get life insurance for the first tiem. I was put in the highest insurance rate due to my cholesterol levels being so high. I vowed to better my health to be re-tested to prove to myself that I have reversed my health and save money.
This is when I first picked up your Eat to Live book. I used it for a summer and felt great but then slipped back into my old complacency of eating what my wife cooked for dinner which usually consisted of meat and dairy products. As I mentioned above, the A1C test results of 6.5 hit me like a ton of bricks and I did not want to end up like my dad. My wife was very supportive in my need to completely focus on my health. She still eats her meat and dairy products but makes sure there are plenty of salads and veggies at dinner. I am in charge of making sure the house is well stocked for me.
I have to admit that I religiously followed the aggressive diet for six weeks and then transitioned into a vegetarian diet modeled after the Eat To Live guidelines and Recipe Book.
It is wonderful to feel this great and I do not mind the continual commitment to eat a nutri-tarian diet. I love it.
Thank you very much for providing me with the tools to make such and aggressive turn-around.
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SuAnne, South Carolina
5.0 out of 5 stars Eat to thrive!!!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 24, 2017
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I have followed Dr. Fuhman's dietary guidelines 100%--no deviation--for over three years now. I take no medications whatsoever, feel great and receive compliments on my skin and figure all the time. No food cravings at all, for the first time in my life. Excess pounds have just melted off--albeit slowly. I do not eat three square meals a day, rather I only require one large meal, and one tiny meal. No snacks. I’m simply not hungry on this lifestyle diet. I buy only organic, have mastered a couple dozen or so recipes I like the best, and have improvised many variations of these. I do not spend a lot of time in the kitchen daily, or weekly for that matter--certainly no more time than I spent when I ate a conventional diet.
Dr. Fuhrman's Nutritarian Diet eliminates the causes of a large percentage of most modern diseases. It's such a simple solution. Once you break from your old eating habits and give up the commercially processed foods, salt, sugar, excessive amounts of dairy and meats, and all the "gourmet" concoctions that stoke food cravings, allergies, overweight, diabetes, heart problems, and more, you will re-educate your palate, desire only the highest quality, fresh, unprocessed ingredients, and change forever your relationship with food. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. Food will no longer control you. You will not live to eat, but rather eat to live.
Educate yourself with the facts by reading all Dr. Fuhrman’s books. Then decide for yourself if you want to continue with your old habits, or worse, continue to seek one panacea after another that promises the moon and never solves your health problems once and for all. Don't wait until poor health reaches critical proportions, or until you experience the uncomfortable or potentially deadly side effects of long-term medications, which merely suppress symptoms and don’t eradicate the root causes of disease.
I’ve found the only drawback of this way of eating is participating in other people's social activities. When you eat to live, you realize that the rest of the world uses food as major recreation and entertainment. People seem to be completely oblivious to the health problems they have created for themselves--diseases that now sweep the nation in epidemic proportions. I treasure my health and soldier on, unwilling to sacrifice my physical and emotional well-being on the alter of social custom. To completely change one's diet is a major lifestyle change for most people, but the health improvements Dr. Fuhrman writes about are completely within reach with an honest commitment to change for the sake of a long, healthy, active life.
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JJ
5.0 out of 5 stars It’s a good cookbook
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 16, 2021
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I did not buy this to lose weight I bought this book to help me eat better for health reasons.
It has about 40 pages of what you should be eating, how to eat it, misconceptions about food, sources of fat you should eat and how to shop for produce to name a few.
You will not get a picture with every recipe. There’s only eight photos of food in the middle of the book. Every recipe has a per serving calculations of calories, protein carbohydrates, fat etc..
Some of the recipes are good some are so so but it all depends on your taste.
Dr. Fuhrman has his own line of food products that are listed as ingredients in some of the recipes. If I don’t have exactly his product, I just use what I have.
Most all of the recipes are straightforward ingredients anyone should have on hand however if you’re just getting started with healthy eating you might be put off by some of the ingredients like nutritional yeast and amino acids. Don’t let that scare you, it’s pretty straightforward as far as cooking instructions and ease of accessible products at your local grocery store.
I have enjoyed cooking recipes out of this cookbook and will continue to enjoy the recipes for some years to come..
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Irma Simpson
4.0 out of 5 stars A good start for vegan cooking
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 8, 2016
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This cookbook is much easier to buy into if you read the Eat to Live book first. The recipes make more sense when you have the context of the entire plan in your head. Having said that, there are a lot of problems with this book. In my case, I decided to try this diet as several others had failed, and my doc had just doubled my statin drug. I retrofitted my pantry and fridge and started tackling the diet and the recipes. It was costly, not just for all the stuff I had to buy at the health food store, but for much of the food I threw out. I did NOT buy all the Fuhrman products -- to me, his product-shilling is the one thing that really wrecks his credibility...and the fact that you can't even log onto his website for support/additional info without forking out at least $40/month. You do not need even one of those products to make these meals. Use Mrs. Dash's and your own spices for seasonings, and instead of flavored vinegars, add your own. (I.e., instead of buying fig vinegar, chop a few dried figs, simmer them in some balsamic vinegar and water for 15 minutes, strain out the figs and dump that into your recipe.) Be a little creative. Also, some of the ingredient amounts are off...either too much or too little. Many of the recipes, esp. those by 'famous' chefs, are impossibly complicated (and the couple I tried tasted awful). Bottom line, this diet works! After 5 weeks, I'm down 15 pounds and feel terrific. Headaches, hand/feet cramps, indigestion and insomnia have disappeared. I do not miss dairy, meat, fish, carbs at all. I do add a sweet potato or some brown rice occasionally. I also use a tiny bit of cooking spray when I saute vegetables - that water sauteing is for the birds. Don't bother with the 25-ingredient soups and entrees, don't be afraid to substitute with stuff on hand or omit some of the more exotic stuff. This is a diet for life, and is surprisingly easy to adapt to after the first week or so. You will not be disappointed. Also - search online for vegan recipes - very large selection out there, and most use fewer and more common ingredients. Good luck!
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Laurie Cooper
4.0 out of 5 stars Recipes
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 9, 2022
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Good recipes in here.
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Mike
4.0 out of 5 stars A little disappointed maybe?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2013
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After reading his other books, I was so excited to get a cookbook to make life easier for us instead of trying to formulate our own recipes from his super immunity food suggestions. I have tackled 2 of the recipes, ordered $267 worth of his products online, and am not as thrilled as I had hoped. One of the items I had ordered (flavored vinegar sampler for $65), was delivered with the vinegar spilling all over the box. A few of the 2 ounce bottles had broken seals. When I called the company to make them aware, I was told (as it is stated on the website) that food products are not exchangable nor returnable. I decided I wouldn't be ordering from him again. The first recipe, Quinoa Mango Salad, was just ok. It is packed with nutrition; however does not have much taste. I'm adament about eating it up though, since it was time consuming to make, and full of nutrition. My husband and I look at the bowl of this stuff worried it has no bottom as we keep chewing. I know I won't be making that recipe again though. The second recipe was his Black Forest Cream of Mushroom Soup. I LOVE mushrooms, and I love soup! This was expensive and time consuming to make. As I was finishing up the soup, I realized the directions in the book are incorrect. ALL OF THAT WORK! It didn't necessarily ruin the soup, but it was definitely different from expected. Isn't someone being paid to edit and test all of these recipes?
Update on 11/8
I've tried many more recipes and have not run into the problem of mixed directions again. Everything we have made has been good. My husband has been eating this way for a few years now, so he loves everything I make. I just began eating this way last summer. To me, many of the recipes are lacking taste. I'm guessing that's because my taste buds are still used to the over-processed, unhealthy food I had been eating. I clean my plate though because each recipe just 'screams' nutrition. A little tweak here and there customizes each recipe to our liking. Surprisingly, this has become my 'go-to' cookbook each night.
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R Scheuermannn
5.0 out of 5 stars If you love vegetables or need to lose weight or need to ...
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 23, 2014
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If you love vegetables or need to lose weight, are diabetic, pre-diabetic, want to lower your blood pressure, lower cholesterol, want to learn eat nutritiously, or want your taste buds to come to life, you should read Dr. Furhman's books "Eat to Live" and/or "The end of diabetes" . Both are great books even if you are NOT diabetic. Both books have menu plans and recipes. At first, I only used the recipes in the book. I found most of the recipes were pretty good, but after eating according to his recommendations for a few weeks, and allowing my taste buds time to "Come back to life", I discovered that the recipes are, iin fact, excellent.
I ordered the cookbook, thinking it would be an arrangement of the recipes that are in the two afore mentioned books, however, the books contain recipes that are not found in the cookbook, and Vice versa. Since many of the recipes will serve 8 to 10 people, I vacuum seal leftovers in single servings and store them in my freezer for use during times I don't feel like cooking or don't have time to cook.
Dr. Furhman has what I consider to be a solid, nutritious, sensible approach to changing eating habits. One word of advice: preparing Dr. Fuhrman's recipes is time consuming. I have learned some shortcuts such as taking a few hours after shopping to wash and chop many of the vegetables I will be using in the recipes during the week. I purchase frozen onions, prewashed lettuce, baby spinach, and super green mix from Sam's club. I also buy a small bag of broccoli-cauliflower florets, shredded carrots, etc., to use in salads, and cut up 2-3 days worth of salad vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, radishes, mushrooms and so forth so I can quickly throw a salad together.
I highly recommend his books and this cookbook.
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JP Russell
4.0 out of 5 stars Many healthy & tasty recipes in one cookbook.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2014
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Great recipes but many are complicated by having a lot of ingredients and lengthy processing. Nevertheless, once you skim through the table of contents in each chapter and scan through the recipes, you will probably find enough recipes that are easy to make, tasty and very healthy to make the book quite worthwhile.
One of my favorites is the butternut squash / black bean chili. I make a double recipe and freeze a lot of it in individual serving sized containers.
I have found that once you make one if these recipes the first time and find you like it, it is pretty easy to customize it to your own tastes. I
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