Amanda Rice

I cannot recommend this book.

With a title that includes the words “Essentials Whole Food Recipes to Help You Lose Weight Naturally, Stay Healthy & Feel Great”, I expected an introduction and discussion of the Whole30 program and how this program helps in achieving these aims. Instead, I got 3 pages of mostly bullet points that read like a selective summary of information gathered on the internet.

There is no information about how to incorporate this eating plan into everyday life. One of show more the bullet points even suggests you refrain from socialising for the 30 day program!

The recipes themselves are a letdown. Recipes are divided into breakfast, lunch and dinner options but the recipes are filed in a confusing manner. Meat and potatoes for breakfast, baked garlic heads for lunch and salads for dinner? The author would have been better off listing recipes alphabetically or grouping them via food type and letting people decide for themselves when to eat each meal.

There are many grammatical errors, poor use of English language and other language inconsistencies. More importantly, there are errors in the few recipes I read that would impact the outcome of dishes. For example:
- Pictures of food do not correlate to preparation and cooking instructions. This might seem petty but when your book cover loudly shouts there’s a picture for each recipe, I am sure buyers would like to see what the finished recipe looks like.
- Cooking directions include phrases like ‘should be ready’. What if something is not ready? How is a cook, especially a novice, expected to know?
- One recipe states to add garlic and fry for 50 minutes before adding other ingredients. Clearly this is a typo, but even frying garlic for 5 minutes (assuming that’s what is meant) is excessive
- 6 ½ servings per recipe. What on earth is someone meant to do with a ½ serve?
- A recipe that serves one includes 2lbs of sweet potato and ½lb apples
- Eggs are referred to as pieces. 4 pieces of large eggs, 2 pieces of large eggs
- An entire avocado is described as garnish
- ½ teaspoon salt then in another recipe it's written as ½ of a teaspoon of salt.
- Abbreviations when there should be none; Brussel sprouts referred to as brussels
- Cooking times listed at the start of a recipe do not marry with the total time indicated in the cooking method

There is plenty of information available freely on the internet that is superior to what's in this book. Save your money and spend some time doing your own research.

I received this book through the Member Giveaway. show less

This is the first "Ecookbook" that I have used before and I was pleasantly surprised at how user friendly it was. It wasn't a far cry from what I usually do because I usually have my laptop in the kitchen for online recipes. I really liked how the table of contents was enabled to link directly to the recipe so there was no unnecessary scrolling. When you think about it, this is actually more convenient than flipping back and forth in a traditional cookbook. Trying to find pages and maneuver show more the book just so the pages won't slam closed on you can be cumbersome and finicky. I much prefer the Ereader approach for recipes now.

I was previously a vegan about a decade ago and had since gone back to eating meat. I decided to try Rice's book out to add some more variety and veggies into my diet. I can honestly say, that I would have been a way better vegan if I had this book back then. The recipes are quick to put together and have opened up my world to new ingredients and flavor combinations. Also, the tips for cooking carbs and vegan eggs were super nifty and it's great to have them all in one place for reference. There were a few recipes that I tried that were a little bland, but that could just be me because I am an onion and garlic fiend so cooking without them in a few recipes seemed unnatural. Secondly, not all of the recipes included a complex carb and a legume for complete proteins. I ended up adding onions, garlic, and either beans or starch (whichever was missing for me in the recipe). It's not abnormal for me to alter a recipe and Rice does suggest that in order to save on costs, that you use what you have in your pantry or fridge that work as a substitute.

There are definitely a few recipes in this book that I will be referring back to regularly because of their delicious simplicity. Since using this book, I have actually cut meat and animal products down in my diet considerably and my whole being feels great! I would recommend this book for anyone, not just veggies! show less

When I started reading the 30 Day Whole Food Slow Cooker Challenge, I thought that I was going to be reading about a vegan approach to dieting. I don’t know why I thought that but I found the opposite. There are plenty of meat recipes in the book, one of which I tried immediately before completing the book. The chicken I made was delicious as a result of the ‘The Slowest Mediterranean Chicken’ recipe. I have to assume that the author, Amanda Rice, developed the recipes in this book show more because I haven’t seen them elsewhere.

Like many good tasting low-calorie creations, the recipes in this book use a blend of flavor-enhancing ingredients instead of fats to improve satiation. These satisfy the appetites and make the food less boring than the shakes and prepackaged food found in so many diets. In addition to blending complimentary flavors, slow cooking tenderizes meats. The only negative to this method of cooking is that it is slow as the name slow cooking implies. If a recipe calls for 10 hours of cooking time, you have to plan on getting up fairly early to take care of the meal’s preparation so that the 10-hour time frame falls at dinner time. Some concoctions could be put together the night before, refrigerated, and thrown in the slow cooker in the morning before leaving for work.

I was surprised at how many recipes there are in this book. There are lunch recipes, dinner recipes, and dessert recipes, and there are many of each. Whether you’re on a diet or not, the recipes in this book are ones that every chef will want to have available when they’re meal planning. show less

Paul Edward Montador

I won a free copy from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review:

I thought yeah here we go another Indian cookbook, only this time in a One-Pot style, nothing new or fancy here!
I'm wrong! I admit it!
This book is stunning, the photographs are high quality, the recipes are easy to understand, and it even has nutritional values for you, bonus!
Amanda does some explaining at the beginning on the areas and types of Indian cooking then goes into some of the most widely used show more ingredients/spices so you understand them and how to use them.

I'm a little surprised by this book, to be honest, I really thought it was just another Indian Recipe Book, but I really like the idea. Throw it all in one pot and cook it, simple Indian cooking most people can get, instead of cooking out Spices to release oils then add yogurt/water etc.. make the sauce, fry the meat or add the vegetables, three hours later you are starving, but still no meal yet. So give it a go, I'm sure you'll like this book as well!! show less