Gillian McKeith

The author may have got some good recipes in here, but - hell's teeth - she can be irritating! This really is bossy American therapist writes cookbook: "I can utterly transform your life, but follow my plan to the letter or stop wasting my time"! The store cupboard essentials include such everyday basics as organic dried fenugreek, agar-agar, nori flakes, brown rice syrup, flax seeds, tempeh, and miso - well, that may be fine in the posher parts of California, but in my kitchen, you've got to be joking (and no way is my picky 8-year-old going to eat any of that!). She may well be right about a lot of the guidance on healthy eating, but I haven't cooked anything yet, because I have to wade through too many recipes in which a key ingredient turns out to be something Japanese and unpronounceable (and, no doubt, eye-wateringly expensive and probably unpalatable). I'd love to try her pears with star anise, but what the blazes is "barley malt syrup" and what can non-Californian-health-gurus use as a substitute? And if she says "organic wheat-free vegetable bouillon powder" once more I shall scream! I haven't chucked this book out yet, but it's on probation. MB 17-x-2015… (more)