How much of what you eat is REAL food? How much of your food is prepared at home? Do you know what ingredients are in the food you're eating? While homemade meals play an important role in a healthy lifestyle, 70% of Americans' diet is processed food. Let's work to shift that for you and your family!
Although there are so many healthy recipes you can find online, for free, it's nice to have a book of your own, either a paper copy or an electronic version on your iPad, that you can browse in a pinch or when you have time to bookmark some recipes that you want to try. I know that searching for nutritious recipes can be cumbersome and daunting, so that's why I started my Learning Tools page to give you a list of healthy cookbooks. While I have seen so much evidence to support a plant-based diet, the bottom line is that you consume whole foods, as fresh and clean of toxins as possible, to support your health and promote vitality.
All cookbooks that I recommend to you will be free of the following:
Processed foods with unnatural or harmful additives and preservatives
Artificial sweeteners
GMO (genetically modified) produce
Conventional produce (non-organic)
Table sugar or high fructose corn-syrup
Gluten
Non-organic dairy
Conventionally-raised meat and eggs (not pasture-raised)
Farm-raised fish/seafood
Most cookbooks that I recommend to you will mostly or exclusively be free of the following:
Processed foods
Dairy
Peanuts
Meat/Fish/Seafood/Eggs
My husband and I both love to cook and try new recipes as we're building our repertoire of healthy eats. We've really enjoyed making some things together over the past couple of months. Let me share some of our favorites:
Leah's Loaded Granola Bars and Quinoa Confetti Salad from the ITN Community Cookbook will be delicious this summer. If you couldn't tell, those are two of three recipes that yours truly contributed. My fellow classmates also contributed some fantastic recipes you'll want to try! Click here to download your copy NOW!
Heck Yeah, Banana Pancakes with Sweet Cherry Rose Compote (We used blueberries.) from YumUniverse Cookbook
-The nice thing about this cookbook is that it's kind of a health food bible. It's a great tool for cooking techniques and has become a great reference guide for my husband and me.
Fluffy Pancakes with Gingerbread Pecan Butter and Fudgy Brownies from Ricki Heller's Living Candida-Free Cookbook -This book is a great resource for those trying to eliminate sugars and starches (those with candida or diabetes). As a vegan resource, it has no animal products or by-products either. If you like Indian cuisine, her Pumpkin Dal recipe is also phenomenal!
Tomatillo Shredded Chicken from Leanne Ely's Parti-Time Paleo Cookbook -This recipe is super easy since it's made in the crockpot. I used cooked millet to go with my chicken and sauce.
I made her Sun-dried Tomato Meatballs with Pesto last night and enjoyed them over baked spaghetti squash for dinner. I doubled the recipe so that we could take some to work for lunches this week and froze the rest for a few quick meals later.
Salmon Puttanesca from J J Virgin's The Virgin Diet Cookbook -This recipe makes you think you've gone to a high-end restaurant for a meal!
We also love her Black Bean Hummus, which some of you have tried if you've attended any of my Culinary Nutrition Workshops. It has a nice Southwestern taste to it.
While I've tested and approve of many more recipes and cookbooks, these are some of our favorites. All these cookbooks can be found on my Learning Tools page, under the Resources tab. You can buy them directly from Amazon by clicking on the ones that interest you.
If you have any cookbook suggestions that you'd like me to consider adding to my website as a resource for our community, please let me know either by contacting me or leaving a comment below. I love growing my recipe arsenal and saving my favorites for daily go-tos!