Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Encyclopaedic raw reference complete with rawlicious recipies., 22 May 2008
I should start by saying that food & nutrition has in my life been (until recently) something that I haven't paid too much attention to. Don't get me wrong; I really like cooking and as a bonus, I am not bad at it either but in my busy, every day life; as I am sure is the case with most people, I used to cook mostly because you just have to in order to remain alive... It was not something to which I dedicated much time or energy.
More recently however, 2 very significant events took place; I met my current GF & also I began working very long hours for a company that gave me very little time off. As a result, my diet, as well as my health, began to decline due to my working conditions (you know; lots of fast food & take aways etc;) but my awareness of what a good diet ought to be began increasing due to my GF, who is an aspiring nutritionist, & so there became an ever increasing disparity between the two.
I would complain about my steadily increasing number of ailments etc and my GF would politely and eloquently suggest that it was probably purely down to my lack of regular exercise & diet.
So it was that eventually, both my GF & myself (reluctantly) began a journey to find out how to remain healthy despite a hectic lifestyle. Our journey took us first through investigation into different types of nutritional supplements and diet regimes, then wound through the realms of herbal remedies, homeopathy, flower essences, superfoods all the way up to spiritaul healing & vibrational medicine etc.
Now to a lot of people this probably sounds like a lot of free love, hippy inspired pseudo science but I should point out that I am very pragmatically & empirically minded.
So 3/4years on, I have found the answer! It seems that in all my searching, it was obvious all along and it makes SO much sense now. Not that the other strategies I mentioned are wrong; they are great & they DEFINATELY have their place but if you want to be free of illness & disease & doctors & hospitals & lose weight & look & feel great; RAW IS the way to go.
This book is a god-send. With it & a little other information that I think it is worth mentioning comes from a source by the name of Shazzie (another key raw foodist), I began my forray into the world of raw food.
Raw food does seem extreme when you have been eating cooked all your life; but it is not! It is hard for about the 1st week whilst your body first protests & then detoxes... but soon after that you feel amazing!
The reason for this is that collectively, raw food contains all the proteins, enzymes, vitamins & minerals, calories, fats & essential oils that exist anywhere in nature but when you cook food 70 - 80% of this is broken down in the process & is useless. If however you eat the food RAW as nature intends (it seems) all these essentials are still present & in a form which your body can utilise VERY efficiently.
The most important thing about going raw is that you MUST have variety to stop you going insane in the first week or so. Without this you are certain to give up as you will feel tired & drained. If however you make sure that your forray is as varied as possble, you will be fine - no better than fine - great!
Which is why you NEED a book like this!!!
In it Renee does to things very well:-
1) She explains in encyclopaedic detail the philosophy behind going raw including the nature of most food groups & individual foods, their chemical & biological make-up, their importance & usefulness etc both scientifically AND in lamans terms.
2) She includes a very comprehensive assortment of recipies a delights that are equally satisfying, useful & quick & easy to make.
I should mention at this point that Renee is a succesful RAW chef who runs her own very popular Raw resteraunt.
For this reason, without this book, I for one would have had a very tough challenge on my hands & would probably have given up (maybe not but close).
Thanks to this Renee (& did I mention Shazzie) I have seen the light!! It all makes sense now & RAW is what my body hase been searching for all this time.
If you plan to go raw, this book is a MUST have. Absolutely invaluable!
|
|
|
2.0 out of 5 stars
A raw food encyclopedia but, unbelievably, not a single picture???, 3 Jun 2009
I had high hopes for this book to become our kitchen Bible in our transition to eating more raw food.
And it is clear that Renee is an absolute expert in her field.
The level of detail in each of the chapters is impressive and enlightening, as well as inspiring. I've already decided to have a go at seed and nut cheeses and some of her other recipes, which sound delicious.
I also found it really refreshing that she's not a "raw food bigot" - she accepts that some foods need to be (lightly) cooked and doesn't make you feel guilty about not wanting to go 100% raw.
So why only 2 out of 5 stars?
This book has some pitfalls:
1. It's pricey - compared to most other raw food books. Though its depth of content does offset the cost somewhat.
2. It's a book based on what's available and in season in the USA. I'm based in the UK, so many of the ingredients are less common / more expensive / out of season and imported here. This all impacts menu costs and importing food can impact the environment and nutrient levels.
3. THERE ARE NO PICTURES
Not a single one - other than the cover. Not even a line-drawn sketch.
Hello Mr Publisher! You're charging nearly £20 for a book by a world expert in raw food and you want to inspire me to radically change my whole outlook on food / cooking and more besides, but you can't include a single picture?
I know that photos add to the cost of producing a book, but surely one of this nature deserves, nay, NEEDS to be illustrated?
What you get instead is hundreds of pages of words, words and more words. It's a food book - not a classic novel! Some people need the visual stimulus to inspire them / stop them losing the will to live when dragging their way through so much text.
It's only because I'm really committed to making the shift that I'm continuing with ploughing through it. And I'm a book worm, so I'm not scared of reading ;-)
It's a really difficult way to take in so much detailed and often technical information.
But, to be honest, if it weren't for the fact the return postage would be so high (it's a weighty tome and could have given my postie a hernia), I'd have probably sent it back...
Such a pity. It should be a book to treasure.
Of course, if you're not fussed about photos in cookery books and like to take in information in words, rather than pictures, then this is the ideal book for you in your raw journey - especially if you love detail.
|
|
|
|