Shmoo Review: 101 Natural Healthy Eating Tips

This week Emily Davidson was kind enough to send me a review copy of her new book, 101 Tips: Healthy Eating, Naturally.

Emily is described on the cover as a "Healthy Eating Expert Guru" (love it!) She's put her knowledge of natural and holistic nutrition to work creating this little introduction to healthy eating made simple.

If you know anyone who has never eaten healthy food before and is looking for a good place to start -- maybe a teen or young adult just getting out on their own, or someone faced with a sudden health scare -- this is a great gift, perhaps tucked into a gift basket with healthy basics or some cooking tools.

Topics include basics like how to make a healthy salad, how to survive a trip to a restaurant, understanding ingredient labels, how to steam vegetables and cook grains, and much more. Although the book is not completely vegan, veganism is addressed and topics do include vegan protein sources, dairy and egg substitutes, and appropriate supplements for a veg*an diet. The book ends with a few easy recipes to get the health newbie started, like Roasted Vegetables, Super Oatmeal, and Watercress Stir Fry.

What's Santa Shmoo giving to all the good girls and boys?

I usually bake homemade sweets for all our neighbors and friends at the holidays, but this year I decided to give everyone Gourmet Red Wine Soup Mixes instead.

My friend Renee makes these soup mixes -- all natural, all vegan, low in sodium (hooray!), and yummy, too. You just add water or broth and they're done in less than an hour. My favorite is the Red Wine Vegetable Bean (I like adding cooked brown rice and baby spinach to it).

I'm putting them into little gift boxes for my friends and family along with a package of crackers and some fresh clementines.

I hope people don't mind the healthier gift this year. With all the diabetes, heart attacks, and high blood pressure I've been a witness to this year, I couldn't bear to make everybody another batch of cookies and fudge.

Shmoo Review: Holiday Book Ideas

Are you all done with your holiday shopping? If you're still looking for some gift ideas I've put together a list of some of the books I've been enjoying lately...

1. For those with allergies: Alisa Fleming has just released a new edition of her book Go Dairy Free: The Guide and Cookbook for Milk Allergies, Lactose Intolerance, and Casein-Free Living.This book includes all the good stuff of the original -- a comprehensive guide to dairy substitutes, grocery shopping information, chapters on health and calcium concerns, food allergy resources, and more -- plus updated information and a lot more recipes (over 225!)

2. For the bento fan: Hawaii's Bento Box Cookbook: Fun Lunches for Kidsis about the cutest thing going. If you love to coo over lunches that look like teddy bears, princesses, mermaids, or little mice, this is the book for you. I have to warn you, the recipes are not vegan, but that shouldn't stop you from using this book for inspiration; substitute vegan deli slices and cheese and white veggies like jicama or daikon for the bologna, cheese, and fishcake in the designs.

(Also, if you like bento, manga, or Japanese cooking in general, I'm sure you'll like The Manga Cookbook,another book I really got a kick out of this year.)


3. For the athlete: For information about vegan athletes and nutrition, check out Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Lifeby professional Ironman triathlete and vegan, Brendan Brazier. His book offers up sound advice for athletes along with all-natural recipes for gels, sports drinks, smoothies, and bars.


4. For the home preserver: This was my birthday present this year from my mom, who also loves to can and make preserves: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.With the economy going the way it is, what could be better than lining your pantry with rows of pretty preserves that you made yourself? And this book is gorgeous, with full color photographs throughout and hundreds of recipes I've never seen before but can't wait to try. (By the way, the "Bruschetta in a Jar" is fantastic.)

That's all the new books I can think of for now. What are some of your recommendations?

P.S. My book(ahem) would also be a great holiday gift for all the vegans and lunch-packers on your list!

Shmoo Review: Dr. Fuhrman's Eat for Health

Hey, Dr. Fuhrman's Disease-Proof Blog has a new look beginning this week. I was asked to be a guest blogger this week; you can visit and read an edited version of my Summer Veg Out post on the wonders of smoothies.

Speaking of Dr. Fuhrman, he also recently produced a new set of books and a DVD. As most of you long-time readers know I'm a huge fan of Dr. Fuhrman, so I couldn't wait to pick up a copy to review.

First, I read through his new two-volume set Eat For Health.If you've read the previous books Eat To Liveor Disease-Proof Your Child,Eat for Health doesn't offer too much in the way of new information. The basics are all the same: lose weight and live longer by making nutrient-dense foods the foundation of your diet, eliminating salt, exercising, obtaining healthy fat from nuts instead of oils, etc.

What is new is the slower step-by-step transition to nutrient-dense eating, which may make it easier for people who are just getting started, and the attention paid to emotional issues that may stand in the way of healthier eating. As an emotional eater myself, I appreciated the acknowledgment that sometimes healthy eating is easier said than done, especially when issues of addiction and self-worth are standing in your way.

Book One addresses all the basics while Book Two is made up of the exciting let's-get-to-it stuff: menu plans for each phase in the transition to healthier eating, dozens of new recipes, and information on how to shop.

Next, I was absolutely delighted with the new DVD Secrets to Healthy Cooking.Dr. Fuhrman and his wife Lisa demonstrate how to make the staple dishes central to his eating style: smoothies, salads and nut-based dressings, vegetable soups (including my favorite), a stir-fry, and sorbet. The production quality is excellent, the demonstrations are fun to watch, and best of all, each recipe section concludes with a recipe template showing you how to make up your own recipes using his model. Brilliant!

Shmoo Review: The Sneaky Chef

Not long after I posted my review of Deceptively Delicious a reader brought to my attention the existence of another popular cookbook with an identical mission -- to sneak vegetables into children's food unawares. It's The Sneaky Chef,and the author Missy Chase Lapin has a pending lawsuit against Deceptively's author Jessica Seinfeld for stealing her idea.

It may be true that Seinfeld ripped her off, or it may be a case of two people coming up with the same idea at the same ripe time. The question for me isn’t who thought of it first (scores of parents over the generations have resorted to sneaking a bit of something into the mashed potatoes or muffin batter). The question for me is, which one does it better? If you're going to buy just one sneaking-mashed-vegetables book, which one should it be? After reading them both, I would recommend The Sneaky Chef.

The author has really done her homework and most of her advice is right on: find fruits and veggies your kids like "straight up" and serve them that way (Method Six, page 76); slowly incorporate more whole grains into the diet (Method Two, page 67); avoid frying (Method Seven).

Best of all, her purees actually sound yummy, with a touch of lemon juice and a wide variety of vegetables (the Green Puree, for example, includes broccoli, spinach, and peas). I actually want to whip them up and add them to meals, even in a not-sneaky way.

But still, the initial bewilderment that I had when reading Deceptively still hits me as I look through the recipes here. Are children really so resistant to eating any fruits and vegetables that a tablespoon of orange vegetables hidden in boxed macaroni and cheese is a triumph? Sneaky even excitedly proclaims on its cover, "Blueberries hidden in cupcakes!"

Blueberries? Really? Who needs to hide blueberries? I need to hide the fresh blueberries away from my son so he won't eat them all in one sitting.

But Lapin's personal story of mealtime struggle brought home to me just how hard it is to get some kids to eat healthy foods, and caused me to cheer for her when she finally hit upon stealth techniques that worked and brought her some relief. Hey, whatever it takes sometimes! More power to you, sneaky momma!

Shmoo Review: Soy-Free Vegan Yogurts

ANYway! That last discussion started as an aside and grew into its very own post. Now that it's out of the way, let's get on with it, shall we?

While we were on vacation this weekend I noticed two new nondairy, soy-free yogurts at the store we went to. Excitement! Yogurt was one item where I couldn't find a way to get away from soy. We bought two containers and brought them home in an iced cooler so we could write this very cultured shmoo review (heh heh).

1. Blueberry Ricera Rice Yogurt. I couldn't wait to try this one, as I love rice and had an image of a thicker, creamier version of amazake. However, our first glimpse at its runny consistency and grainy texture did not inspire much confidence. Shmoo and I both took a taste and made faces. It was gritty and bitter, with a sharp, biting flavor that stays in your mouth long after you swallow. Big thumbs down from shmoo. Perhaps it would be better in a smoothie? We decided not to chance it and threw the rest away after a couple more bites. Verdict: Nasty!

2.Vanilla So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurt. This yogurt looked like a winner as soon as I put the spoon in: creamy and thick like real yogurt, with beautiful color. I took a taste and smiled. Mmmm, that's more like it! It's smooth and luscious, like coconut milk pudding with a hint of yogurty tang. It also doesn't have that soy aftertaste I dislike in soy yogurt. Verdict: Beyond Excellent! Shmoo and I both give it big thumbs up and will be begging local stores to carry it.

I'll leave it to some of you to decide which nondairy yogurt is better nutritionally: soy, rice, or coconut? Coconut had the most fat (6 grams, all saturated -- no wonder it tasted so good!), but coconut also had fewer calories than rice or soy (150 vs. 180 in the rice and 160 in the soy). Both coconut and rice lack the protein of soy (4 grams in Silk Cultured Soy, 3 grams in Ricera, and only 1 gram in the Coconut Milk Yogurt).

Shmoo Review: Deceptively Delicious

I'm sure you've all seen this little pink cookbook winking at you from store shelves everywhere. Deceptively Deliciousis so popular that even now, almost eight months after its publication, it is still a "7 Day Only" loan at our library. Well, this week I finally got a chance to check it out myself!

The basic idea here is that if you want to end the struggle over vegetables at mealtime, start sneaking vegetable purees into foods your kids love, like mac and cheese or brownies. Then sit back and smile to yourself as they eat their vegetables in blissful ignorance.

Vegetable subterfuge, you say? Well, bring it on! I've been using the magical blender to erase any hint of certain vegetables in my family's dinners for a long time, and so have a lot of my readers. In fact, last March I wrote "Let's Hear It For Sneaky Mommas!", a special post raving about my blender and asking for more sneaky ideas from you readers (My favorite was blending spinach into mashed potatoes and calling them "swamp potatoes". Genius.)

Eager for even more ideas, I looked through Deceptively Deliciousfor some vegan recipes I could start with. I found....Ketchup. That's right, the recipe for homemade Ketchup was vegan. Everything else would require at least some substitutions, mostly in the egg and dairy department. Even the recipes for avocado spread and salsa dip contained dairy!

Some of the recipes looked worth veganizing, though: I loved the idea of adding yellow squash puree to a simple dish of "Buttered" Noodles. I would substitute nondairy milk and some nutritional yeast in place of the milk and Parmesan. The recipe for Creamy Potato Soup with secret butternut squash and cauliflower sounded excellent. I would substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth, nondairy milk and a splash of lemon juice for the buttermilk, and leave out the cheddar cheese.

Oddly enough I had more luck finding vegan options in the dessert section: Blueberry Oatmeal Bars, Chocolate Chip Cupcakes (without the frosting), Chocolate Fondue, and Fruit Punch were all vegan. Yum!

But on closer inspection, I really started to wonder about some of these "deceptive" dishes. For example, the Blueberry Oatmeal Bars contained 1/2 cup spinach puree. The recipe serves 12, so doing my math...that's about 2 teaspoons of spinach per serving.

Really? I mean, I know a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but all that effort -- cooking, pureeing, freezing, and thawing -- to get two teaspoons of spinach into the kids? Is it really worth it to sneak 2 teaspoons of spinach into an oatmeal bar, or, for another example, 1 teaspoon of cauliflower into the frosting on your child's chocolate cupcake?

Ultimately, I don't think a vegan could easily get their money's worth out of this one, and although I applaud the effort and the many helpful tips and ideas here, perhaps it's best to stick to just a few of the recipes that contain larger amounts of the vegetable purees. Add some cooked vegetables and a salad on the side and some fresh fruit for dessert. If you do this most nights you can probably skip the deception the rest of the time and let cupcakes be cupcakes.

Shmoo Review: Twinkie, Deconstructed

"EEEW"..."Gross!"..."YUCK!" Warning: don't curl up in bed with Twinkie, Deconstructedif outbursts like that are going to keep your spouse from sleeping. Because it's hard not to exclaim out loud as author Steve Ettlinger leads you through the mysterious inner workings of the industrialized food system.

Ettlinger sets out to follow each ingredient in a Twinkie back to its original state, and describes the convoluted industrial processes that give us such food additive favorites as "polysorbate 60" and "sodium stearoyl lactylate".

This book is the perfect read for anyone who wonders where our food comes from and what it's made of. If you partake of modern processed goodies – and I don’t mean just the golden cream-filled ones -- you may be quite surprised to find out what you’ve been putting in your mouth. Even though Ettlinger chose to focus on the Twinkie because of its popularity and long list of ingredients, the additives and chemicals he describes are present in a vast number of the foods on our grocery store shelves -- yes, even some of the vegan ones.

Vegans might want to pay special attention to the chapter on soy, where Ettlinger describes the process by which soybeans are transformed into shortening, lecithin, and soy protein isolate, the last of which shows up in many vegan "meats" and "sports bars".

I highly recommend Twinkie, Deconstructed, but maybe not for bedtime reading. Because even after you quit shouting and let your partner go to sleep, you may find it hard to sleep yourself, your mind haunted by images of giant factories filled with corn, flour floating through sprays of chlorine gas, and soy flakes soaking in vats of lye. I know I did.

Shmoo Review: Everyday Dish

If you are a visual learner nothing beats watching a teacher demonstrate what they are trying to teach you. Case in point: cookbooks versus cooking shows. Some of us have a hard time looking at a written recipe and grasping what the cook is talking about, or what the finished recipe is supposed to look like.

If this sounds like you, I’m happy to report that there are plenty of great DVDs and cooking shows out there to introduce you to vegan cooking. In fact, three of my favorite vegan chefs recently sent me a copy of their new vegan cooking DVD, Everyday Dish: Vegetarian and Vegan Meals for Everyone.

Well-known cookbook authors Dreena Burton, Bryanna Clark Grogan, and Julie Hasson have teamed together to create this instructional DVD of 15 vegan recipes, including goodies like Hummus Tortilla Pizza, Lemon Lime Bars, and Triple Chocolate Pudding. The entire DVD is shot in the same gorgeous, well-appointed kitchen, and by the end of the show I felt I’d spent a cozy afternoon in this kitchen cooking with friends.

Although all three of the chefs were charming to watch, I thought Bryanna’s recipes most benefited from the visual format. Many of her recipes require a lot of preparation and call for ingredients that even long-time vegans might be unfamiliar with, like raw wheat gluten, agar, and TVP. If you have never made something like a gluten roast, it’s quite helpful to be able to watch one developing and see what it looks like when it’s done.

Another benefit of cooking DVD versus written recipe is catching all those little tips and tricks experienced cook use but don’t write down in their recipes. Dreena demonstrates how to handle a food processor without making a mess; Bryanna shows you the best way to open silken tofu. They both had me thinking, "Gosh, why didn’t I think of that?"

I would recommend that before you watch this show for the first time you insert the DVD into a DVD-ROM and print all the recipes. That way you can follow along and take notes on the recipes as you watch. Having copies of the recipes will also give you an idea of the quantities involved, as there is mostly no mention of exact amounts during the recipe demonstrations.

If you learn best by watching, are new to vegan cooking, or just enjoy watching cooking shows, the three accomplished vegan chefs of Everyday Dish are here for you!

Shmoo Review: Benji Bean Sprout Doesn't Eat Meat!

Reviewed by special guest blogger Shmoo.

"Benji Bean Sprout Doesn't Eat Meat!is a kind of neat book. It's about a kid who eats vegetarian and other kids think he's weird because he doesn't eat meat. He eats vegetarian meat. The kids who make fun of him are mean but then they try his food and then they don't think he's so weird anymore. He goes to an animal sanctuary. I want to go to an animal sanctuary some day. I want to see a tiger.

"Vegetarian kids will like this book, or meat eating kids so they can learn about what happens in factory farms and what happens to the animals. Maybe they would lose their appetite for meat, or maybe they would be nicer to vegetarians.

"I have different lunches like this kid. Sometimes other kids wonder what I have for lunches. What was funny was one time this other kid said he liked the smell of my lunch. I like my lunches, too!"

Shmoo Review: Winning the Food Fight

Of all the books I've had fun reviewing lately, this one most challenged and defied my expectations. Looking at the cover of Winning the Food Fightby Natalie Rigal, I expected the usual: fun food presentation ideas ("turn an apple into an adorable choo-choo train!"), kid-friendly recipes ("Rockin' Rollin' Rainbow Wraps!"), and some kind of nutritional pyramid.

Instead, what I found was a scientific look into what researchers call the "psychology of taste". How do children's taste preferences develop, and why? What is the effect of gender or age on food preference? What causes children to gravitate towards certain foods and shy away from others, particularly vegetables? Rigal, a researcher and senior lecturer on developmental child psychology at the University of Paris at Nanterre, does a great job of collecting and exploring the vast array of scientific literature on the subject while interposing accounts of her own experiences with her children at the table.

If studies like "Neophobic Behaviors and Appearance Percentages Among Children Two to Ten" are your idea of fun, this is the book for you. (In case you're wondering, 56% sorted out mixed foods, 45% examined their food and 31% grimaced, but only 8% turned their head away.)

The study I found most charming highlighted for me the vast ocean of difference between the food culture of France and the one here in the U.S. In a study done in France on children aged 2 to 3 years during lunch at a day care, cauliflower "was chosen in 51% of the cases when prepared au gratin, in 49% when served with a béchamel sauce". Tomatoes were chosen in 52% of the cases when stuffed, but only 27% when served "à la Provençale". Wow. Where I live, 2 to 3 year olds in day care generally get a choice between the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets or the fluorescent orange mac-and-cheese.

This is not the book to turn to on a busy weeknight when you're wondering what you can fix that the kids will eat; you'll find no recipes or fast-food hints here. But of all the books I've looked at recently, this one has provided me with the most fascinating food for thought.

Shmoo Review: Dairy Free Made Easy

So many reasons to go vegan! Most people go vegan for their health, for the animals, for the environment, or for a combination of all of the above.

But there are also a lot of people in our midst who came to veganism due to dairy allergies. My lovely sister-in-law, for example, went vegan after discovering that her newborn daughter was severely allergic to cow's milk. When she stopped consuming dairy products she realized that they had been upsetting her own tummy for years! Vegan cookbooks and websites helped her find new recipes to replace the dairy; from there, as she learned and read more, it was a natural progression to veganism. Hooray!

So, if you or your children are allergic to dairy products, welcome! I hope you find a lot of fun dairy-free, kid-friendly ideas here to incorporate into your own mealtimes. And especially for you, I'm happy to say that Alisa Fleming from Go Dairy Free has just put out a helpful new guidebook called Diary Free Made Easy, filled with even more helpful information focused specifically on dairy-free living.

The first part of this spiral-bound book gives readers an in-depth overview of dairy products, calcium concerns, allergies, and the many other reasons why people are choosing to kick dairy out the door. For those who are just starting out, the book includes a helpful list of "survival tips" for shopping, identifying hidden dairy ingredients, eating out, cooking, traveling, and feeding children.

The chapter on non-dairy milk alternatives was my favorite; it featured a list of various non-dairy milks along with instructions on how to make your own soy, rice, almond, oat, and coconut milk at home. The recipe section includes more alternatives to traditionally dairy-filled favorites like mashed potatoes, whipped cream, cheesecake, and more.

The final half of the book is made up of a very extensive list of recommended dairy-free products and companies, including some "superstar" companies that maintain dedicated dairy-free facilities, making them ideal for those with the most severe allergies. The list includes over 2,000 products, and if you order directly from the website the book also comes with a fat envelope filled with coupons for some of them. (My mom and I had fun fighting over these; she got the one for Toby's Pâté, but I made off with the Nate's Meatless Meatballs coupon. Ha!)

The coupons and product listings are obviously time-sensitive, but Alisa plans to maintain downloadable PDFs of the product lists on her website. With all these great new products and recipes, living a dairy-free life is getting easier all the time!

Shmoo Review: Lunch Lessons

Activists, start your engines! Authors Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes are here with Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children,and they’re ready to draft you into the battle they are waging for healthier school lunches for all!

Depending on who you are, I think this book will either have you ready to shout it from the rooftops, or leave you feeling like improving your family’s health is too daunting a task, tying it as they do to the larger work of social and environmental activism and widespread public education and policy change.

First, I want to point out that this is not a vegetarian book. Even so, vegan parents can still find much here that is inspiring or enlightening. The recipes section includes chapters for every meal of the day, not just lunch, and offers many recipes that are vegan or could easily be veganized. A wide variety of vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains are used in many delicious-sounding dishes like "Spinach Salad with Tangerines", "Corn and Black-eyed Pea Stew", and "Vegetable Lo Mein".

The authors take a strident tone when talking about proper nutrition, although their messages seem a bit mixed. I was most saddened by the fact that, although the nutrition chapter wisely advises parents to avoid cheese because of its high level of saturated fat (p. 28), the authors then go on to include recipes for "Three Cheese Vegetable Strata", "Mac and Cheese", and burritos, frittatas, and casseroles that all call for hearty amounts of cheese.

They also mention the frightening and very real dangers of mercury contamination in fish, especially tuna (p. 22), but urge parents to not cut fish out of their children’s diet because of its heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. They don't mention that foods like flax, hemp, and walnuts can provide mercury- and fish-free sources of omega-3s.

On a happier note, the authors do point out that calcium can be obtained from non-dairy sources. There are many other instances here where vegan and omni parents can find common ground, joining forces to encourage a more plant-based diet for everyone.

Going beyond mealtime, the authors include information on gardening, composting, healthy cleaning products, plastics, recycling, and making a difference in your cafeteria and your community. So, if you're ready to make a change in more than just what your kid is packing for lunch, Lunch Lessonsis ready to show you the way.

A Shmoo Review

Recently I set out to find books my son and I could read together that would encourage healthy eating without requiring any dairy deprogramming afterwards (kids are always being told to drink lots of milk for "strong bones and teeth", with no mention of other sources of calcium).

The first book we ordered, The Children's Health Food Book, sounded promising: superhero "Health Guardians" like "Vegetarian Warrior" and "Fruitarian Fighter" do battle against the evil "Meat Monster" and "Sugar Demon". Sounds perfect for an eight-year-old!

But when we sat down together to read the book we both became...confused. What does the author mean by "mucus"? Is this some kind of raw food thing? Mucus, he says, causes all the adult diseases and all childhood illnesses like colds, flus, and asthma. Mucus comes from eating "thick gooey food" like meat, milk, sugar, and starch. I told shmoo my best guess was that the author was referring to atherosclerosis, but I really have no idea.

My son's biggest complaint was the lack of story line; the book reads more like a lesson than the action-adventure he had been hoping for. 1 star.

Next came The Race Against Junk Food, starring the S.N.A.K. Posse ("Super Nutritionally Active Kids"). The message here is clear, straightforward, and universally acceptable: junk food and cigarettes are BAD; fruits, vegetables, and exercise are GOOD.

The author uses an action-packed story to get the point across, combined with colorful, detailed illustrations (we loved all the exercising vegetables). Shmoo liked sitting down with this one; he carefully analyzed each picture and read the story several times on his own. I only wish a competent editor had helped with punctuation and sentence structure; better writing could have made this story easier to read. 4 stars.