Good healthy recipes.

Gave me lots of tips on low sodium cooking. Most of the recipes have come out good. Some of them taste awful without any salt. I tweaked them with a little more spice and maybe a tiny bit of salt.

I've tried alot of different healthy cookbooks, and they call for hard to find ingredients, and usually just don't taste that good. This book is different, the recipes I've tried really taste wonderful.

I’ve got to say it: This book was published in 1992, 26 years ago. When a book is published, a health book contains what is medically known at that time; it’s a snapshot in time for that year. However, in addition to the publication year, the Source of Nutritional Data listed on page 256 of this book lists the data used for this book, ranging from 28-42 years ago (1976-1990). This must be taken into consideration for every recipe that a buyer makes from this and other older cookbooks.

Note: 42 year-old-data is not bad, and it is not a slam against this book, but like all old recipes and health statistics, many of these recipes should be updated and amended by much more current data - data that most of us who keep up-to-date on these matters already know and incorporate into our diets and recipes anyway.

This 1992 hard-cover book has 256 semi-glossy pages, with color photos sprinkled throughout the book. Each page contains 2-4 recipes. Following each recipe is nutritional data.

The book’s back cover says that the book contains 350 recipes, with 16 menus that follow the American Heart Association’s dietary guidelines for meal planning.

Look at the first 2 sections of this book, ‘Living a Healthy Lifestyle’ and ‘Eating Right for a Healthy Heart’ (pages 8-37). The nutritional information on these pages is the foundation for what is listed in all of the recipes that follow.

Looking at these recipes, buyers of this book should update and personalize these recipes by: reducing or replacing sugar with something healthier; adding more herbs and spices to enhance flavor and getting rid of or cutting down salt; amping up fiber content; switching out margarine for EVOO, butter, and coconut oil (all healthier than margarine!) and making home-made salad dressings instead of buying and using commercial ones, etc. All of us make these adjustments to our older recipes to ensure that our recipes suit what we really want our diets to include now. We read labels, use natural ingredients, don’t use or drastically cut down on preservatives. We look at things like: HDLs and LDLs; maybe eating meat or not eating it; and maybe following keto (fat-based) diets instead of those that are carbohydrate-based. We look at current diets and practices: vegan; pegan; gluten-free; grass-feed sustainable meats, that are antibiotic-free; swapping beans for lentils, etc.

This book also includes some extra nutritional information boxes inside the book. For example, on page 132, there is a box labelled ‘Omega 3 – A Fat That’s Good for You’. Run an online search and check out all of the Omegas and see if they are good for you.

With more advanced technology available in 2018, we also have an ever-increasing array of different cooking methods other than the standard oven with burners that can be used to make these recipes. However, some of these methods are ancient and have just recently been hailed as important methods to use for cooking and retaining nutrients (like steaming and stir-frying). Newer methods include: air-frying; toaster ovens with convection (and air-frying, among other things [note the brands Cuisinart, Breville, etc.]); table-top pizza ovens (note the brands Presto Pizzazz Plus, Breville Crispy Crust Pizza Maker, etc.); induction cooktops; and smokeless, indoor grills.

Although this book was published before the spiralizing craze gripped the world, most of these recipes can be adjusted to incorporate spiralized vegetables into many of the book’s recipes. (See my review for the latest Brieftons spiralizer: https://www.amazon.com/Brieftons-7-Blade-Spiralizer-Strongest-Heaviest/dp/B077H84K13/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1528199641&sr=8-4&keywords=Brieftons+7-Blade+spiralizer&dpID=51XFY7lvWYL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch Brieftons 7-Blade Spiralizer: Strongest-and-Heaviest Duty Vegetable Spiral Slicer, Best Veggie Pasta Spaghetti Maker for Low Carb/Paleo/Gluten-Free, With Blade Caddy, Container, Lid & 3 Recipe Ebooks . As a culminating activity, watch me make home-made pizza at the end of the video with spiralized vegetables on a table-top pizza maker. The recipe is included in the written portion of the review.)

The editor of this book is Lisa A. Hooper.

The publisher of this book is Oxmoor House, Birmingham.

This is a nice cookbook. These recipes are easy to make; they can be adapted to using other, additional ingredients; and they can be nutritious, depending on updated information for diets.

Of my hundreds of cookbooks, this is absolutely my favorite. The cookbook begins with a section called "Living a Healthy Lifestyle", which is a tremendously helpful guide to making the right choices and eating for a healthier heart. Each recipe is easy to follow, simple to make, and doesn't require an all-day-affair to eat healthy choices. All of the recipes are delicious, and best of all healthy. Each recipe lists the grams of protein, fat and carbohydrates, along with the cholesterol and sodium. All of the resipes fall well below the recommended 200 mg cholesterol per day. There are even beautiful color photos of many of the recipes. I am a certified registered nurse anesthetist who firmly believes that no one can afford to pass this cookbook up! This is a must have for anyone with high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and for those who don't want to join the ranks of those who do.