Member Reviews
I appreciated the plethora of healthy and immunity-boosting anti-inflammatory recipes that actually sound good. I've been searching for new breakfast ideas that will not just give my son and me a sugar rush, and these look attainable, fast, and delicious. An excellent option as a cookbook and reference book and perhaps vital for those who need to newly adapt to an anti-inflammatory diet.
The Anti-Inflammatory Family Cookbook is tutorial guide and recipe collection with family friendly recipes to reduce inflammation and support gut health. Due out 3rd Feb 2021 from Simon & Schuster on their Adams Media imprint, it's 256 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This book is a nice resource, especially for family dinners where one (or more) members are trying to adhere to a special diet, in this case inflammatory conditions or auto immune diseases as well as having a very strong emphasis on starting kids off with healthy and wise food choices from an early age (babies - toddlers).
Approximately the first 30% of the book is a (mostly) layman accessible discussion of the body's inflammatory physiological responses to stress and irritation. There are a number of useful charts and lists of food additives and their possible effects on the body (and where to find them as well as how to avoid them). The recipe notations include codes for gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free etc. The recipe section is arranged thematically: spice blends & sauces, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides, snacks, desserts, and beverages.
Each of the recipes includes an introductory description, ingredients listed in a bullet point sidebar (US measurements only, though there's a conversion chart in the back of the book), step by step instructions, as well a sidebar with nutritional info. I would estimate roughly 10% of the recipes are accompanied by photographs. The photos provided are high quality and clear and serving suggestions are attractive and appropriate.
The recipe ingredients themselves are easily sourced and will be available at most well stocked grocery stores. There are a very few ingredients which might be a little more difficult to source, but definitely nothing that is 'way out there'.
One way this collection distinguishes itself is in the chapter notes and appendices. There's an impressive amount of peer-reviewed research linked supporting the conclusions and recommendations in the text. Readers can certainly simply utilize the recipes without any need to dig deeper, but the keenly curious reader will find a wealth of extra information for further study. The book also includes a cross referenced index, but no recipe or ingredient index apart from those integrated into the main index.
All in all, very well written, beautifully presented food, made from (mostly) unprocessed raw ingredients which are easily sourced and taste good.
Four stars, we'll be revisiting this cookbook. For families with young children or toddlers, this one would have more relevance.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Very nice book with 100 great recipes! There are lots of good information about food and anti inflammatory foods in the beginning and then comes the recipes. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review
This is a great book for those looking to include more anti inflammatory foods in their families diet. I liked that there was a through intro and included tons of tips for including your kids in the kitchen and with the food choices. The recipes were interesting, lots of classic recipes turned healthier. This book is plant focused which I loved as it makes it easily adaptable for specific dietary needs. I would have liked to see some more photos and some more creative recipes.
This cool box was great! I enjoyed the recipes and focus on inflammation and can’t wait to try some of the recipes.
Thanks to Adams Media and NetGalley for a copy to honestly review.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. Im not normally one to read and review a cookbook but some health issues this year resulted in a diagnosis of Hashimotos disease and the beginning of my journey on an anti inflammatory diet journey. This book is a wealth of recipes for those of us who are limited in what we can eat. Having so many new options that are easy, tasty, and well detailed make it so much simpler to plan my weekdays and what we will cook now. I would caution that not all recipes are fully AIP compliant. Many are not suitable during the initial elimination phase but there are a ton of options that are and a wealth of them that fit for those of us beginning to test add items back in.
There is also a great amount of info in the beginning to help you understand the why behind this diet and what works and what will not. I am really glad I got this book and plan on recommending it to several people I know.
An excellent option as a cookbook and reference book and perhaps vital for those who need to newly adapt to an anti-inflammatory diet. The early sections on spice and staple alternatives was particularly useful. The meals overall, however, were unappealing -- but I fear that might be the result of the limitations of the diet, rather than the recipes themselves.
This cookbook is full of recipes that I can't quite imagine my son eating (he is the pickiest of picky eaters) but I appreciated the information on how to help him overcome some of that pickiness through gradual and consistent introduction of foods. Nothing shocking, but written in a different way which was helpful! I appreciated the plethora of healthy and immunity-boosting anti-inflammatory recipes that actually sound good. I've been searching for new breakfast ideas that will not just give my son and me a sugar rush, and these look attainable, fast, and delicious. I also think the dessert section is strong- but am less convinced by some of the main meals. I will just have to try more of the recipes to see! Four stars for a great entry into any family's repertoire with a solid front-matter of information and good-looking recipes.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for this unbiased review.
This is a good guide to anti-inflammatory foods and how they help the health of both kids and adults with a number of issues. It goes into a lot of details and also discusses how to get kids to eat them, which we know can be one of the hardest parts. The second half of the book is recipes. The book does feel like a textbook at times but it contains a lot of information. The recipes are easily adapted to gluten free, dairy free, etc. and many are vegetarian. Photos are provided for some but not a lot. Nutritional information is provided for every recipe. Many of the recipes will work well for folks who are paleo, gluten free, vegetarian, vegan and generally even keto (with modifications at times, of course). I especially appreciated the recipes for spice blends and oils that you can add to recipes you already make. Many of the recipes are going to be a big change for some families, but you can ease into it and start with ones that are more like the ones they're used to. The tips will be helpful in adapting the palates of your family members.
I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.
I was excited to request this book as I am very interested in incorporating new healthy food ideas in our family's repertoire and the "Anti-Inflammatory" tag caught my eye. For me, I was underwhelmed. This book may work very well for others but I will detail a little of where it fell short personally. From the start to 1/3 the way in is done in textbook style writing without including any recipes, there is a lot of information on why you want to eat whole foods and avoid sugar, chemicals, etc, but I wasn't expecting it to have so much information without the recipes interspersing and coordinating with the info or not have the information displayed in a more visually appealing way. Within this was my other problem, my children are young adults but we are still a family and I felt that a very large percentage of this information was geared towards young children and babies, getting them to try food, avoiding allergies, discussing different young age groups and unfortunately this isn't something relevant to the stage of my family right now.
Then the recipes, there weren't too many that jumped out at me as things I don't already make a version of or excite me to try, maybe a handful. Also the pictures I felt could have been staged a bit more vibrantly. I was just a bit underwhelmed. Young parents who are starting out and have the challenges ahead of them of learning how to teach their young children about nutrition and ensuring that babies and toddlers are getting the best food for them may get much more out of this then I did as it did have quite a lot of detailed information so I did round it up to 3 stars for that.
Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
While this cookbook provided a wealth of knowledge on what causes inflammatory triggers it dives too deeply on the medical piece. When the author finally gets to the recipes there are barely any pictures to compare it to and ingredients are not common. Not what I was looking for.
Excellent treasure trove of knowledge! The beginning fleshes out explanation and useful knowledge associated with different ingredients. Gives helpful charts of the basic anti inflammitory food chart. From there on dive right in to recipes. The beginning hashes out really useful spice that are both savory and sweet.
Some of the recipes I've bookmarked for later. Baked tofu square with peanut and the chilled rooibos te concoction look fabulous. A very well thought out and put together food guide book, though I wish there were more photographs.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this free digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This is a anti inflammatory cookery book aimed at children and families but as I have endometriosis and have previously been advised to take up an anti inflammatory diet it caught my eye. It’s Informative and the recipes are simple yet interesting. With today’s diet of fast and processed food I think this book is aimed at everyone as a lot of these foods have unnecessary additives that cause many health issues. This book doesn’t have the sleek, glossy layout of regular cookbooks but it’s still fresh and tasty looking.
Thanks to Adams Media and NetGalley for the advanced copy