Information overload! Wow so awesome! The first half of the book is just information on inflammation and foods. The second half is meal plans and recipes. The recipes are easily followed and tons of pictures. Highly recommend!

Meals that Heal - One Pot is a recipe book aimed at reducing inflammation via the concept of simplifying the cooking process by using only one pot (or sheet pan, air fryer etc.). The author does know her stuff and the book is filled with useful information and advice. However the recipes are not always simple and not always only using one pot. The book is well organised and varied and there are so many different types of recipes that there will be something for everyone. There are colourful pictures, and lots of easy symbols used for classification. Overall a good useful recipe book.

Meal That Heal - One Pot
4 Stars

What makes Meals That Heal different from other anti-inflammatory books I've read is its step-by-step directions, colorful pictures, and tips for where to begin. It covers how to set achievable goals and get started. The biggest difference I noticed is I didn't feel overwhelmed because the author addressed my concerns before I had them.

I found the first chapter of this book to be very informative and a great resource. The author does a great job explaining the inflammation cycle and plans to decrease inflammation in our bodies. I liked the tips and tricks to increase veggies in one's diet. The processed meat section was hair-raising and eye-opening! I found the section that suggests alternatives to staple dishes for mealtime very helpful. I've tried several recipes from this book and found them easy to follow and tasty.

Overall, this is a great book & resource. I plan to purchase a physical copy for my library. I struggled with the digital copy text size. Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

MEALS THAT HEAL – ONE POT by Carolyn Williams is subtitled "100+ Recipes for Your Stovetop, Sheet Pan, Instant Pot, and Air Fryer—Reduce Inflammation for Whole-Body Health." I have used many recipes from Williams’ earlier work, Meals that Heal, but was disappointed by the difficulties of downloading the preview of this new title. She typically limits the number and type of ingredients, making healthy cooking "simple and achievable." No doubt the use of only one pot per recipe adds to the appeal. Since I was not able to view the preview, I will give this title a neutral rating of 3 stars and will make every effort to update this review if the downloading issues are resolved.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this great book. This well-researched and well-written book provides a wealth of information about inflammation, anti-inflammatory foods, how to make a change and adapt an anti-inflammatory diet, as well as many recipes as a starting point. I liked the simplicity of layout and easy to understand language to explain different concepts.

I was interested in reading this cookbook when I saw the cover, I did not know how expansive and detailed it would be. You can tell the author is a nutritionist with the explanations about inflammation and food that affect your health. About 100 pages in is where you will start seeing the recipes, which shows how thorough this cookbook is. I like that every recipe has the label of Gluten Free, Low Carb, Vegan, Vegetarian,Dairy Free, No Cook, Prep ahead and etc. I also liked the explanations about complex carbs and fats and oils. This is not just a cookbook but also a lifestyle guide and would be a great book for a health nut.

This book had very colorful photos of the recipes. I enjoyed being able to see children's hands doing the actual cooking. Giving advice on the tools needed to do the cooking was a good idea, but it was not great to see things like "serrated knives are sharp, get an adult!," after the recipe ended. A safety tip like that should come at the very top of a recipe. Kids won't know that they're going to need an adult for knife safety until it's too late. I also think that the photos that are showing specific steps of the recipe should be numbered to match the step of the recipe.

This is a well-researched, informative, and accessible book for implementing anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle changes.

The first few (researched and referenced) chapters explain the science behind different types of inflammation and provide lots of guidance for minimizing inflammation. I particularly liked the "Jump Start" sections, which had quick and easy suggestions that extended beyond nutrition.

The recipes are simple but colorful and flavorful. A range of dietary preferences in covered and this is done in a much cleaner way than other cookbooks I have seen (meaning there are simple notes at the end rather than dozens of paragraphs in the instructions).

There are some liberties taken with the "one pot" concept. For example, dressings are instructed to be mixed in a separate container, when they could be easily made first in the mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients added after. I also wanted to see more "set it and forget it" Instant Pot recipes.

I appreciate that there were symbols categorizing meals by cooking method and dietary restriction, but the way they were designed wasn't particularly helpful. They are made to look like periodic elements, which is confusing when you know and associate the actual period elements. It would be much more helpful to have different colors or graphics to distinguish between the categories, including distinction between cooking method and dietary preference.

Thank you to the The Experiment and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy for me to review!

This is a huge book with a lot of information that's easily "digested" -- lots of info about inflammation, lots of big bold text, charts, etc. The recipes all contain nutritional information and every one has a full page photo. I love all of that.

There are also codes on top to tell you if they're low carb, vegan, etc. These are less effective, in part because they're all the same color so it's just a bunch of light green letters, and also because it feels a little sketchy. For instance, a shrimp dish is marked vegan because in the notes it tells you how to cook tofu and substitute it for the shrimp. Well, you can substitute vegan ingredients in any recipe. Also, the instructions call for just blotting plain tofu and frying cubes of it which shows me this is not an author very familiar with vegan cooking. For goodness sake, press and marinade it to make it taste great. Who wants wet, plain fried tofu? This is why so many people think tofu tastes bad.

The recipes mostly use whole foods, though there is a fair amount of calling for things like ranch dressing powder, which tends to be full of chemicals. There is also no talk about avoiding GMOs or other products I'd personally avoid while trying to heal. GMO products tend to be very high in glyphosate (Roundup) even if you don't have concerns about anything else related to them, and scientists are pretty unanimous that glyphosate interferes with the healthy bacteria in the gut.

I didn't really feel that these were especially healing recipes for the most part, but they are generally fairly healthy ones. I would have expected a lot of fermented foods and while the author says they're important for healing she offers almost none in her recipes. Likewise, bone broth is used occasionally but it's not a big ingredient. These are mostly very nice recipes with whole foods and healthy foods, just not necessarily "healing" rock stars. Also, while they can use appliances like air fryers and Instant Pots, they're mostly just simple recipes with alternate directions where you can use one of these.

Three stars for "liked it" for me.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

I enjoyed all the research at the start of this book as it gave me insight I didn't already have. The recipes looked delicious and simple enough for me to try them. I do have to change them up as I follow the FODMAP dietary requirements but I was still able to take a lot of inspo from this book.

Meals that Heals is a great starter book for anyone who is wanting to clean up their diet and introduce anti inflammatory foods. The start of the book goes into great details about inflammation. But where I have a little issue is in the recipes itself...the use of peanuts and sugar. Don't get me wrong I love the taste of peanuts/peanut butter, but peanuts even though they in themselves don't cause inflammation. People aren't usually aware that peanuts are prone to moulds and fungus - aflatoxins will cause a inflammatory response within the body. I also noticed in her dessert section she uses sugar. This is why I gave it 3 stars.