A Healthier Home Cook

I enjoy following Shawna on Instagram so I was eager to look through this book! I love the recipes included-they are healthy, flavorful, and attainable. They are also gluten free, which is how I cook meals for my family. Shawna gives great, straightforward tips on stocking a basic non-toxic kitchen as well as budget friendly tips for stocking your pantry and fridge. I appreciate how she reiterates the idea of little by little, changing your home to be a little less toxic. Don't immediately throw out your Teflon coated pans and drop hundreds on stainless steel, but as you use something up or it wears out, replace it, and slowly over time those small changes add up.

I love this cookbook! It's such a great guide to changing your lifestyle for the better, and becoming healthier. I have been a fan of Shawna for awhile and I love that she has shared her recipes with us. The book has high quality, wonderful photos and the recipes are very appealing and delicious looking, and make me want to strive for a better and healthier way of life. There's a lot of practical and realistic ways to cut processed food, chemicals, additives and more without losing flavor or taste or meals that will satisfy. It's a cookbook I know I will be reaching for time and time again!

Thank you to NetGalley, Shawna Holman, and Fair Winds Press for the eARC of this book.

A Healthier Home Cook offers so much advice for people looking to make a lifestyle change not only in what they cook, but how they cook. There was so much information about having a less toxic kitchen, ingredients, and how to make changes that are sustainable. The recipes look wonderful and only contain whole, recognizable ingredients. I'm particularly excited to make the soups and stews this fall and winter!

Some interesting, new recipes, which I'm certainly looking forward to trying. Personally, I am really drawn to a cookbook with photos of the expected dish, so I know what the expectations are. This book has excellent quality photos.

#netgalley #cooking #homecook

This book has so many great recipes! They are easy to follow and there are so many different options. I also love how it breaks down what time of materials you should be using in your kitchen.

Overall, the book was well written, captured my attention and I did really enjoy it. Thank you for this advance copy!

Loved this cookbook! I have Shawna Holman’s first book she wrote and I love it also. This book has simple cooking tips and the recipes all look so delicious! I am excited to try some of them.

In A Healthier Home Cook, Shawna Holman provides a practical guide to eating healthier by cutting out processed and chemically altered foods. The recipes are designed to make wholesome eating approachable, without sacrificing taste or enjoyment. With clear instructions and helpful tips for a cleaner lifestyle, this cookbook is perfect for anyone looking to improve their diet and embrace healthier, more natural ingredients. It’s a fantastic resource for those aiming to make lasting changes to their meals and habits!

I am really looking forward to trying more of the recipes from this book and have bookmarked more recipes than I can count which I don't always do. The recipes are all common enough that I know my whole family will enjoy them and the ingredients are easy to come by.

More than just the recipes though I really was impressed with all the knowledge the author shares in the beginning and throughout on how to use less toxins in our everyday life and cooking experience. It was stuff I hadn't already heard before, so I really appreciated that new knowledge!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC!

This is a cookbook that I will refer to often. Shawna Holman has created a comprehensive guide to cooking healthier. From her lists of less toxic materials to her recipes, A Healthier Home Cook has become my favorite recipe book of 2024. It's also an important reminder of the toxicity of our food and common kitchen materials.

A very nice cookbook bringing lots of new ideas to the table, so to speak! Good info on how to avoid toxic living too. Recommended.

The recipes look fantastic, as well as pretty straightforward. Each one includes a mouthwatering photo too, which I absolutely love. Shawna Holman explains the premise behind the book, making the idea of eating healthier easy. Now to try the many recipes that I have bookmarked!

For someone who loves cooking and is trying to find a way to make the recipes just a little more wholesome and healthy, this book is an absolute gem!
I loved that Shawna included the kitchen tool replacement chart at the very beginning of the book as that's something I often struggle with.
The variety of recipes is astonishing - each more mouth watering than the next. You get everything your heart desires - from something as simple as a yogurt granola bowl to something that will surely make your taste buds happy (like roasted asparagus and pecan salad, slushy bowls, and chicken pot pie). I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves the traditional recipes with a little twist.

I’m actively trying to consume fewer processed foods in my diet so this book really interested me. I didn’t know about using certain types of pans to make your cooking less toxic so that is something I’ll consider after reading this! The alternative options guide was really helpful.

I liked that the recipes were given in US and UK measurements as often you’ll only get US. The accompanying photographs are lovely and the majority of the recipes were ones I’d happily try. One to keep for sure! Thank you to Shawna Holman and Net-Galley for the opportunity to check out this cool book ahead of release.

Book Review: "A Healthier Home Cook: Whole Food Recipes, Techniques, and Tips for Families That Want to Eat A Little Less Toxic" by Shawna Holman

Shawna Holman’s second book, A Healthier Home Cook, is an essential guide for anyone looking to reclaim their kitchen from the influx of processed foods and chemicals that have become alarmingly commonplace in the modern diet. Holman, who gained a strong following from her first book A Healthier Home, continues her journey toward healthy, toxin-free living with a sharp focus on the heart of every home: the kitchen. In this book, she provides over 75 recipes, detailed techniques, and plenty of practical tips to help families transition to healthier, whole-food eating habits that are less reliant on commercial products filled with mystery ingredients.

A Timely Message
Holman’s A Healthier Home Cook is a response to a growing awareness that what we eat has significant implications for our well-being. According to Holman, the prevalence of chemicals in the food industry is staggering, and most consumers are unaware of how much processed, chemical-laden food they are consuming daily. Citing a 2017 publication by the National Institute of Health, Holman points out that the FDA regulates over 10,000 chemicals in food, but with only about 100 employees handling this massive responsibility, it’s no surprise that many potentially harmful substances slip through the cracks. The book, therefore, serves as both a wake-up call and a reassuring resource: while we cannot control everything that goes into the food system, we can control what happens in our kitchens.

From the Basics to Full Meals
One of the most appealing aspects of Holman’s approach is her thoroughness and accessibility. The book begins with a basics chapter that lays out the foundation for making your kitchen a healthier space. This includes shopping guides that help readers identify the safest and healthiest materials for cookware, storage, and utensils—an often overlooked part of the healthy cooking equation. This level of detail makes A Healthier Home Cook not just a recipe collection, but a full guide to building a toxin-free kitchen environment.

The core of the book is, of course, the recipes. Divided into intuitive sections such as "Nourishing Breakfasts," "Substantial Salads and Bowls," "Warming Soups and Stews," and "Heartier Dishes," the recipes offer a wide variety of options for different times of day, tastes, and dietary preferences. Holman manages to cover everything from familiar family meals to exciting, globally inspired dishes. A few highlights include:

Nourishing Breakfasts: With options like Cast-Iron Dutch Baby Pancake with Warm Berry Compote and DIY Acai Bowls, breakfast becomes more than just the most important meal of the day; it’s a chance to start your morning with intention and nourishment. These dishes strike a perfect balance between indulgence and wholesomeness.

Substantial Salads and Bowls: Holman elevates the humble salad into something much more substantial with recipes like the Sonoma-Style Chicken Salad Bowl and Mediterranean-Style Pasta Salad. These are not your typical side salads—they’re hearty, flavorful, and designed to stand as a meal on their own.

Heartier Dishes: For those who crave more substantial fare, recipes like Chicken Pot Pie and Mississippi Pot Roast deliver comforting, satisfying meals while staying true to the book’s focus on whole, minimally processed ingredients.

Beyond Just Recipes: A Guide to Smarter Choices
What makes A Healthier Home Cook stand out from other cookbooks is its integration of healthy living principles into the cooking process itself. Holman goes beyond just giving you recipes—she provides the reasoning and techniques that can help families adopt a healthier lifestyle long-term. For instance, she encourages readers to avoid overly processed store-bought items by including DIY versions of popular staples such as granola, bread, and salad dressings, where you have full control over what goes into your food.

The shopping guides are particularly useful, offering advice on how to choose the safest cookware, the best materials for food storage, and tips on reading labels to identify hidden harmful chemicals in everyday kitchen products. Holman also offers a range of helpful hacks for home cooks, such as making your own bone broth, growing your own herbs, and creating simple, wholesome snacks for kids.

Recipes with Purpose
One of the major strengths of A Healthier Home Cook is that the recipes are designed not only to taste good but to serve a purpose. The ingredients are chosen with health in mind, aiming to nourish the body while minimizing exposure to toxins. From the nutrient-dense Sprouted Lentil Soup with Spinach to the indulgent yet clean Grain-Free Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Holman’s recipes reflect her understanding that food should be both delicious and beneficial to our well-being.

In this sense, Holman’s book isn’t about strict dieting or deprivation—it’s about fostering a healthier relationship with food. She acknowledges that eating well can be enjoyable and satisfying, debunking the myth that healthy cooking has to be bland or overly complicated.

Family-Friendly and Accessible
Another major appeal of A Healthier Home Cook is its family-friendly focus. The book is clearly designed for busy families who want to make better food choices but need recipes that are approachable, budget-conscious, and easy to integrate into daily life. The use of everyday ingredients, practical techniques, and relatively simple instructions make this book ideal for home cooks at all levels. Whether you’re an experienced chef or a beginner, Holman’s recipes are designed to be accessible, allowing anyone to improve their health without feeling overwhelmed.

A Call to Action: One Plate at a Time
Holman’s message is clear: the road to better health starts in the kitchen, one plate at a time. Her warm and encouraging tone invites readers to make gradual changes rather than feel pressured to overhaul their entire diet overnight. The emphasis on sustainability—both in terms of environmental impact and long-term personal health—gives the book a sense of balance and realism.

Final Thoughts
A Healthier Home Cook* is much more than a cookbook—it’s a lifestyle guide for those who want to eat better and live healthier lives. Shawna Holman has created a resource that not only inspires change but also makes it attainable. With its comprehensive advice on kitchen essentials, practical cooking tips, and a wide variety of delicious, wholesome recipes, this book is an invaluable addition to any kitchen. Whether you’re looking to reduce the toxins in your family’s meals or simply want to enjoy food that makes you feel good inside and out, A Healthier Home Cook provides the tools, knowledge, and inspiration to make it happen.

So many great looking recipes that look easy enough with common ingredients. As a mom of 3, lots of new ideas and am excited to get started!

I really loved this cookbook! From the start, the cover and title caught my attention and made me eager to learn more. The recipes are simple and appetizing. Some include more expensive ingredients, like scallops, but nearly every other recipe is full of ingredients that are inexpensive and easy to find.

I have made a few recipes so far and I’m extremely impressed. My favorite has been the homemade Catalina salad dressing on taco salads. I can’t wait to continue to make more recipes. It’s nice to have decisions made for me in that nearly every recipe in this cookbook would be a hit for both me and my family. I had never heard of this author before, but I now follow her on social media as well and I really enjoy her content.

A Healthier Home Cook is a cookbook that focuses on homemade foods to replace all the processed, chemically altered foods. These recipes are gluten free and dairy free for the most part, and I do not follow those diets. Still there are plenty of recipes that I would like to try. These recipes are also very inspiring to replace all those processed foods that I could actually make myself. All in all this really is a great cookbook, now I just need to try these recipes.

I don't usually review cook books, but I actually read/use a lot of them through my public library! This book has all the things I like in a cookbook:

•clear, good-looking photos of all the food for each recipe (I actually won't even look at a cookbook that doesn't have color photos for all the recipes - I want to see what I'm going to be making/eating!)

•easy to navigate layout and instructions

•many of the recipes have an option for using a slow cooker/instant pot

•healthy (but not bland or boring) versions of comfort food and culturally diverse dishes.

The focus of this cookbook isn't just healthy eating, but healthy cooking. The author gives tips on how to eliminate plastics and toxic cooking tools from your kitchen. As someone that is newer to cooking and also invested in clean/green/toxin-free living, I especially appreciated the substitution chart for common kitchen items - using bamboo or silicone cooking utensils, ceramic coated pans instead of non-stick etc.

The author's tone is encouraging and uplifting, never preachy. She advocates for making small changes as you can. Also the recipes and ingredients feel accessible to a down-to-earth home cook like me - the recipes aren't bogged down with specialty ingredients or fancy minimalist plating. Recipes include substantial salads and soups/stews, family favorites like chili, meatloaf, chicken pot pie. Full disclosure, I'm not a baker so I never read the desert section, but it looks like there's a few tasty treats in there.

Bottom line, right off the bat there's about a half-dozen recipes that I'd try. After going through countless cookbooks at the library, that makes this one a winner for me. Think I might try the pot roast first!

If you're ready to ditch processed foods and embrace wholesome eating, A Healthier Home Cook is your new kitchen companion! Shawna Holman serves up over 75 delicious recipes that focus on whole-body health, making it easy to cook tasty meals without the mystery chemicals found in many store-bought products.

The book kicks off with helpful shopping guides and kitchen essentials, setting you up for success right from the start. You'll find a variety of mouthwatering recipes, from hearty breakfasts like Dutch baby pancakes to substantial salads, warming soups, and even sweets like grain-free carrot cake.

Whether you want to swap out packaged foods or simply explore new wholesome meal ideas, this cookbook makes healthy cooking approachable and fun. It’s all about nourishing your body, one delicious plate at a time!

This cookbook was a breath of fresh air, the more you look into food labels, and the things being pumped into our food… The more scared I become for the future health of myself and my family. Every recipe in this book was so fresh. And appealing, I can’t wait to cook my way through this book all while improving the health of my home.

This is my kind of cookbook! Scrumptious, and simple to create recipes that are full of complex flavors. I think the author's perspective on health and nutrition is sensible and reasonable for most people, and I love the way this book is organized: Welcome to A Little Less Toxic Kitchen, Nourishing Breakfasts, Substantial Salads and Bowls, Warming Soups and Stews, Lighter Plates, Heartier Dishes, Sweets and Sips. I appreciate that the recipe photos are of the food, not of people (as unfortunately seems to be the trend these days). I think this is a fantastic cookbook to have on your shelf if you are looking for tasty, healthy, and family-pleasing dishes.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group – Fair Winds for gifting me with an ARC to review. All opinions are my own.

This book is a lovely reminder of the deliciousness we can achieve while still being very mindful of our health.

Photography in this book is beautiful, and the colourful plates of food appear absolutely synonymous with healthful eating. In a world where we are increasingly aware of the dangers of ultra processed foods, a book such as this that focuses on using whole foods is highly helpful.

The recipes themselves are categorised according to whether they are: breakfast, salads/bowls, soups/stews, lighter plates, heartier dishes and sweets/sips.

The book starts with suggested equipment and basic pantry supplies followed by tips from the author to help us all make mealtimes a little less toxic.

The recipes themselves look beautiful varied and nutritious. Practical family life is considered, and as such recipes such as the 'kid-friendly taco boats' are likely to be a hit with families.

For those of us with a sweet tooth, some lovely recipes are featured including the rather delicious 'chocolate puddling with raw honey whipped cream'. - I am 100% sold!!

Helpfully imperial and metric units of measurement are featured negating the need to mess about with conversion tables.

All in all a lovely book to inspire, enjoy and promote less toxicity!

My thanks to Netgalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an advance copy.

A great book with lots of useful recipes, tips and guidance on eating whole foods and creating healthier meals. The book is well set out and I would recommend it

I have been trying to incorporate less toxic pantry items and meals for a while, so when I saw this cookbook on Netgalley, I knew I immediately had to request it. I am so glad Netgalley approved me because this is perfect for any homecook trying to be more toxin free. This cookbook includes so many nutritious meals that also taste really great! Our favorite so far is Mediterranean Style Pasta Salad. It was so easy to follow and tasted so good!

My daughter also went through it with me and has already picked out recipes she would like to try as well. It really makes me happy that this cookbook can help us have a healthier mindset and that my daughter is excited about it as well. Some other standout recipes are French Toast Casserole, Damien's Mineral Rich Chicken Noodle, and Mississippi Pot Roast. This  would make an excellent gift for anyone trying to make better choices in the kitchen. I really can't recommend it enough.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great cookbook. The recipes are delicious and I really appreciated the balanced approach to healthier eating.

I've followed Shawna for several years now on IG and of course I was so excited to get an ARC of her new cookbook!!!

All the recipes look amazing and I can't wait to try so many of them! She makes healthier cooking sound achievable and not intimidating at all!

10/10 go get it for your kitchen!