The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook: 80 Delicious Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes Made Easy with the Glycemic Index

The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook: 80 Delicious Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes Made Easy with the Glycemic Index
List Price: CDN$ 24.95
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Diet for a Small Planet (20th Anniversary Edition)
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Customer Review: Isn’t it ironic?
I haven’t seen this cookbook in years, but today I went into a “whole foods supermarker” to look for an item that isn’t carried by my regular grocery chain, and seeing all the organic stuff carried me back on a nostalgic trip to the late 1970s. I was living in a group house on a farm-like piece of land, and my housemates and I were playacting at the hippie lifestyle. So, it was brown rice and tofu and compost heaps all the way, and this cookbook was a staple of the house. As I recall, the dishes that resulted from most of those recipes ended up tasting fairly foul, but we pretended it didn’t matter; instead, we’d say that they tasted “earthy”. hahaha. The premise of this book was that there were a very limited amount of resources on the earth, and by eating meat we Americans were consuming more than “our fair share”, at the expense of others in the Third World. Well, we now know differently. There’s more than enough food to feed everyone on earth (and the population has practically doubled in the last 30 years!). Sure, there are many people who are hungry, but that is largely due to political and economic circumstances. Instead, the most pressing public health issue worldwide is…Ta Da! AN EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY!! Who would have imagined it?? Certainly not all the shrill chicken-little types in the 60s and 70s who were screaming that we’d all be starving in the future, or at least eating Soylent Green. And we also know that protein is not even that necessary - certainly a portion is required in the diet, but too much is overkill, and is not needed by the body (or may even be harmful). So, forget about trying to make another extra serving of protein - instead, the healthiest thing to do is to refrain from consuming too many refined carbohydrates. Too much of anything is bad. Alfalfa sprouts - those used to be the “golden touch” of health food, but if you eat those in excess, it can cause health problems. (Just try to feed a cow an all-alfalfa hay diet, and prepare for a hefty vet bill!) Yes, this book is nice and quaint, but it’s an anachronism. Oh, and forget about it being “cheap” to base your diet on a lot of dairy products - the prices on those are shooting through the roof now (mid-2004), and soon a hunk of plain domestic cheese will cost more than the equivalent amount of prime beef.
Customer Review: A case for free range - not vegetarianism
I decided to read this book after reading about it in Peter Singer’s “Practical Ethics”. I thought that it was going to be a real cow hugging grass-munching type of book. Boy was I wrong. It turns out that this book is 98% multi-national corporation/ government/ modern ranching bashing. Her research is quite extensive and thorough. She makes a solid case for the need to change the way we do things. Unfortunately, after almost 35 years of being in print, the “revolution” spoken of on the cover hasn’t managed to change much. Change of the type she wants usually only comes from one of two things, big money figuring that it can profit from the change or bloody revolution. Neither one seems near. In the 2% of the book where she talks about human biology, our nutrition and evolution, not only is it not well referenced, but also she gets it wrong. Now to be fair, she may have done her research on this in the 60’s and has just not bothered to follow up. Also, some of the modern research has been published well after the book. Still, there was enough information out there beforehand for her to have studied further. Her statement that we evolved living on mostly plants is absolutely false. Anthropologists and archaeologists can tell us three things about prehistoric humans. First is that by changing our diet to mostly meat, we were able to grow our brains. Second is that the tools they find in early human and pre-human sites are all for processing of meat. Finally, it is easy to tell the difference between pre and post agricultural settlements. Before agriculture humans were taller, had healthier bones and no cavities. When it comes to diet, two recent studies of the Atkins diet have shown that a high protein, high fat, low carb diet not only helps you loose weight faster, but keeps your cholesterol down too. All in all high on complaining, low on solutions. However, in light of some of her facts and the recent mad cow scare, I am thinking of switching to free range beef.

Essential Flow Yoga for Every Body
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21 Pounds in 21 Days: The Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox
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Low-fat Cranberry Muffins with Apple-Peach Sauce
Muffins

2 c. whole wheat or unbleached white flour

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1 banana

3 tablespoon tofu

1/5 c. oil

1/4-1/2 c. brown sugar or maple syrup

1 1/2 c. lowfat soy milk or rice milk

Dried cranberries

Combine dry ingredients. Blend tofu and banana together in food processor or blender

untill smooth. Combine wet ingredients. Mix wet and dry together thoroughly and stir

in cranberries. Spoon into greased muffin tin. Fill each muffin mold 3/4 full. Bake

at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Apple-Peach Sauce

3 or 4 medium-sized, ripe peaches
3 ripe apples or 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
Core and slice apples and peaches (peel if desired), and place in a saucepan

(covered) with 1 teaspoon water, on medium heat. Cook until “sauce-y”, stirring

periodically. Mash, and serve hot on muffins. If you use applesauce, add when

peaches are just beginning to become tender.