Healthy eating: A variety of new books cater to nutrition needs
NEW YORK (AP) – Cooking isn’t always fun, or easy, when considerations other than good taste govern the choices cooks and diners make. Medical conditions that have to be cared for are one large category of special needs when it comes to meals. Cookbook writers can offer helpful ideas, and sometimes personal experiences. Most point out that their recipes are meant to be enjoyed by all the family, not just the individual for whom they may be tailored.
Here are a few examples from recent publications focusing on specifics of nutrition.
“Betty Crocker’s Living With Cancer” (Wiley, $24.95) takes a wide-ranging, upbeat approach to nutrition and eating well. It is written primarily for the recently diagnosed cancer patient, the introduction points out, but also for families, friends and those undergoing extended treatment.
Many of the recipes are contributed by cancer patients, with informed comment. The recipes come after introductory chapters of general information and advice from two oncologists and a nutritionist, in a sunny-looking, large-format book with plenty of color photos.
Among the 130 recipes, ranging from breakfasts to desserts, is this main dish beef-vegetable soup. It’s from MaryElaine W., who says soups like this one became one of her favorite foods as a cancer patient “because it went down so easily.”
An editors’ note explains that the recipe’s heavy cream is an easy high-calorie addition to soups, helpful for keeping up body weight.
BEEF-VEGETABLE SOUP
(Preparation 20 minutes, cooking time 3 hours 30 minutes)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 pounds beef shank cross-cuts or soup bones
1 medium onion, sliced (1 cup)
6 cups cold water
1 teaspoon salt
1 dried bay leaf
1 tablespoon pickling spice
101/2-ounce can condensed beef broth
2 medium potatoes, cubed (2 cups)
2 medium carrots, sliced (1 cup)
2 medium stalks celery, sliced (1 cup)
2 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 cup ketchup
15-ounce can sliced beets, drained, cut in half
3/4 cup whipping (heavy) cream
Heat oil in 4-quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook beef and onion in oil until beef is brown on both sides. Add water; heat to boiling. Skim foam from broth. Stir in salt, bay leaf and pickling spice; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 3 hours.
Remove beef from broth. Cool beef about 10 minutes or just until cool enough to handle. Strain broth; discard vegetables and seasonings. Remove beef from bones. Cut beef into 1/2-inch pieces. Skim fat from broth.
Add enough canned broth to broth from beef to measure 5 cups. Return broth and beef to Dutch oven. Stir in potatoes, carrots, celery, cabbage, ketchup and beets. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Cool 10 minutes. Stir in whipping cream.
Makes six 11/2-cup servings.
Nutrition information per serving: 330 cal., 17 g fat (7 g saturated fat), 75 mg chol., 1,090 mg sodium, 26 g carbo., 22 g pro.
“Diabetic Cooking for Seniors” (American Diabetes Association, $12.95 paperback) by diabetes educator and cookbook author Kathleen Stanley promises “delicious new ways to eat well, eat right.”
Its premise is that senior adults with diabetes face new challenges to diabetes care, the changes that come with aging – not the least of which is that cooking can come to seem like a big chore.
Advice about managing meal plans is combined with recipes organized around common nutritional needs, including reducing sodium, getting more calcium or fiber, or topping up flavor levels.
“Gluten-Free Baking” (Simon & Schuster, $27.50) by Rebecca Reilly is written by a trained chef-caterer, cooking teacher and nutritional consultant who is gluten-intolerant, as are her two children.
She has worked out some 125 gluten-free recipes for her book. They range from scone pizzas to spinach and colored pepper quiche, from Reilly’s chocolate chip cookies to strawberry cream cake.
She explains that she does not intend to revisit basic recipes such as those in the pioneering works of Bette Hagman, but hopes her book can encourage people to create baked goods that are beyond the basics.
Her tribute to Hagman coincides with the publication of Hagman’s own new work, “The Gluten-Free Gourmet Makes Dessert” (Henry Holt, $29). Hagman, diagnosed as a celiac some 25 years ago, has written four previous well-received cookbooks as the self-styled “Gluten-free Gourmet.”
Her latest offers more than 200 wheat-free recipes, so that the gluten-intolerant can feel able to end a meal with a mouthwatering sweet, like everyone else. Anyone for Christmas rum cake, streusel-filled banana coffee cake, or apple pudding?
Both Reilly and Hagman list useful tips, information, gluten-free products and suppliers.
“The Migraine Cookbook” (Marlowe & Co., $15.95 paperback) is by Michele Sharp, director of development and communications for the Migraine Association of Canada.
There is no known cure for migraine, she writes, “but understanding your triggers can help you take charge of your attacks.” Those triggers include certain foods and her cookbook, a collection of some 100 recipes, is organized to tackle the problem of avoiding those foods.
Recipes run the gamut from appetizers to desserts, and include sauces and drinks. Each recipe lists the triggers that haven’t been included among ingredients. On the black list of common triggers screened out of these recipes are caffeine, chocolate, citrus fruits, aged cheeses, red wine, MSG, nitrates, nuts, onions and garlic and yeast.
“Recipes for Dairy-Free Living” (Celestial Arts, $18.95 paperback) by Denise Jardine is based on the writer’s 10 years of dealing with her own lactose-intolerance, which had been diagnosed after years of suffering but not knowing about her dairy allergy.
She works as a production chef for Whole Foods Market, in northern California. “My goal is to help you learn about the wonderful alternatives to dairy,” she says in her introduction. Her recipes aim to re-create flavors and textures that dairy products would supply, she explains. They range from shepherd’s pie to salmon cakes with kiwi papaya salsa.
and include provision for exuberant holiday feasts.
“Beef Busters” (Adams Media Corp., $23.95) has been put together by nutritionist Marissa Cloutier and health writers Deborah S. Romaine and Eve Adamson. It includes a “plan for cutting beef in your diet,” featuring low-beef and no-beef recipes.
The writers advance multiple reasons for eating less beef. The difference from the other cookbooks reviewed here is that their reasons for adjusting diets do not stem from the same immediate medical necessity.
They suggest that it is a healthful move, however, quote research to support their views, and offer menus and recipes to put their plan into action.
“Encyclopedia of Foods: A Guide to Healthy Nutrition” (Academic Press, $29.95) marshals a wide body of information focusing on what we should be eating for our own good.
The hefty book describes itself as having been prepared by “medical and nutrition experts” from Mayo Clinic, the University of California-Los Angeles, and Dole Food Co.
It’s organized in two parts: Part I includes chapters on “optimizing” health, nutrients, food health connection, planning meals and recipes; Part II is the encyclopedia section, with listings, definitions, analyses and charts.
Both parts are well illustrated with color photos and other art work.