ahealthything.com

Review by Lorraina for LOWFAT & FAST! Real Food for Busy People
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Should have read what is was more closely. Vcr tape outdated should have been cheaper.

Review by Holly Teicholtz for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World
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In my years of subscribing to the HG Web site and now using this book, it has occurred to me that there are many different philosophies of dieting and weight loss/maintenance. There are WAY more than two, but for the purposes of this review I am going to boil it down:

1. Eat super healthy, nonprocessed, preferably organic foods. Make whole grains, fruits and veggies the mainstays of your diet. Severely curtail fats, oils and sugar. When you want to indulge, enjoy one small portion of something “real” — i.e. one sliver of chocolate cake, one square of dark chocolate, one cookie, or the like. [And exercise.] People who follow this approach are probably more likely to never snack between meals (or eat only fruits and veggies as snacks), avoid “100-calorie-packs,” eschew artificial sweeteners and diet sodas, etc.

2. Follow the above philosophy to the extent that your time and lifestyle allow, but lean on processed low-cal foods to (a) save cooking/prep time and (b) enjoy modified versions of the “junky” foods you feel deprived of when you are dieting or have to eat low-cal in order to maintain your weight. [And exercise.] People who take this approach are probably the lion’s share of 100-calorie-pack purchasers, more likely to use artificial sweeteners, drink diet sodas, and so on.

What you have to understand about HG author Lillen is that her Web site and book are tools for those who adopt approach #2. She states repeatedly that she isn’t a nutritionist or a dietitian, and she makes no claim for the “healthfulness” of her recipes. They do lean on processed ingredients and tend to contain a lot of sodium, artificial sweetener and chemical ingredients. What they offer is a similar flavor experience to the very high-cal foods lots of people like, with much lower calorie and fat counts (and often more fiber as well).

But for those who would knock this approach (while you certainly retain the moral high ground as organic eating becomes something akin to spiritual cleanliness in more and more people’s minds), please bear in mind that for some of us, our eating is always going to be a trade-off in terms of risk. I speak from experience as someone who has maintained a 100-lb. weight loss for over 10 years. For whatever reason, my body processes food in such a way that I gain weight exceptionally easily. I have to be CONSTANTLY vigilant about what I am putting in my mouth and how I am counterbalancing it with exercise. If I relax my vigilance for even a couple of days, it shows up on my body. As a (reformed) compulsive overeater I struggle with eating just one cookie, tiny sliver of cake, etc., every couple of weeks. (Yes, it is true, I would often rather have a larger portion of something that actually isn’t AS good as the real thing.) And if you think that this behavior is not incredibly challenging to sustain for a lifetime, you just don’t know whereof you speak.

So personally, while I certainly do my best to eat truly healthy, skip sugar, keep fat and meat intake to a minimum, and eat lots of whole grains and fruits/veggies, I salute HG for giving me recipes that allow me to “let my hair down” and enjoy some fun foods along with the rest of the world, without having to lie awake at night and worry about what I ate for lunch.

For the record, among my favorite HG recipes are the butternut squash fries, the turkey reuben and the fettucine “girl-fredo.”

Review by W. Mate for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World
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I really, really wanted to like this book, partly because of Hungry Girl’s easy, breezy style. I had been forewarned by one of the recipes that appeared on the HG website (for mock French onion soup) that I never made again, but since I am always searching for good low-points WW recipes, I thought I’d give the book a try.

So far, I’ve made a handful of the recipes, all of which have resulted in varying degrees of disappointment as is most often the case when making mock foods. For instance, the mock chocolate peanut butter fudge (a potentially promising combination of brownie mix, canned pumpkin and peanut butter) counts on a tiny bit of peanut butter to mask what turns out to be the much too prominent taste of pumpkin. I admit that one small piece was quite filling, but at the price of sitting in my stomach for hours like a rock. Even the non-mock recipes, like the “Yummy, Yummy Eggplant Goo,” are largely poorer versions of better recipes that are just as low in fat and calories as the HG version.

The cutesy recipe titles are somewhat grating (which would have been easily overlooked if the recipes were good) and the author’s descriptions of the finished products won’t measure up unless you have fairly dull taste buds and an overactive imagination.

If you just want to stuff yourself with mock and/or fiber-filled recipes and don’t really care what the food tastes like, then this is your book. My bet is that most people will try a few of the recipes before deciding that it is better to have occasional smaller portions of real food.

Review by TruthTeller for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World
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I have mixed thoughts about the Hungry Girl Book. If you like her web site, you will like the book.

The benefit of the book is that it provides one with suggestions for swapping high calorie, high fat ingredients with lower calorie, lower or fat-free ingredients. The recipes are also very quick and easy.

The problems with the book are; 1) It relies on A LOT of processed ingredients with nutritionally empty, artificial ingredients – e.g. it is okay and healthy to eat low-fat natural cheese and a whole grain hamburger bun instead of plastic pieces of Fat free American cheese with an overprocessed, white flour, tasteless low calorie hamburger bun 2) There is an overemphasis on getting the calories down as far as possible – interesting, catchy approach to draw people to the book, but IT IS AT THE EXPENSE OF TASTE AND NUTRITION 3) Some of the recipes are not “recipes” – I do not need to be told to use low calorie bread, fat-fat cheese, and lean meat to create a sandwich 4) The descriptions are overly enthusiastic – they will not taste that good. It eventually makes you less willing to believe what she is selling after a while. 5) Hungry Girl has financial tie-ins with certain food products (I don’t know if I am allowed to name them by brand), like those shirataki noodles (her picture is on them) and muffins (she has her own flavors). This biases her suggestions and swaps – there are better options available. 6) Most of the swaps that she suggests and similar recipes are available already on her web site. If you want to modify one of your favorites, you can find all sorts of swaps on her site or around the internet.

Review by Kim H. for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World
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Well, I had really high hopes for this book, but if you’re looking to actually be healthy, and enjoy your food, and live a healthy lifestyle long-term, this probably isn’t the book for you. Too many weird chemical and tofu substitutions. Even the recipes that seemed promising didn’t really taste good when I actually made them. A MUCH better book is “The Most Decadent Diet Ever” by Devin Alexander. She uses real food that you can live with forever. Her “Chocolate Not Only In Your Dreams Cake”, is absolutely to die for, and it has real brown sugar, not splenda, 5 grams of fiber (without adding fiber one cereal), tastes totally indulgent, and you get a real life size portion for 3 weight watchers points! Now that’s what I’m talking about!!! And it was easy to make to boot!

Review by Victoria M. Edwards for Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World
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This is an absolutely charming, informative and imaginative book for anybody, female or otherwise, looking to eat better. Hungry Girl started out as a helpful website and just exploded from there and the excitement of having a new book to reach and assist wider audiences is present throughout the work.

The usual standards of recipes – soups, salads, entrees, party foods, desserts, etc. – are there, most with information on just why this is better for you than the standard recipe. There are also plenty of tasty vegetarian recipes available for those who can appreciate the endless appeal of butternut squash. Along with the recipes are also tips and helpful guidelines for lots of situations – eating at work, going to a party, taking a cruise, in line for fast food, etc. – many of which really made me stop and think about what I’ve been eating and how I’ve been eating it. She’s got a lot of really great tips that I honestly had never considered before. There are selections of color photographs but most of the recipes have small drawings along with them. I really enjoyed this because it allowed the book to be packed with information rather than tantalizing pictures. And in the end, it’s the ingredients that are important, not how it looks.

Hungry Girl is also endorsed by Weight Watchers and so all the recipes have their points value available online.

Lastly, and most importantly for a lot of people, none of the recipes in this book are overly complex or require lots of crazy ingredients. I’m just learning to be confident in the kitchen and I haven’t come across a recipe yet that seems out of my skill range. Her enthusiasm throughout the book gives a fun feeling to the recipes, like you’re not cooking but embarking on an adventure to eat better.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the obvious effort put into it. There’s something for everyone it its pages.