The Nutritionist's Kitchen

by Carly Knowles

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Nutritionist's Kitchen is a well written, accessible, science based guide to whole food nutrition with the aim of maintaining health through food choices, written and presented by Carly Knowles. Released 15th Dec 2020 by Roost Books, it's 272 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

What we eat and the food to which we have access has a profound effect on our health and lifespan. This book provides a great deal of information on the subject in a way that most readers will be able to understand. The introduction covers the basics of whole food unprocessed ingredients and cooking and essential accessories as well as an intro to sensible food choices, tips, tools, supplies, and how-to. There is an emphasis on choosing seasonal local foods and unprocessed unmodified ingredients. The author provides a good layman accessible survey discussion on the elements of nutrition: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, macro- and micro-nutrients and more. It's not necessary to memorize every aspect of these and how they fit together to supply complete nutrition, but it does give a really good overview. I found myself using the first part of the book more as a reference and going back to it again and again.

The second section includes the recipes, arranged by season. Ingredient measurements are supplied in American standard measurements only. The nutritional information is not included. Each recipe has a header with special labels such as nut-free, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, etc along with a short description of the recipe and approximate prep-times. Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in text boxes in the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made for the most part with easily sourced (seasonal) ingredients. Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex.

The photography is gorgeous and abundant. In fact the photography was one of the highlights for me. This is such an information dense volume that without the bright and vivid photos it would be less inviting and inspirational. This not strictly a vegetarian or otherwise plant based collection though it does have many vegan/vegetarian friendly recipes (and many more which can easily be adapted to plant based ingredients).

The book includes a remarkably comprehensive bibliography and resource links for further reading. There are a number of useful appendices including meal prep/planning sample menus - seasonal produce tables, daily nutrient intakes listed by nutrient, lists of specific nutrients and their sources, as well as a cross referenced index (not included in the advanced reader galleys provided for review).

Five stars. This is a solid book of nutrition and recipes which will be used. It would make a superlative housewarming gift to a friend or family member or friend trying to eat more health consciously with better quality ingredients. It would also make a good supplemental text in an educational setting (nutrition, physiology, etc) or for library acquisition.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.