This post is Thursday’s Real Food Resource, which is a weekly spotlight on books, sites, and relevant media that helps you to identify what real food is. If you enjoy this article, please consider receiving Almost Fit in your inbox. Thanks.

“Vegetarian? Carnivorous? Onmivorous? Low-Fat? High-Fat? Are you confused about how to eat for optimal health?”

So reads the back panel on this week’s Real Food resource: The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook, by Rachel Albert-Matesz and Don Matesz. Through a mutual friend, (Thanks K.!), I was recently put in touch with Chef Rachel by email to find out more about how she is addressing these questions on health. She was gracious enough to send her book to see what we think.

Put simply, this book should be required reading.

The Garden of Eating is an extensive volume of well-documented research (rooted in the essential work of Weston A. Price), reasonable and compelling conclusions, ultra-practical suggestions, and phenomenal recipes, all presented in a writing style that is both inviting and accessible.

Many of the book’s ideas feel like the next logical steps for some of the fundamentally important resources that I already have. In other words, where books like Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon are quintessential in understanding the human diet and our impact on the world around us, The Garden of Eating demonstrates a mastery of these concepts while taking each one to a completely new and practical level. The Garden of Eating is filled with direct answers to the questions that most of us have when we start to really think about our diet, lists in the margin that simplify shopping intelligently, and simple but powerful suggestions on how to eat well without going bankrupt.

How to shop for just about everything

One of my favorite features of this book is the method the authors use to break down food choices. Where some of my other top-shelf reads include useful conceptual information, The Garden of Eating connects the dots on how to immediately put that information into action.

For example, if you’ve visited the egg case at the supermarket lately, you’ve probably found that it is becoming nearly impossible to make a decision based on what you see on the outside of the box. “Hmm….Omega-3 is good…But free-range sounds good too…is it worth $5.00 bucks for this box of eggs?”

In chapter 10′s discussion of eggs, the decision points are consolidated into just over a single page, with every line being incredibly useful. It looks like this (page 122, in the edition I have):

“Eggs

Selection Criteria

1. Best Choice: 100% pasture fed or barnyard raised chicken/duck eggs

2. Second: omega-3, DHA rich eggs

3. Third: organic or naturally raised hormone and antibiotic-free eggs

4. Fourth: dried, powdered egg whites* [Ed. note: there is a note on the page explaining why powdered egg whites do not contain oxidized cholesterol, which is by far worse for you than a standard egg yolk]

What to avoid

1. conventional mass-market (factory-farmed) eggs

2. irradiated eggs

3. dried or liquid egg products containing vegetable oils, hydrogenated fats, artificial flavorings and colorings, added salt, preservatives, sugar, fructose, artificial sweeteners, or soy protein.

Best sources for whole eggs [...]

Best sources for dried, powdered egg whites and egg white protein [...]

What to look for [when purchasing and eating eggs] [...]

Amount to buy [...]

Storage tips [...]

Are those eggs too old to eat? [...]“

Let me just reemphasize: This information is all on just over a single page. This book contains 592 pages. You can quickly see that I’m not kidding when I say that this has some of the most concise, practical information you will find in a single volume.

How to eat well without driving yourself crazy

One of the biggest challenges of eating real food is to figure out how to be efficient in food preparation. With the pace of life in our culture, a glut of multi-million dollar ad campaigns trying to entice you with prepackaged shortcuts, and a general loss of understanding of the traditional timesaving techniques that Great-Grandma used, the idea of moving to a more traditional, home-prepared diet can seem nearly impossible.

Not to mention, when you are not efficient in your use of good food, your costs increase dramatically.

With that in mind, I found Chapter 13: Sample Month of Menus with Prep Lists to be exceptionally practical. The chapter starts out with a primer on preparing meals in general, including a sidebar with 7 tips on how to prepare meals during busier times. After a few pages describing how to develop the habits of food prep efficiency, the book jumps right into simple, brief step-by-step instructions for each day to ensure you eat well all month. The menus for each week are broken out into a practical table of daily meals, bringing the preparation clearly into focus.

All that and a bag of Chipotle

The Garden of Eating provides a wealth of recipes that sound incredible. For tomorrow’s Almost Fit recipe, I will be featuring one of Chef Rachel’s recipes. Here is a taster of a few that I’ll be trying in the immediate future:

• Strawberry, Shrimp, & Pineapple Kabobs with Poppy Seed-Orange Drizzle
• Tomato, Squash, and Ginger Bisque
• Grilled Onion Rings
• Tangerine and Shallot Vinaigrette
• Spinach Salad with Tahini Dressing
• Dark Chocolate Dipped Dates

There are dozens more like these. Enough said.

Thursday’s Real Food Resource: The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook, by Rachel Albert-Matesz and Don Matesz

The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook, is essential reading for anyone trying to make the leap to eating real food in moderation. It includes solid and understandable science, practical day-to-day suggestions on ways to immediately improve your diet dramatically, resources for finding real food on a budget, recipes ranging from simple and quick to slow-cooked and delightfully complex, and many points between.

Check out her new site, The Healthy Cooking Coach, which includes even more information including opportunities for workshops in the Phoenix and Tempe, AZ, areas.

Also, look for her new book, The Ice Dream Cookbook: Dairy-Free Ice Cream Alternatives with Gluten-Free Cookies, Compotes & Sauces, which is now available for pre-order (see the Web site for details).

Here’s a quote from a note she sent out that describes what we have to look forward to in this new book:

“It features 80 recipes and more than 200 variations for delicious dairy-free coconut-based frozen desserts, along with wheat- and gluten- free, naturally sweetened cookies, compotes, and sauces. Includes ingredient glossary, equipment checklists, recipe modification tips, clear and detailed instructions, nutrition breakdowns, four appendices, an index, and illustrations. I am publishing it through my company, Planetary Press. [...] I can’t wait to share it with you.”

To Purchase The Garden of Eating

You can purchase The Garden of Eating directly from her site, or you can use the following Amazon link: The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook. Order it today. You won’t be disappointed.

The Garden of Eating: A Produce-Dominated Diet and Cookbook. Albert-Matesz, Rachel, and Matesz, Don.
$34.95 paperback, illustrated, indexed, w/charts, appendices, 592 pages
ISBN: 0-9641267-1-0  LCCN: 2003096604
Pub date: August, 2004, Planetary Press

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