I was pleased to receive a review copy of this and it’s an excellent guide to eating better so very much does what it says on the tin. The difficulty I had was having just finished rereading Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s book, The 4 Pillar Plan, which offers pretty similar advice, I didn’t learn much new. I do thoroughly recommend this for anyone keen to learn in a non-preachy way how to eat in a body-friendly way. Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall explains his 7 steps very clearly and it would be hard to argue with anything. None of this is startling; eat wholefoods, cut out sugar, move more, drink water not booze, etcetera. The first half of the book is given over to explaining the 7 steps and the second half has some nifty recipes. Despite there being a lot of kimchi, kefir, sprouts and seeds (like, of course, we should all eat healthily but it’s bloody hard to fancy kimchi and sprouts instead of pizza) I also found plenty of delicious recipes. I try and make my own soup for lunches each week but have been in a bit of a rut (carrot soup, carrot and spinach, leeks and onions and spinach etc.) so it was good to discover some combos that hadn’t occurred to me like Hugh’s Beans & Greens Summer Soup and his Store Cupboard Tomato & Bean Soup. For some reason, I’d also forgotten that there’s more to tinned fish than tuna and really fancy trying Sardine Mayo with Capers & Red Onion (maybe hold the capers) and will definitely open some of the tinned mackerel that’s been in my cupboard for years.
If you’d like to know more there’s a good description of the book written by the man himself here.
Sara Crowley 