Four fantastic cookbooks for healthy eating

The South African culinary landscape boasts many cooks who share healthy and hearty recipes with the nation, and 2020 already has four fantastic recipe books that have healthy eating in mind.

Mindful Eating

Author: Izelle Hoffman
ISBN: 9781432310523

Izelle Hoffman is on a mission to change perceptions about food and to increase awareness of the benefits of eating the right foods and choosing a life of health and wellness.

Did you know, for instance, that the humble sweet potato contains anti-inflammatory properties and regulates blood sugar levels? And that raw honey isn’t simply a sweetener – it has antifungal and antiviral properties as well?

In Mindful Eating, Hoffman encourages you to rethink what you put in your body in a fun, healthy way, and demonstrates that living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t mean that your diet needs to be boring and restricted, especially where vegetables are concerned.

By sharing her recipes for energising breakfasts, quick weekday meals, sweet baked goodies, classics with a healthy twist and family favourites, among others, Hoffman aims to help you take back control of your well-being.

Packed with delicious, nutritious and deceptively simple recipes, Mindful Eating is more than a cookbook; it is an inspirational and motivational guide to leading a healthy lifestyle through good eating.

The East African Cookbook

Author: Shereen Jog
ISBN: 9781432310349

The East African Cookbook boasts a selection of recipes that reflects a cuisine that is modern and yet rooted in the traditional methods and tastes of East Africa.

Author Jog is a fifth-generation Tanzanian national who shares her recipes for delicious soups, salads, main dishes and desserts.

Bursting with the flavours of East African and Indian spices, these recipes will inspire everyone to cook mouth-watering meals for family and friends alike.

Jog is known for her creativity as she experiments and plays with flavours, using the abundance of fresh organic produce and the influence of a multicultural environment to prepare dishes that reflect the traditions of Arab, Swahili, Indian and colonial cuisines.

A Slimmer You Cookbook

Author: Regine du Plessis
ISBN: 9781432309862

Many people want to lose weight and are looking for the easiest way to do so.

When it comes to weight-loss programmes, one of the excuses most frequently heard by dieticians is “I don’t know how to prepare the right meals”. This book provides a solution to that.

In A Slimmer You Cookbook, the author presents recipes for 1,000kJ meals to suit individual preferences, family circumstances and budgets.

It demonstrates that by monitoring your portions, you can cook for a family, eat healthily and enjoy a variety of foods, all while achieving your goal of losing weight.

But eating correctly is not just about following a recipe or meal plan; we need to understand how what we eat affects our health.

The introduction includes topics such as BMI and cholesterol, how to balance daily food intake with physical activity levels, the role of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diet, making the most of “free” vegetables, and tips on how to interpret food labels.

Super Natural

Author: Sarah Graham
ISBN: 9781485900658

Super Natural pivots around an abundance of vegetables and natural, whole foods, celebrating seasonal produce, good fats and whole grains, pulses and legumes, and foods that are almost entirely free of refined carbohydrates and sugars.

Best of all, the recipes are accessible, easy, budget-friendly and delicious.

Super Natural is a guide to living well and eating mindfully – a continuum of Graham’s highly popular cookbook Wholesome, which is heading for its fifth printing.

Besides the health benefits of eating more vegetables and, ultimately, fewer animal products, Graham also has a more altruistic motive, that of caring for our planet and being more aware of where our food comes from.

(Compiled by Adriaan Roets)

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