Gourmet Nutrition On Television

I love real food. I love tasty and simple ways to prepare real food. Even more so, I love it when someone shows me how to prepare delicious recipes that are also great for me. I guess this is why I love the new Gourmet Nutrition…it’s a book with the express purpose of showing folks how to eat real, delicious, simply prepared, and healthy food.

And, apparently, A LOT of other folks beyond me like this book too. Indeed, in the last 2 weeks, Dr JB has been invited, as a guest, on more than 15 TV and radio shows and has been interviewed by more than 10 more newspapers. Yes, folks, that’s 25 appearances in just 14 days. (When the guy sleeps, I’ll never know.)

In addition to all of this media exposure and positive feedback, the Gourmet Nutrition customers have also spoken out in a big way…

As a result of all of this exposure and positive feedback, I figured I’d do a review of my own. Of course, as many of you know, I’m part of the Precision Nutrition team and therefore I tend to be a bit biased. However, as a dietitian, strength coach, and recipient of 2 masters degrees (one in exercise physiology and one in nutrition), many people still like to hear my opinion. So, let’s get to it…

For starters, Gourmet Nutrition is broken down into several sections:

Introduction
How to use this book
General cooking rules & tips
The Recipes
Breakfast
Shakes & Smoothies
Meats
Poultry
Seafood
Accompaniments
Snacks
Salad dressings
Condiments

Let’s quickly review each section – I’ll give my opinion on each.

Introduction
This section is written by Dr. B and discusses the genesis of Gourmet Nutrition along with how healthy eating and good tasting food should be synonymous.

I’m glad Dr. B wrote about this issue. It’s still a widespread myth that healthy food tastes bad. All PN readers know this is 100% false! Right?

I work with Dr. B on a regular basis, and his nutrition writing still gets me pumped up about eating healthy. Make sure and read the intro carefully if you get the book. You won’t be sorry.

How To Use This Book
This section presents nutrition simplicity at its best. It goes on to outline the “levels” of nutritional planning and how to get started.

Other questions are answered as well, such as:

How does gender influence meal selection?
How does physical activity level influence meal selection?
How do physique and health goals influence meal selection?

Sample meals plans and templates are included and can help to structure eating around morning workouts, evening workouts, and “rest” days.

What about if you want even more information after reading this section? The authors provide direction on where to go.

General Cooking Rules & Tips
Yes, I’m a dietitian.

No, I’m not a chef.

And that’s why I really appreciate this section – I learned a ton of practical, healthy-eating lessons. Really – this collection of food preparation tips is priceless. It’s basically 20 years of kitchen experience crammed onto 3 pages. It covers:

How to buy and store ingredients
How to cut foods instead of your fingers
How to dispose of food scraps
How to set up the kitchen for meal prep
How to clean utensils
How to wash dishes
How to blend soups
How to use spices
What to do with canned foods
How to adjust recipe amounts

While you are digesting some of that information, the section goes on to cover the tools you will need in your kitchen, pantry foods, herbs, spices, and detailed instructions on preparing whole grains, veggies, and legumes.

And don’t tell grandma, but you will learn how long it’s safe to store food in your fridge/freezer.

The Recipes (Breakfast, Shakes & Smoothies, Salad Dressings, etc…)
This is where we get into the 120-ish recipes.

For each of the recipe sections, variations and options are included at the bottom of the page. Full nutritional data is included as well. Also, suggestions are made about how to pair up the recipes for an appetizing meal combination.

Recipe preparation and cooking times are provided so you can actually have the food ready when your date/spouse shows up, instead of staring at the oven with a puzzled look on your face when they walk in.

All recipes can be adapted for vegetarians. Just throw in some tofu, seitan, tempeh or other legume in place of the meat and you will be ready to dish. And yes, before you revolt, there is a recipe for “Yummy Hummus.”

Each recipe section has a brief and informative introduction on how best to use them. All sections are easy to navigate, organized and clear.

Finally, we’ve got the pictures…these are very high-quality.

Interestingly, and call me a skeptic, they’re so well done that I was curious to see pictures of how the recipes actually turned out when us “non-chef” folk assemble them.

Well, my wish was granted…right here on the forum folks are posting just this type of thing – click here to check it out!

The last part of the book outlines cooking terms – you may think you know it all, but you will definitely learn a thing or two after glancing over this section.

Miscellaneous Notes
All the recipes in Gourmet Nutrition are thoroughly indexed:

Alphabetically
By the time it takes to make them
Category of recipe (e.g., breakfast)

That’s about one step short of the authors coming to your house and opening the book to locate the recipe for you. (Maybe with a future version?)

Summary
Overall, I really like this book. The food tastes great and the recipes don’t require an all day kitchen marathon. Beyond the taste however, these are also recipes that will help you build the body you’re looking for.