The Food For Life Cookbook

I am trying to sort out my diet and eating habits. I suffer with serious constipation issues and no amount of water or laxative offer a long term/permanent solution; I feel sluggish and can’t be ask to eat most of the time. No, I’m not slim. On the contrary I have put weight on my waist, etc. Places I never used to worry about. A mixture of high level stress and self neglect and strange symptoms. Not interested in just losing weight. I want to be healthier or even, dare I say, healthy! I have researched and bought a few books. Then a friend came to visit and brought this book she had just purchased for me to look at. I borrowed it for a couple of days, flicked through the various recipes and read the intro and it made sense. I ordered it straightaway. The book arrived quickly and well packaged and I absolutely love it. The recipes are so appetising and quite easy to follow. I hadn’t cooked properly for ages, would buy beautiful vegetables that would end up in the bin because it was easier to randomly boil pasta and add the same shop bought pesto ( I used to always make my own pasta sauce in the past) and if I felt bothered I would make a basic salad with it. That clearly didn’t help my issue. When I first look at the recipes in this book I felt some « cooking » excitement bubbling up in me. Finally I am eating all these vegetables instead of binning them. So far I have made the seed bread, the kale pasta sauce and aubergine parmigiana and drooled over half the book. I am finally having breakfast and lunch everyday ( most of the time I just couldn’t be bothered to cook/ eat anymore. ) and I have the leftovers for lunch. There are so many recipes in this book that I want to try! I really want to bake that carrot cake!!! The beauty of this book is that it’s more than a recipe book or a fad diet book, it’s a life style change, for the better. It has all the things I love ( nuts, seeds, vegetables and mouthwatering recipes) that are doable and tasty. The advice really makes sense. I have only used it for about 4 days and I am finally going to the loo daily. I am aiming for 3 times a day. I am not there yet but for someone who would be relieved to go once a week it’s a miracle! One important thing about this book is that you know how many plants are included In each recipe so if for example you combine a slice of the seed bread with the aubergine parmigiana it all adds up ( you need to aim for 30 ‘plants’ a day for good health). You add fresh herbs on top, that extra plant points. At the moment I’m easing myself into this new way of eating/ looking at what I need so I’m not sure I’ve reached the 30 plants a day but it’s already working. Majority of recipes offer some alternative ingredients wether you are vegan, vegetarian or suffer from food allergies. This book promotes the increase of plants in your diet but also offers recipes that fulfill your taste buds and you most likely won’t miss meat or fish but they could be added if you really wanted to. At least it offers recipes that can significantly reduce your meat intake which is a brilliant thing ( environmentally and health wise). There is so much more I could write about the ideas in this book and why I like it so much I could write my own book! In short if you enjoy good food and want to take care of your general health buy this book.

Excellent buy, an inspiring cookbook that has the potential to transform the health and wellbeing of many people who have struggled against the crime that is ultra-processed food. This breaks the common perception of vegetarian cooking by not being 'preachy'. You are still allowed to eat meat if you wish!! It is NOT about low fat, low carb, but eating the rainbow! It is accompanied by a strong, science-based message that makes sense. Throw away the ultra-processed and cook whole foods from scratch. The recipes are straightforward, interesting, colourful and very tasty. The antithesis of beige food!

Overall I can recommend this book to all those wishing for good health. i have been a Zoe member and it has totally changed the way I eat so I was keen to buy the book. The Zoe team are a group of scientists and nutritionists so their advice is evidence based together with common sense. The recipes are quite flexible, as one can easily substitute various fruits and vegetables, and the delicious looking photos inspire me to try the dishes. However, the reason I don't give it 5 stars is that I am wheat intolerant and dairy intolerant and lots of the recipes are wheat and dairy based. They ought to include alternative ingredients since many people are intolerant to these ingredients. I don't have kefir as it is made of milk and some of the recipes include kefir. I have had to be creative and scribble my notes in the book, but apart from that I will say that I've been eating lots of the recipes every day, they are all delicious!

I am sat here in heaven atm having just made & eaten a slice of the Beetroot chocolate brownies - gorgeous, rich without being too rich, a real taste sensation. I bought this book to kick start healthier eating, especially with the focus on gut health. I liked that it included snacks and sweet treats as someone whose downfall are cakes and biscuits. The recipes in the book are clearly written and easy to follow. I like that a lot include alternative ingredients. As a vegetarian I have tended to include a lot of vegetables in my diet anyway but this book got me to refocus and understand the importance of including a variety of foods for your gut health and which foods to include. All the recipes I’ve tried so far have been really tasty. The tahini and yoghurt dressing on the roasted broccoli salad is so simple but absolutely delicious. There’s a great tip for producing your own kefir at home too. I really like this book - it was what I was looking for and hasn’t disappointed.

I signed up to the ZOE programme last December and took the one-year option, so this book has come at the perfect time for me, as the end to my membership and access to the app approaches. For about 8 months I logged in the ZOE app every day. I learned loads, lost over a stone in weight and brought my body to balance. I have loved the food abundance that this way of eating represents - so different from the lack model that has you cut out things. For the past couple of months, I’ve been continuing to follow all the ZOE guidelines but not logging to prepare myself for when my year ends and I’m happy to say that it is all going well. The main thing I’ve been using the app for in recent weeks is recipe ideas. Therefore I’m delighted that so many of my favourites have ended up in this book. But what’s more is that they have included a lot of additional ways of combining and adding in extra tasty things like toppings in the book - many of which I hadn’t come across on the app. There’s a QR code on each page that will take you straight to the Zoe app (if you’re a member) and it gives me my individual score and of I was still logging, I could add it to my diary, which is convenient. While I still have access to the app, I’m using these QR codes to take a note of my personal score for each recipe and I’m writing it in the book, so I know which ones are okay for me. However, so far I haven’t come across one that’s below 72 (and I have both poor fat and poor sugar metabolism). Most are up in the 80s and 90s, so these are healthy recipes. Someone else mentioned that it’s mostly vegan or at least vegetarian recipes. While that’s true, it seems to me that one can get plenty of recipes for meat and fish etc elsewhere. Since beginning my ZOE journey I’ve moved increasingly towards eating this way all the time. The recipes are delicious and even my husband, a confirmed omnivore, has enjoyed eating this way for most days per week. The book is well laid out and nice quality. The bits at the beginning are good reminders of what I’ve learned in the ZOE programme. I, for one, am delighted to have it. And as I said in my title - it’s come in perfect timing as I transition to life beyond the app.

An interesting book with some lovely recipes BUT why is the calorie and nutritional content of each recipe not detailed. Disappointing

Great hard back cook book with information on how to look after your gut microbiome. Really love the recipes as we are beginning to eat less meat. Veggie based dishes with pulses, lentils etc. All recipes preparing food from scratch. I definitely have some new favourite dishes now! This is my second copy as I left my original with my daughter abroad. Works in tandem with the 'Zoe' health programme.

I was really looking forward to receiving this book. After a review complained about it being all vegan, I thought it would be great. Unfortunately, it's only vegetarian although there are certainly many recipes that are vegan. Quite a few use milk kefir and I am not sure that water kefir would work as well. Also some recipes having 4 eggs in - substituting 1 or 2 is easy enough. I will have to try to adapt them myself. Everything looks lovely and incredibly healthy though so will start trying the recipes very soon.