Diet plan for vegetarian weight loss — Book Review

Everyday Detox, 100 easy recipes to remove toxins, promote gut health, and lose weight naturally

By Megan Gilmore (10 Speed Press:Berkely) 2015

Everyday Detox is a cookbook and a diet plan that promises to help you lose weight, detoxify, and get rid of the bloating, and indigestion that is common with a diet of processed foods. The basis for the book’s weight loss claims is a diet using food combining, vegetarian eating, and fresh, whole foods without gluten, pasteurized dairy products, nor any packaged foods. If you remember the Fit for Life diet, this book echoes many of the same vegetarian weight loss principles with an updated menu plan and ingredient list. While the book suggests that meat is an acceptable part of the diet, there isn’t a single recipe for any meat dishes in the book. There are exactly 3 recipes for fish. The remainder of the book is grain-free and vegetarian. Many recipes are vegan.

Conscious of special dietary needs, each recipe is labeled to accommodate food allergies. Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, no sugar, egg-free, and vegan symbols are at the top of every recipe. You don’t have to read through the ingredient list to see if a recipe suits your special dietary needs. If you are looking for a vegetarian paleo cookbook, this one might fit your needs.

The recipes offer vegan substitutions for cheese, and vegetable substitutions for wheat and grain, like cauliflower crusted pizza, chocolate chip cookies made with almond meal, and coconut flour and banana pancakes. All the recipes are scratch cooking.  There’s no packaged mixes or special propriety ingredients.  These are all things I like about the cookbook.

Most recipes come with a hero shot to show you what it is supposed to look like. There are no step by step pictures, though, to explain unusual techniques, so you may have some recipe failures as you try some of the recipes for the first time.

The pictures are gorgeous. The text is easy to read and upbeat. The author is the blogger behind Detoxinista.com. “Eating more whole foods and less processed ones is a step in the right direction,” (p. xi) and the basic premise behind Everyday Detox.

The weightloss plan requires several specialty pieces of kitchen equipment that you may not have, such as a spiralizer, a mandoline slicer, a juicer, and a microplane grater. There is a large dependence on fresh vegetables. There is no seasonal order to the dishes. The ingredients for lettuce salads, kale salads, cauliflower fried rice are going to be less expensive and easier to source in the Fall rather than in the Spring. Something to consider if you are planning to start this diet plan soon.

I do have one beef with the book, although I gave it a full 5 stars. While the author states that this is not a “diet” but rather an everyday way of eating, it is very unlike anything most of us are used to. Getting the rest of the family on board such a new way of eating may be a challenge, even if it is healthier. And if the family is not onboard, than it becomes a “diet” for the one who is following the vegetarian weight loss plan.

Also the glaring absence of any meat based recipes, while at the same time suggesting that omnivores can follow the diet plan, is patently hypocritical. Why not just say what it is, a vegetarian diet cook book using whole foods. Hipsters, like my son and his wife, would like Everyday Detox. Meat eaters, you’ve been warned.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books, in exchange for an honest review. Nevertheless this review represents my honest opinion of the work.