Books We Like: The Kind Diet

Is it possible to eat consciously while being kind to yourself, your community and your planet?

Written by Alicia Silverstone, The Kind Diet is not your typical celebrity-endorsed food regime. In fact, the noted actress and animal advocate has created a comprehensive guide to transitioning to a healthier (and kinder) way of eating, living and caring for the Earth. And, it happens to be fun!

In the first half of the book, Silverstone gets the tone right by providing helpful facts about conventional agriculture and the meat industry without sounding shrill or preachy. She also provides nutritional facts and answers to common questions about plant-based diets like "How do I get my omega-3s?" and "Should I eat organic produce?" This section made me newly inspired to commit to a healthier and more sustainable approach to food (more veggies, less processed food, reduced meat, dairy and sugar intake).

Silverstone then describes three types of eating for flirts, vegans and superheroes. This allows the reader to engage at whatever level they're comfortable and move at their own pace toward a healthier lifestyle. Alicia's straight-forward approach shows her knowledge of human nature and the difficulties people face in eating consciously day-to-day. She provides a list of transition foods (like Vegenaise and Tofurky) and factors in challenges like how to deal with cravings, what to do when you're invited to a dinner party and how to choose "kind" foods while traveling.

The third section of the book is filled with delicious, drool-inducing vegan recipes from her Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil to Candied Ginger Pears and even her mom's granola recipe. The meals are simple and sometimes surprising but always something that I can imagine cooking for myself (which is a big deal since I'm often impatient in the kitchen!) These recipes display more than Silverstone's passion for vegan food, they show a true sense of joy in cooking and finding nourishment in eating with friends, family and community.

Be sure to check out the book's companion website The Kind Life for daily tips and a lively forum about food, health, style and the environment.

-Dorothée

Books We Like: 'Cook Food' by Lisa Jervis

Salt early and taste for adjustments along the way. Use separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables. Cut vegetables evenly so they cook evenly. These instructions could probably be found in the Culinary Institute of America standard-issue textbook The Professional Chef, but I pulled them from a different source, Lisa Jervis’ Cook Food: A Manualfesto for easy, healthy, local eating. The skinny, 130-page “manualfesto” is a training manual for beginning home cooks with an an organic and activist bent.

I worked as a line cook during college, and although I know my way around the kitchen pretty comfortably, I found Cook Food to be a good refresher on some useful techniques (deglazing pans, pressing tofu), and it also has some great recipes.

Jervis starts by listing all of the necessary kitchen-building tools and ingredients, from the pantry to the spice rack, offering tips for the thrifty shopper on what pans and tools should and shouldn’t be bought used. Along the way, she offers some useful tips on technique, including some basic instructions on how to cook grains, the various ways to cook vegetables, and some tips on seasoning. Veteran cooks can ignore much of this, but for rookies, most of Jervis' explanations will be invaluable. The back end of the book includes 20 of Jervis’ original recipes, and a handful of “nonrecipe recipes” (tips for snacks and other easy-to-make foods).

Jervis isn’t a chef by trade; she’s a prominent feminist who founded BITCH magazine. Her activist side shines through occasionally in Cook Food, when she writes about food politics, advocating for organic, unprocessed foods, but she steers clear of proselytizing. The book is most useful when Jervis addresses some of the more pragmatic issues facing home cooks, like how to eat organic, ethically-produced food on a tight budget.

-Mark