It’s All Good
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley July 5, 2013
Author Gwyneth Paltrow & Julie Turshen
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ISBN: 978-0-3494-0083-9
Publisher: Sphere
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Website: http://www.littlebrown,co,uk
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When a Celebrity releases a Cookbook you tend to go – Ho Hum, not again! but in It’s All Good, Gwyneth Paltrow and good friend Julia Turshen combine their talents and love of food to show us that living a good and healthy lifestyle is there for all to have access to, using ingredients readily available and explaining the rationale behind healthy, happy, eating. Not so Ho Hum, more like Oh Yum!
When Paltrow collapsed at a family Sunday lunch after years of overwork, stress and poor diet her medical diagnosis proved to be a wake-up call to reassessing her way of life along with her diet. No more great foodie indulgences just good, healthy food, which when she received the list of Must Not Eats, she found she really had to rethink exactly what good food meant.
Having always been interested in food she immediately set out to discover just what sort of appetising meals could be created from a list of foods which did not include dairy, wheat, coffee (a necessary component of her former lifestyle) alcohol, potatoes, tomatoes, corn and so the list continued.
Challenging was probably not the word used as she had to revisit just what she and her family were able to eat. On the advice of her health professional Dr Alejandro Junger, she also had her family tested for food allergies, eliminating foods such as pasta and bread from the family diet, along with much more;
As Paltrow says, what do you feed the kids when they love pastas and bread?
With a family to feed and her still busy lifestyle it was important to find inspirational ways of making healthy food, look, taste and smell good. Comfort food was also a must, but it had to be healthy.
She remembered a trip to Spain where she met Julie Turshen, Celebrity Foodie, whom she had enjoyed working with while filming the series Spain: On the Road Again..
Contacting Julia to help come up with some inspirational ideas not just for Paltrow’s family but to work as co-author on her next cookbook proved to be more than inspirational, it also led to a firm friendship and fantastic working partnership.
Contained within the pages of It’s All Good there are a vast collection of fantastically healthy foods that have been turned into delicious, tasty meals from a quick pick-me-up shake to an almost Instant Berry + Coconut Sherbet for the sweet tooth. You can freeze this one as a healthy snack item as well.
There is something for everyone and every style of diet: medical, imagined, or yet to be developed, making this an extremely comprehensive cookbook in relation to healthy eating.
It does not push any one style of eating, just exactly what it says, healthy food, great recipes and regardless of what you can and can’t eat ,among the pages you will find food suitable for you that tastes great and more importantly is made from ingredients readily available at most supermarkets.
Scattered amongst the recipes are a collection of photographs, not just of delicious looking food but of Gwyneth, Julie and family shots giving you a small insight into family, friends and food!
A great addition at the end of the book is a five week schedule to help you get started on the pathway to healthy eating, or help you select which style of eating you are after to achieve your goals.
Alternatively just use it as a recipe book when you want that something different to eat and see just how interesting options in food can taste.