The companion cookbook to Shawn Stevenson’s Eat Smarter , a national bestseller, featuring 100 family-friendly recipes to help you boost your metabolism, up-level your energy, and start living a happier life. Starting a new health journey may seem daunting, but you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, not doing it alone is a secret to longevity and health that has been largely overlooked… until now! The latest research shows that simple changes to our environment, and eating more often with people we care about, have a tremendous impact on our food choices, metabolic health, mental health, and so much more. As health expert and #1-ranked podcast host of “The Model Health Show” Shawn Stevenson shows us, nutrition goes beyond preparing and eating healthy foods, and can be a delicious, transformative experience for all. In Eat Smarter Family Cookbook , Stevenson expands on his bestselling Eat Smarter with 100 delectable recipes with radically upgraded ingredients that are fit for the whole family. Inside, you’ll find recipes like Sweet Potato Protein Pancakes, Supreme Salmon Burgers, and Avocado Fries that offer a healthy and mouthwatering twist to old classics. Each easy-to-prepare recipe is designed with nutrient-dense ingredients that will transform your body from the inside out. Complete with sample meal plans, mind-blowing food facts, and tips to transform your family’s kitchen, Eat Smarter Family Cookbook has all the recipes you’ll need to upgrade your food choices and, ultimately, transform your health and the health of your entire family.
There are lots of lovely full-color photos of the food. I thought the recipes seemed pretty family-friendly, especially with photos of Shawn's kids helping to cook. But some cooks might find a few of the ingredients to be too expensive when so many people are complaining about grocery prices. There's a big focus on organic eggs, butter, and grass-fed meats, which are indeed healthier, but we can only buy what we can afford or even find in our stores. Just getting our families to eat some healthier meals would be a momentous step in the right direction.
So far we've tried the delicious recipes for: Southwest Chorizo Scramble Sheet Pan Fish with Mayo-Lemon Sauce and Asparagus Slow Cooker Beef Stew Bacon, Spinach, and Bell Pepper Quiche Bangers and Mash with Sauerkraut Dessert: Smarter Snickers Bites are to die for!
I spotted two salads with typos in the ingredients: the Prebiotic-Boosting Spinach Salad and the Gratitude Salad recipes both call for 5- 5oz containers of spinach or mixed greens for four servings. I'm pretty sure it should be just 1-5oz container of salad greens each. There's no way four people are eating 5 containers of salad, lol. Especially when there's only 3 Tbsps of dressing.
I also found a small mistake in the recipe for Oven-Roasted Chicken Thighs with Olives. The ingredients list called for 6 bone-in *skinless* chicken thighs. I dutifully removed the skin while listening to my husband complaining that the skin is the best part, then noticed the instruction to cook the chicken in the oven until *the chicken skin is nicely browned.* Well shoot! The skinless chicken thighs turned out great however, so I guess it's no big deal except that recipes should be proofread umpteen times before printing for accuracy. Just saying.
I don’t want to eat cardboard. Healthy food doesn’t taste good. I don’t know how to cook, so I can’t eat healthy.
As a personal trainer & health coach, if I had a dollar every time someone said one of these things or something like them to me, I’d buy myself something super fancy!
Shawn proves ALL of these things wrong in his new cookbook.
The recipes are simple, easy to follow, delicious, and (my favorite) many have minimal cleanup!
But my favorite part? The guides in the front of the book that point out scary, sufficient, and smarter choices. Because this is real life and we live in the real world.
In Eat Smarter Family Cookbook, Shawn Stevenson has written a brand-new cookbook to help readers to live healthier and to transform your entire life. Shawn Stevenson has written two previous books, Eat Smarter and Sleep Smarter and he is the creator of a top podcast, The Model Health Show. He begins the book by explaining his background. At age 20, he was diagnosed with an advanced arthritic condition and this effects his spine. He broke his hip while he was running. He was struggling with obesity and he would enjoy fast food regularly. Doctors told him that his condition was incurable and there was nothing he could do. He explained how his parents didn’t know all about the negative effects of consuming heavily processed foods. Mostly everyone in his family and extend family have a chronic disease such as, obesity, diabetes, asthma, eczema, depression, and much more. A lot of this is caused by the food we are choosing to eat. He decided to not to become a victim and instead he asked himself what he could do differently to feel better. He made a choice to consume the food that were rich in nutrients. He instantly felt his energy levels increase and he was more optimistic. He was able to also get off his pharmaceutical drugs. He lost 20 pounds and he had better skin.
The book stated how a study found, “that poor diet kills 11 million people around the world every year.” This book will provide you with the tools to change your diet and lifestyle to see a positive transformation. It also discussed tips on how to change your environment and to change your relationships and eat together. One of the helpful suggestions, he shared was about the importance of getting a meal together as a family. Studies showed that people would eat more fruits and vegetables. He strongly encouraged parents to get their children involved in planning meals, eating outside, special meal/dessert, and other creative ways.
The book also looked at how our cultural is facing dangerously contagions. These include sugar, pesticide grains, and highly refined vegetable oils. He discussed the topic of sweeteners and how even artificial sweeteners are harming us. In fact, they are tricking our brain and our hormones. He explored the different choices we can make on choosing cooking oils, beef, poultry, fish, grains, sweeteners, beverages, spices, just to name a few. He broke them all down to helpful charts labeled: scary, sufficient, and smarter choice. He enclosed smarter grocery shopping tips and how to save money, smarter cooking tips, and pre-meal and dinner table tips.
The book contained 100 family friendly recipes. The recipes in this book are mostly gluten-free and grain-free. He breaks down each recipe with an emoji identifying how this food could improve an aspect of your health. These included brain, heart, sleep, metabolic, mental, and gut. He went into detail sharing how each fruit, vegetable, nuts, spices, fats, just to name a few and how each work to improve our health. There is also a sample meal plan to make it easier for readers to try.
I also liked how he did a wakeup call on looking at soda and orange juice and how much teaspoons of sugar are in the both of these. There are only about 2 teaspoons less in orange juice than soda. Just recently, I was warned about when I had my annual lab work that I could develop prediabetes and I’m currently right on the border of it. I’m curious to try some of the recipes and see how they improve my health. Some of these included that I’m wanting to try are: Boss Burgers, blackened shrimp kebabs, superfood pesto, cinnamon bread pudding with caramel sauce, avocado fries, pesto turkey wrap, and sweet potato protein pancakes. I loved how tasty the recipes look and I’m curious to try them.
I would recommend this awesome life changing book to everyone and they are wanting to seriously change their health. I thought this book was very well written and researched and it can dramatically change readers lives and health. I connected with his personal story and it was inspiring to read about how he was able to reverse his own health issues and to also change his family lifestyle. I liked how he went into detail about the benefits of consuming the right food and shared numerous studies throughout the book. This book was very eye opening about sugar vs sweeteners, grains, and processed foods. Another shocking benefit that I learned about was about avocados and how it has been discovered a reduction in abdominal fat. Readers can tell the author is very knowledge in the field of health. This book will assist you in cooking and eating better food and gaining the benefits, health wise from doing so.
"I received this book free from the author for my honest review and was a member of his book launch group.”
Hey! I rarely write reviews, but felt inspired by this one. I've had this cookbook for about a month (I got it before it was officially released because I have a large online presence -though not in nutrition- and was able to call in a review copy for media.)
I've been a fan of Eat Smarter (the evidence-based companion book that this cookbook is based on) and The Model Health Show for years and have seen some really incredible changes happen in my life through it. I think his way of teaching has always inspired me to take action because he breaks complicated concepts into easy to understand action steps. And he inspires me to have faith in being inc. control of my own health and doing everything I can to give myself the best outcomes possible. I love his history of reversing chronic illness and curing his "incurable" degenerative disc disease. I've seen positive results in trying to "cure" my own chronic illness (Afib) from this, as well as weight loss and positive outcomes on how I feel.
I also spent a good portion of my life addicted to fast food and find his similar background to be very relatable to me. I feel like he presents information for "the rest of us" who didn't grow up on kale smoothies and an understanding that behavior changes take time.
I had high expectations for this cookbook though- because I wanted it to be the "practical application" extension of the book so I could see what his typical meals look like. It over-delivered. I've had it a month, and I've been able to successfully cook through most of it (skipping any recipes with fish because ewwww). It's already dog eared, highlighted, has notes of additions or changes, and has a few spills artfully gracing the pages. Just the way a cookbook should be.
Here's the highlights of what I think you'd want to know:
1. Are the recipes easy to make if you're not a gifted cook? This was my biggest concern- that the recipes would be overcomplicated and I'd have trouble making them since I'm more of a "preparer" than a cook. I've successfully cooked my way through about half of the cookbook in the last month and I've loved the very simple explanations. Most of the recipes, if not all, have easily fit into a hectic family life for busy weekdays. (I'd love to see another cookbook on healthy packed lunches from the author though!).
2. Do most of the recipes have photos? This is a pet peeve of mine. I really need to see photos of the dishes I'm making because it helps me 1. Be motivated to cook it. 2. Understand what it's supposed to look like at the end to determine if I'm doing it right. This had tons of photos and made healthy food look and taste as good as the unhealthy food I was addicted to.
3. Does it teach you how to eat healthy or just give you recipes? It teaches you how to eat in a crash course on science-based nutrition and breaks it down into reasonable and easy-to-live-by food guidelines for wherever you're at in your wellness journey.
4. What "diet" does this teach? He really goes where the nutrition science goes, so he's not "low carb" or "low calorie" or vegan. I'd put him in the whole foods category. But recipes can be easily adapted for preferences, intolerances, allergies, or even vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based.
Overall, I loved the cookbook, and I find the author's outlook and teaching on health, nutrition, and taking control of your health to be both revolutionary and personally inspiring. Hope that helps!
I'm completely in awe of this Cookbook. Not only is The Eat Smarter Family Cookbook filled with so many incredible recipes to cook and share with my family but it's loaded with so much research and science to empower me as a parent to make healthy and informed choices about the food we eat as a family.
Growing up in a family culture that sat at the dinner table to eat meals and shared meals with our extended family, the messages in this book reminded me of the importance of creating this culture within my own family.
The photos do an incredible job to capture how delicious the food is but nothing compares to actually cooking a meal from The Eat Smarter Family Cookbook and taking that mouthful for the very first time.
So much in this book and such a powerful resource for every parent and family to have in their kitchen.
The 1st recipe starts on page 117. On page 109 the author misuses the acronym FAST that most people associate with strokes. F: Facial drooping. A: Arm weakness. S: speech difficulty. T: Time to call 911. In addition, this is an elitist cookbook. The author assumes everybody can afford grass fed protein and organic produce. One recipe calls for 5 5 oz packages of spinach. That’s $17.45 at my local Kroger. One ingredient in one recipe for 4! How can you cook if you aren’t privileged enough to afford these recipes and live in a food desert? There are no original recipes and a lot of recipes are not accompanied by a photo. Save your money and pass on this book.
I didn't think twice about ordering this cookbook. I'm a huge fan of Shawn Stevenson because he delivers research based facts on everything health related in a way that people like me can understand. This is the perfect compliment to his other books Eat Smarter and Sleep Smarter.
This cookbook is different from others because he gives you everything you need to know about nutrition PLUS 100 delicious, easy to make recipes.
My favorite recipes so far... the Harvest Bowl, the Acai Bowl, and the Upgraded Breakfast Sandwich.
'Eat Smarter Family Cookbook' might be your jam. It's got some solid advice on stuff like why water is key and how who you eat with can influence your health behaviors and food choices. But heads up, it sorts foods into 'Scary,' 'Sufficient,' and 'Smarter' choices, which might not be everyone's cup of tea. I'm more of a 'balance is key' person myself.
The recipes? Spot on. They're the kind you'll actually want to make.
So, if you can look past the food choices classification, there's a lot of good stuff in the cookbook.
I was sent this book from the publisher through instagram. Though my account is dedicated to cookbooks, most of my posts are baking related. While I like to eat healthy as much as the next guy, I wouldn't call that my online focus. For me to be impressed by a healthy cookbook I feel is a big feat and this one did just that. I thought it was a great book that was well done and included a lot of recipes that didn't feel boring in the way that some healthy books can. I have so many things flagged to make in this one! The bacon-wrapped chicken tenders will be on repeat from here on out.
I am always saving healthy recipes and trying healthy cookbooks cookbooks. The problem is most of the time the recipes are complicated or have ingredients that I don’t typically use, or never heard of. This book has tons of useful information about choosing foods to optimize your health. The recipes are easy to follow. Every recipie I have made so far has been fantastic! The sweet potato pancakes are quite possibly the best thing I have ever tasted. I am so glad I bought this book. I can’t wait to try all the delicious recipes.
The enthusiasm for and commitment to healthy food is heartwarming and inspiring. The Eat Smarter Family Cookbook is beautiful. It is a pleasure to hold and behold. The recipes are easy to prepare with ingredients that are typically accessible and they taste good. It almost feels tricky that they are good for you! It is also kind of stealth how this work of art is really an education in disguise. The research provided throughout is easy to understand and simply influential. It’s a powerful book! I think this will be another Shawn Stevenson book that changes the world.
Redefining what a cookbook should be! A beautiful book filled with yummy recipes that are pretty darn easy to make…great for involving the kids in the cooking process too! 💕. So much good, science-backed, information about how to up level the recipes and/or address those picky eaters. I think I know what I’m buying everyone for Christmas this year! 😊
"We are not just products of our environment, we are creators of our environment."
The intro (and his tips AND the cultural contagions, YES) to this cookbook is one of the bests I've ever read. This is exactly why more families need to sit down and eat food together.
Can not put this book down!!! Shawn and his family come into this space with receipts for sure!!! This is eek written, science backed and very adaptable recipes!!! Real life food made for real life people that is healthy and just smart eating. Run don't walk. Get multiple copies!!!!