Clean Green Eats: 100+ Clean-Eating Recipes to Improve Your Whole Life

by Candice Kumai

Clean up your diet and look and feel better than ever with this simple, beautiful cookbook featuring more than 100 recipes that make it easy and delicious to eat clean and green.

We all know we should eat more green foods, but after a few variations on the same salad, juice or smoothie, it’s easy to run out of ideas that excite our taste buds. In Clean Green Eats, celebrity chef Candice Kumai offers an answer to that dilemma, offering more than 100 simple, unique and delicious recipes made from whole foods packed with of nutrients that will help you lose weight, detox, and look amazing. All of her recipes are effortlessly gluten free (no complicated ingredients required!) and while a plant-based diet is the focus, the idea of “meat as a treat”—eating high-quality, sensible portions of animal protein—is also central to her plan.

Clean Green Eats kicks off with Candice’s one week cleanse, which includes juices, smoothies, and simple meals, and continues with a six-week plan to develop healthy practices that will last a lifetime. There’s no deprivation with Candice’s delicious drinks, breakfasts, snacks, soups, salads, sides, mains, and desserts. Start your day with a Coconut Almond Green Smooth or Cinnamon-Spiced Granola. For lunch, fill up on Farro, Edamame, and Pea Salad. Whip up Asian Ginger Garlic Steak Salad, Superfood Curry Salmon Salad, or Chili Lime Shrimp Tostadas for a delicious dinner. For a fabulous finale, she includes desserts like Vegan Dark-Chocolate Avocado Cake and Banana Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ‘Ice Cream.’

Banish the processed food, sugar, and carb habits that lead to fatigue, belly bloat, poor digestion, and constant cravings—let Clean Green Eats help you look and feel better than ever, no deprivation required!

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Cooking, Reference, Food

287 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2015

About the author

Candice Kumai is an American author and chef. Kumai is based in New York City.

Candice was born in California to a Japanese mother and Polish-American father. Kumai worked as a model when she was a teenager. Later, she trained as a professional chef in Southern California, cooking on the line at several restaurants.

Reviews

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can definitely appreciate a book that offers interesting greens-heavy recipes. However: this is a another book liberally sprinkled with the vague and misleading word "detox" and used far more exclamation points than necessary. I'm sure she's lovely in person (and I bet that reading this in a cookbook is better than on kindle) - but it reads like a perky optimist cheerleader is trying to improve your eating habits, which I found rather off-putting.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Be sure to take a photo to post on Instagram! Ug.

[Harlow]

Is “clean” dated? Does it mean not processed? This book was published in 2015, research and science evolves.

I got a few new ideas. Specifically:

*roasted curry-apple-potato salad plus kale or watercress (chapter 287)
*warm potato and watercress salad (page 296)
*sun-dried tomato and tofu farro salad (page 298)
*lemony-soy edamame barley bowl plus arugula (page 331)

I skimmed most of the detox (beginning), skipped chapters 13-15 in the ebook.

If you are a WFPBNO eater or eat to live/Nutritarian all the recipes will need to be modified.

[Ashleyree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yum, and not just vegetarian/vegan (yay!) Has several more recipes I want to try. A possible contender for buying. Rotisserie chicken and chopped kale salad with creamy smoked paprika vinaigrette, shaved brussel sprout salad, curly kale with tahini garlic dressing, superfood coconut curry salmon salad, kale chicken noodle soup, clean green Walnut barley soup, smashed avocado and smoked salmon over pumpernickel, roasted curried Apple potato salad, roasted kabocha squash salad.

[Pixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I couldn't decide whether to click 2 or 3 stars. It seemed like there was a lot of repetition in ingredients. If you don't like kale, you'll be skipping a lot of pages. On the other hand, if you plan to do the "clean green cleanse," it might make sense to only have to buy a certain number of ingredients.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just didn't like the food. There wasn't a single recipe that *everyone* would eat.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a vegan cookbook but it’s a great starting point for those considering a vegan diet. Many vegan recipes included and those that aren’t can be veganized. It’s a visually stunning cookbook and there are numerous recipes in it that I enjoy: Roasted Kabocha Squash Salad; Sweet Kale Lemonade; Coconut-Date Scones; Kale Quinoa Tabbouleh; Parsnip and Leek Detox Soup; Green Matcha Tea Loaf Cake and Homemade Coconut Cake. Being clean and green means using less ingredients. The recipes are relatively straight-forward and don't require impossible to locate ingredients.

I saw Candice Kumai on The Wendy Williams Show. Wendy went vegan recently and Candice shared several of her green recipes. Being clean green, she utilizes on many deep healthy greens like kale and broccoli rabe in her recipes. Here’s how Candice describes clean eating: “A lifestyle that involves consuming real food in or as close to its most natural state as possible. Eating to nourish and cleanse the body and mind. Educating yourself on where food comes from. Purchasing or growing foods that are nutritious, unprocessed, and sustainable.” She shares a green cleanse—a two week cleanse with green juices and avoiding dairy, added sugar, animal protein, alcohol, caffeine. Some clean detox foods include cabbage, cilantro, coconut oil, avocado, collard greens, extra-virgin olive oil, melon, kale and miso paste.

Clean Green Eats is divided into these sections: How to Eat Again; The Clean Green Cleanse; Clean Green Cleansing Juices and Smoothies; Green and Gorgeous Breakfasts and Brunches; Clean Green Salads; Clean Green Soups; Clean Green Snacks; Clean Green Burgers and Sandwiches; Clean Green Sides; Clean Green Veggie Mains; Clean Green Meat Mains; Clean Green Pizzas and Pastas; Clean Green Sweets and Treats; Clean Green Basics; and Ten Clean Green Salad Dressings.

[Maureen D. Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful info

I really enjoyed the beginning of the book. Lots of useful info about ingredients. A lot of the ingredients I used to have in my kitchen and I have gradually gotten away from using them. The recipes were not appealing to me. While I like to cook healthy meals, kale and coconut oil are two ingredients I really dislike and they are in many of the recipes.

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've bought all her books so far and this one is no different. She makes eating clean and healthy look delicious without stressing out. Plus there's desserts in here too, and if you're like me there's always room for dessert.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enough photos! The content was interesting and well written, with a few too many exclamation marks (as I use one in my first sentence ....) -- informative, but much of her info is not new to me. The recipes I tried were okay and just did not wow me. Not inspiring enough to try any more.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great new cookbook. I especially like the 2 week cleanse plan she provides.

[Alisa]

Let's just call this the Kale Avocado Cookbook because nearly every recipe has those ingredients. I like kale and avocado as much as the next person, but Candice Kumai must literally live on them.

That said, if you used this book as your primary recipe source and you are the target audience of single 20-something female, your grocery shopping at your local Whole Foods (I prefer Sprouts...saudades) should be pretty straightforward. Nothing too crazy as far as ingredients go, and most of these recipes whip up in 30 minutes. Bonus points for being gluten and dairy free.

This book is good inspiration for making your lunches a little healthier, but I would give it a trial run before buying to see if it is really useful long-term.