Recommended healthy recipe books

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" must be included in the daily diet of ordinary families. Those who need to treat chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes can choose the supporting recipe volume of "Harris Nutrition Principles (17th Edition)". Those who are fitness-oriented and gain muscle and lose fat can directly go to the "Sports Nutrition Guidelines (3rd Edition)". Those who want quick home-cooked healthy dishes can choose "Fan Zhihong's Healthy Home-cooked Cuisine".

To be honest, at first I also liked to collect all kinds of gaudy Internet celebrity recipes. It wasn’t until last year that a girl came to me for consultation and said that she followed the “Seven Days Sugar-Breaking Diet” from a certain book that had been popular for half a month. My aunt postponed it for ten days, and I was so dizzy that I couldn’t even go to work. I discovered that many people didn’t even understand the bottom line of healthy eating, so they dared to follow the scattered content on the Internet.

The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" is really the basic textbook for all healthy diets, bar none. Dozens of top nutrition experts in the country have been working on it for several years and combined it with the dietary structure and physical characteristics of the Chinese people. It does not have any extreme views to attract attention. The plate ratios and recommended intakes for different age groups are the result of millions of sample surveys. It is more reliable than 99% of wild nutritionists on the Internet. Of course, some people say that it is too conservative and not suitable for people who need to lose weight quickly or need special conditioning. This is true, but if you have never systematically understood healthy eating before, reading this book first will help you avoid at least 90% of the dietary IQ tax. You will be able to tell the difference by yourself after reading the rumors about "drinking fruit and vegetable juice to detoxify" and "not eating carbohydrates at all".

If you have underlying diseases, or there are elderly people at home who need to control sugar and blood pressure, be sure not to randomly search for "sugar control recipes" on the Internet. I used to provide dietary guidance to a 62-year-old diabetic aunt. She used to follow a certain recipe. She would eat pumpkin today and eat corn the next. Her blood sugar fluctuated for half a month. Later, I found "Harris Nutrition Principles" for her. The weight and ratio of each meal's ingredients are marked according to different body weights and different blood sugar control goals. Even the blood sugar differences of different cooking methods are clearly written. She followed it strictly for three weeks, and her fasting blood sugar stabilized from 7.8 to 6.2. Even her attending doctor asked her how she had adjusted her diet recently. The only drawback is that this book is too technical, and many terms may seem a bit confusing to ordinary people. If there are no special disease needs, there is really no need to spend this money.

For fitness friends, I really don’t recommend eating boiled chicken breasts and broccoli. I had a personal trainer before who ate boiled vegetables for three months. His body fat was stuck at 18% and he couldn’t move. He practiced to the point of hypoglycemia and fainted twice. Later, I gave him the recipes in the "Sports Nutrition Guide" and the carbohydrates for different training days. The ratio of protein, fat, and protein is clearly calculated for you. You can even eat creamy mushroom pasta on high-carb days for leg training, and appropriately reduce carbohydrates on rest days. He adjusted accordingly for two months, and his body fat dropped to 15%, and his muscles increased by 2 kilograms. Now when he meets everyone, he says that all the boiled vegetables he had before were in vain. This book is officially published by the International Society of Sports Nutrition. It is 10,000 times more reliable than the "fat-reducing meal recipes" made up by internet celebrity fitness bloggers. It even explains clearly how to mix supplements.

Oh, by the way, some people must say that these books are too academic and the dishes they cook are not delicious, then you can just read "Fan Zhihong's Healthy Home Cooking". My family's weekly menu is basically from here. Last week, I tried the less sugar version of tomato stewed beef brisket. I only used one-third of the usual rock sugar and added two dried shiitake mushrooms for freshness. My 6-year-old son, who previously refused to eat a bite of meat, ate less than half a bowl of beef brisket in one meal, and even soaked the soup with rice. The dishes inside are all home-cooked dishes suitable for Chinese stomachs, and many are marked to be ready in 10 or 20 minutes. When you are in a hurry in the morning, you can make a spinach egg pancake, or make a cold fungus and broccoli, which is much healthier than those light takeout meals you order.

Finally, I will give you a pitfall that I have stepped into. Before, I followed the trend and bought a lot of imported healthy cookbooks with very beautiful bindings. They were full of avocado toast, chia seed pudding, kale salad, etc. The photos looked good, but after eating them twice, I got tired of them. How can we ordinary Chinese stomachs eat these cold meals every day? There are also books that advocate that "eating certain foods can fight cancer" and "fasting can cure all diseases" are basically IQ taxes, so you can just pass them.

Oh, by the way, there is also a very controversial book called "Grain Brain". Many people regard it as a bible, saying that eating grains will make people stupid and sick. I have also read it. The opinions in it are actually mainly for people with gluten allergies and severe insulin resistance. If ordinary healthy people completely follow it and quit whole grains, they will easily suffer from B vitamin deficiency, constipation and other problems. Just use it as a reference for different ideas, don't really regard it as a golden rule.

In fact, choosing a healthy recipe book is really not that complicated. Don’t believe those “miracle recipes” that boast of being magical. They are either published by official authoritative organizations or written by practical nutritionists who have been working for more than ten years. The most important thing is that they are consistent with your own eating habits. After all, if you can stick to the recipes for the first half of the year, they are the recipes that can really make you healthier.