cover of George Stella's Livin' Low Carb: Family Recipes Stella Style

George Stella's Livin' Low Carb: Family Recipes Stella Style

Paperback
Author: George Stella, Cory Williamson
Avg. user rating: 4.5
List price: $17.95
Discounted price: $12.21
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Description

George Stella's Livin' Low Carb has little in common with diet books: In fact, it's got more in common with a cookbook you might have bought for yourself when you first moved out on your own. The style is casual and approachable, with no tense lists of diet-related details or overly-complex recipes, and cooking techniques require little more than a working stove and a frying pan.

George Stella (along with pastry chef-wife Rachel) have developed a wide range of recipes designed to compliment Atkins and other low-carb diet regimens. Rather than relying on packaged convenience foods that meet these dietary standards, they focus on home-cooked meals that satisfy the demands of low carb life without tasting like they were baked up in a factory. Flavors include Chinese (Szechuan stir-fry), Italian-American (clams casino), Southern (fried chicken), and American sweets (chocolate chip muffins and no-bake Key lime cheesecake). Snacks, salads, entrees, and desserts all see equal amounts of attention.

There's a heavy reliance on the sugar substitute Splenda, but in general this is real food for daily life. The condiment chapter contains homemade versions of ketchup, mustard sauce, barbecue sauce and even Thousand Island dressing, and makes a simple place to get started even if the only kitchen appliance you're comfortable with is a can opener. Each recipe clearly notes "special equipment" (like 8-inch square pans) as well as the yield, net carbs per serving, and separate times needed for prepping and cooking.

Because of the sugar substitute and number of recipes that alter classics in ways that compromise traditional textures in favor of lowering carbs (such as noodle-free lasagna), the book is most likely to be used by dieters, rather than all home cooks. Still, if you're looking for easy ways to tinker with your food intake that doesn't involve packaged mixes from the diet industry, Stella offers plenty of tasty options. --Jill Lightner

Reader Reviews

"Great Cookbook"

Rating: 5 stars
I just bought this book and made the meat lasagna and it is fantastic. The book is easy to read with basic ingredients. I am looking forward to trying more receipes and I can't wait to see how my weight loss progresses. Thanks George!

"Neanderthin Diet: the Big Picture"

Rating: 5 stars
I became interested in the Paleolithic Diet after starting Atkins. I lost weight quickly and easily by cutting carbohydrates. There really was something to this low-carb stuff!

I began reading other diet books like Protein Power and scoured the Internet. There were a lot of online references to something called the Paleolithic Diet. One book was mentioned time and time again, Neanderthin, by Ray Audette.

I got ahold of the new edition and became a convert. The book tells that while our diet has changed since the advent of agriculture, our genes have not had time to adapt. We still have the old hunter-gatherer DNA. The grains, refined sugars and carbohydrates in our diet today are making us sick. Our bodies can't handle this new stuff.

The book tells you what foods to eat and what to avoid. Well written with an extensive bibliography.

Very highly recommended. The book has changed my life.

Bob Hodgen

"Worth It"

Rating: 5 stars
The author briefly details the history of wheat and grains. He reminds the reader that many of the foods we eat are so new and so toxic that the human body was not meant to digest them. He must be right, because the moment I stopped eating wheat, my asthma symptoms diminished the tendency to get the flu decreased.

This diet is the least complicated of all the ones out there now. For those who prefer simple guidelines over complicated measuring (he has list of permanent no-no's) this book is good.

"Worth It"

Rating: 5 stars
The author briefly details the history of wheat and grains. He reminds the reader that many of the foods we eat are so new and so toxic that the human body was not meant to digest them. He must be right, because the moment I stopped eating wheat, my asthma symptoms diminished the tendency to get the flu decreased.

This diet is the least complicated of all the ones out there now. For those who prefer simple guidelines over complicated measuring (he has list of permanent no-no's) this book is good.

"great cookbook!"

Rating: 5 stars
I love this book....I have other low carb cookbooks and I use and enjoy them as well, but when I make recipes out of this book I do not feel like I am using crazy things like pork rinds to bread my chicken. I never thought that I would actually enjoy eating anything made with soy flour, but I have loved every recipe I have made out of this book!