Book Review: The Balanced Plate, by Renee Loux

This book is chock full of recipes and ingredients the author has wonderfully combined in such a way that encourages people to make healthier choices in food and meal decisions.

Interestingly enough, her use of seemingly unusual ingredients really aren’t that unusual as it turns out. They can all be found at your local grocery or health food store. More than likely you just didn’t know what it was called or what the heck to do with it! Take for instance a “Daikon radish”. Most people have never heard of what that is, let alone know what to do with it. Renee has a tea recipe that incorporates this truly amazing vegetable to help dissolve fat! She also has little explanations throughout the book on why something is good for you, that information can have a lot of merit in deciding what to or not to eat.

She reviews different styles of eating from Ayureveda, to Macrobiotics to Raw, with a few in between. Discussing the merits of each. There is detailed information of the seasonings and spices a lot of her recipes call for that identify the origin, benefit, uses, and much more. It really is a complete novel for the cook looking to bring in some new ideas to the table and delight their culinary taste buds for themselves, their family and/or their friends.

In conclusion, I was impressed in the food and recipe variations she has put together. I imagine largely due to her experience being in the field of nutrition and culinary arts for the past 12 years. Considering she is also a teacher of incorporating whole foods into a balanced lifestyle, she has a way that comes across to the reader that is informative enough that gets you to try recipes with ingredients you may normally not have tried like the wild rice with carmelized onion broth. Especially if you’re not a big onion fan! Note: I left out the brussel sprouts and leeks, but everyone loved it anyways.