500 Low-Carb Recipes: 500 Recipes, from Snacks to Dessert, That the Whole Family Will Love

Low-fat or low-carb? A recent New York Times Magazine (July 7, 2002) cover story answered this question and said that Dr. Atkins was right all along, "it's not fat that makes us fat but carbohydrates." Though the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research trying to prove that fat is the cause of obesity, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus over the past five years supporting what the low-carb diet doctors have been saying all along: if we eat less carbohydrates, we will lose weight and live longer.

One of the toughest challenges of any diet is having enough variety and choices to keep the dieter from losing interest. The most common reason that people abandon their diet is boredom but 500 Low-Carb Recipes: 500 Recipes, from Snacks to Dessert, That the Whole Family Will Love by Dana Carpender has more than enough recipes to keep even the most finicky dieter on track.

With recipes for everything including hors d'oeuvres, snacks, breads, muffins, side dishes, entrees, cookies, cakes and much more, this is an endless supply for creating meals for the whole family night after night. Whether everyone in the family is on a diet or not, these recipes are proven winners with adults and kids alike.

Also included:

• Many one-dish meals for single people — main dish salads, skillet suppers that include meat and vegetables, and hearty soups that are a full meal in a bowl.
• Ideas for breaking out of old ways of looking at food with suggestions that save time and money and change what is considered a normal meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Information about where to find low-carbohydrate specialty products and descriptions of low-carb specialty foods found in grocery stores everywhere.
• An entire chapter that lists and describes low-carb substitute ingredients such as fats and oils, flour substitutes, liquids, seasonings, and sweeteners.

Dieters will be pleased to know that they can eat foods like guacamole, omelets, pizza, steak, ham and dessert without giving up great taste and still lose weight. There are enough recipes to create the perfect menu for any holiday of the year — including Thanksgiving. Each of the 500 recipes includes a carbohydrate count to help calculate the total carb intake of each menu.

There are more recipes for main dishes and side dishes than most low-carb dieters will ever be able to eat — everything from down-home cooking to ethnic fare; from quick-and-easy weeknight meals to knock-their-socks off party food — making 500 Low-Carb Recipes the last cookbook any dieter will ever need to buy and certain to be used until the binding is worn out!

These 500 low-carb recipes cover everything from soup to nuts, with choices like Heroin Wings (they're so good they're addictive), Mockahlua Cheesecake, and Meatza (pizza without the crust) — plus dozens of ways to spice up staple dishes such as burgers, omelets, steaks and chicken.

Dana Carpender is the author of 500 Low-Carb Recipes, which has sold over 250,000 copies, has been featured on the Today Show, and is a USA Today bestseller. She is also the author of How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds, and her follow-up cookbook, 15-Minute Low-Carb Recipes. Dana is the founder of the biweekly online newsletter Lowcarbezine!, which boasts over 20,000 subscribers. As a low-carb diet spokesperson, Dana has appeared on the radio, television, and in print nationwide.

Dana's low-carb journey began several years ago, but came dangerously close to failure when three weeks into her low-carb diet, a frightening thing happened: She walked into her kitchen, and didn't have a clue what to serve for dinner. For a girl whose friends had nicknamed her "The God of Food," it was a scary, disorienting, and disheartening moment.

After all, years of creative low-fat/high-carb cooking had left Dana with a repertoire of fabulous dishes — Three-Grain Curried Chicken Pilau with Pineapple Chutney, Cuban Black Beans and Rice, and the like. Unfortunately, all that low-fat/high-carb food tasted great, but had left Dana a size 20, not to mention tired, with blood pressure pushing borderline high. Those recipes simply had to go!

In contrast, after just three weeks of low-carb dieting, Dana had lost ten pounds, lowered her blood pressure, and increased her energy dramatically. It was clear that this was what her body wanted; she had set her foot on a road from which there was no return. Dana was Low Carb For Life.

After seven years of trial-and-error in the kitchen, and three years of publishing the popular newsletter Lowcarbezine!: mission accomplished! 500 Low-Carb Recipes hit the market and has rapidly become the bestselling low carbohydrate cookbook in America. And she has no plans of stopping any time soon. Dana feels as though she has found her calling: to make it easy for people everywhere to eat what their bodies were meant to eat by developing delicious low-carb recipes.