Synopses & Reviews
Following up on his bestselling diet plan, VB6, the incomparable Mark Bittman delivers a full cookbook of recipes designed to help you eat vegan every day before 6:00 p.m. — and deliciously all of the time.
Whether you call it flexitarian, part-time veganism, or vegetable-centric, the plant-based, real-food approach to eating introduced in Bittman's New York Times bestselling book VB6 has helped countless people regain their good health, control their weight, and forge a smarter, more ethical relationship with food. VB6 does away with the hard and fast rules, the calorie-counting, and the portion control of conventional diets; it's a regimen that is designed to be easy to adopt and stick to for a lifetime.
When Bittman committed to a vegan before 6:00 pm diet, he quickly realized that everything about it became easier if he cooked his own meals at home. In The VB6 Cookbook he makes this proposition more convenient than you could imagine. Drawing on a varied and enticing pantry of vegan staples strategically punctuated with "treat" foods (including meat and other animal products), he has created a versatile repertoire of recipes that makes following his plan simple, satisfying, and sustainable.
Breakfasts, the most challenging meal of the day for some vegans, are well represented here, with a full range of hot cereals, whirl-and-go-dairy free smoothies, toast toppers, and brunch-worthy entrees. Lunches include hearty soups, sandwiches, beans, grains, and pastas to pack along wherever the day takes you, and more than a dozen snack recipes provide the perfect afternoon pick-me-up to banish the vending-machine cravings that can undo a day of eating well. Dinners are flexitarian, focusing on vegetable-forward meals that are augmented by a range of animal products for fullest flavor, satisfaction, and nutrient density. A chapter devoted entirely to "building blocks" — make-ahead components you mix and match — ensures that a flavorful and healthy meal is never more than a few minutes away.
If you've thought of trying a vegan diet but worry it's too monotonous or unfamiliar, or simply don't want to give up foods you love to eat, Bittman's vegan and flexitarian recipes will help you cook your way to a new, varied and quite simply better way of eating you can really commit to... for life.
Review
"This companion cookbook to the VB6 diet (which can be used without its predecessor) effortlessly sidesteps common problems found in similar titles. Rather than overload readers with prescriptive rules, unfamiliar ingredients, and complicated preparations, Bittman gives them a memorable charge (eat more plants, less meat and processed foods) and tools to help them follow it, including informative charts on pantry staples, easy-to-prepare recipes for meals and snacks, a 28-day menu, and make-ahead 'building blocks' (e.g., fruit compote, big-batch cooked vegetables)." Library Journal
Synopsis
In VB6, bestselling author and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman created an easy-to-follow diet plan for vegan meals for breakfast and lunch, and healthy, vegetable-forward meals for everyday. Now in this tie-in cookbook, Bittman expands on the VB6 diet with a collection of 320 new recipes to keep the diet going and to keep eating better. When you eat lots of fruits and veggies while cutting back on meat and dairy, you can live healthier. Bittman's reliably simple, straightforward approach to cooking, and thoughtful approach to a partially vegan lifestyle, will make this a must-cook book for both VB6 diet converts and for anyone looking to lose weight and cook, eat, and live healthier.
About the Author
Mark Bittman is one of the country's best-known and most widely respected food writers. His How to Cook Everything books, with one million copies in print, are a mainstay of the modern kitchen. Bittman writes for the Opinion section of New York Times on food policy and cooking, and is a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. His "The Minimalist" cooking show, based on his popular NYT column, can be seen on the Cooking Channel. His most recent book, VB6, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale.