The Biggest Loser Flavors of the World Cookbook

By: The Biggest Loser Experts and Cast
Publisher: Rodale Books
Publication Date: March 2011
ISBN: 978-1609611484
Reviewed by: Ellen Feld
Review Date: May 23, 2011

When this cookbook came in for review, I showed it to my two teenage kids and asked each of them to pick two recipes that looked interesting. We then went shopping to pick up the ingredients we didn’t have in the kitchen, and set to work. I’m happy to report that the meals we created were tasty, easy to prepare, and best of all, low calorie!

The Biggest Loser Flavors of the World Cookbook promotes itself as a cookbook but it is really so much more. For fans of the show, you’ll get to meet contestants who offer little tidbits of advice to help motivate. “Plan what you are going to eat and make sure you set up your kitchen for success,” advises Jay Jacobs while Olivia Ward suggests drinking lots and lots of water. There are also “trainer tips” spread throughout the book with suggestions to make your workouts and dieting more successful. Over 30 pages at the front of the book are dedicated to “creating new traditions” and other related topics to help, including such things as decoding food packaging labels.

Now on to the best part – the food. We made several dishes and each one was a hit. The Greek salad was amazingly easy to prepare, and quite tasty. Having made it once, it now seems like an obvious meal addition in our household and we’ll be making it again and again. My teenage daughter, who hates to cook, prepared the chicken satay herself. We all devoured it and now that she knows how to make the accompanying peanut sauce, she’s incorporated it into her “snack attacks.” My son’s favorite was the shrimp open burrito, again a very easy meal to prepare. While the portions were not quite enough to satisfy his huge appetite, they were quite sufficient for my daughter and I.

Each recipe includes the number of calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat (including saturated), cholesterol, fiber and sodium. There are frequent suggestions for salt-free or other healthier variants of common ingredients, including actual brand names. We didn’t find any of the recipes, with these healthier alternatives, to be lacking in taste. Perhaps the best aspect of this cookbook, for those of us who are, er, “cooking challenged,” is that the recipes are very easy, and for the most part, quick to prepare.

Quill says: Yummy, easy to prepare recipes and you just might lose some weight too – what’s not to like?