Here we review The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook.
Product: The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook – A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well (With Over 100 Recipes for Simple, Healing Foods)
Author: Kate O'Donnell
My rating: 10 out of 10
Table of Contents
You have to admire a book that received a nearly perfect satisfaction score from more than 100 buyers.
If you're familiar with the Amazon review system, you know it operates on a 1 to 5-star scoring system. One star means that the reader was not pleased with the book they read, and 5 stars is a perfectly positive rating.
That said… The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook: A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well, has a sterling 4.8-star customer satisfaction rating.
Let's dig in deep and see exactly what you can expect from this cookbook using Ayurveda ideas dating back thousands of years.
The author, Kate O'Donnell says that food has always been her friend.
From making mud pies as a toddler – to coming of age in the kitchens of India… O'Donnell says she never gave digestion as the key to health and well-being much of a thought. She just ate when she was hungry.
As she got older and became an adult, she began to notice the relationship between what she ate and how she felt. Particularly sick in her stomach at one point, she turned to an Ayurvedic doctor, because he was the closest healer at hand.
He explained how Ayurvedic medicine uses food to heal and to prevent illness and disease from occurring in the first place. Then he asked about her particular mental, physical, and emotional state, and then recommended a local vegetable to heal her.
She went to see a vegetable vendor, who “pointed to a white squash the size of a ceiling fan.” After she took it home, prepared it as instructed, her digestive issues disappeared.
From that time forward, she has been an avid Ayurvedic practitioner and full-time yoga instructor. Ayurveda and Yoga are sister sciences. Ayurveda is the healing side of yoga. Yoga is the spiritual side of Ayurveda.
The Idea for the Book
After living for 15 years in what she calls the best mental and physical health and wellness of her life, thanks to Ayurveda… She wanted to share the Ayurvedic ideas about nutrition with the world.
So she teamed up with a photographer (the photography is delightful!) to show the true vitality and essence of the foods used to create them.
She also yearned to make recipes that were simple and easy to prepare, and fit in well with modern, busy lifestyles. She has included not only recipes but shopping lists and seasonal food guides that help you create a strategy for practicing Ayurvedic cooking and lifestyle routines right away.
The result is this 298-page book packed with Ayurvedic principles, practices, recipes and lifestyle tips for improving your mental, emotional and physical health.
The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook Review:
A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well Review
By Kate O'Donnell
The book starts with a Readers Note from the author.
She explains her history with food, and how she didn't originally associate eating with health as a young adult. She was sometimes healthy and sometimes sick and didn't realize the food she was putting into her body was largely responsible.
In the Readers Note, Kate, the author/Ayurvedic practitioner/yoga teacher says:
The diet and lifestyle I introduce in this book have greatly supported me in sustaining a life of service in an urban environment and balancing a spiritual path with the duties of daily life.
She goes on to say that the recipes in this book, and lifestyle tips, can help you create a similar balance in your life.
Introduction
This leads to an introduction which states the goal of the book is to get you into your kitchen, and out of restaurants and eating food that you don't prepare.
The author also makes it a point to tell you these are simple meals. You can prepare them quickly with ingredients you can find at your local grocery store.
She says this book is for you if you are looking for reliable, proven ways to heal your lifestyle through diet.
Who is the book for?
The book is SO helpful if you are new to simple healthy cooking or Ayurveda. At the same time, this book will save you if you suffer from poor digestion, mental/emotional fog, or low life force/lack of energy.
Included are recipes for simple breakfasts, lunches, and suppers. What I love is that most of the recipes are uncomplicated and you can adapt them by switching out ingredients as the seasons change.
This leads to the meat of the book, which is broken down into 2 main parts.
Ayurvedic Lifestyle Products
Part 1 of The Everyday Ayurvedic Cookbook:
Part 1 contains 3 chapters or 51 beautifully illustrated pages. It is here where you learn the basics of Ayurveda and the principles of Ayurvedic eating.
You'll learn:
- How Ayurveda works
- What Yoga has to do with it
- The 5 Element and 20 Quality theory of nature
- How to align with the seasons in your cooking
- The causes of imbalance or how we get out of whack
- Important concepts of Agni, Prana, and Ojas
- When and how to eat for the best health of your life
- Tips for improving digestion
- Keeping meals simple
- Organizing your pantry and spice rack
- Using seasonal food lists
- Cooking for your family
Part 2:
The second part of the book contains 5 chapters and covers a full 160 pages. The recipes are divided into meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in spring, summer, fall, and winter.
I have many favorites with dog-eared corners so it was hard to choose which ones to share with you… But here are just a few meals and treats that we love at our house.
- South Indian Sambar (so good!)
- Carrot Ginger Soup with roasted chickpeas
- Detox dal Soup with dosa
- Cardamom limeade
- Herbed hummus
- Fall Roasted Spiced Vegetables with Whipped Tahini Sauce
- Red Pumpkin dal
- Raw Beet Slaw with Lemon and Mint
- Sunbutter truffles
As mentioned previously, you can tweak and adapt all the recipes to seasonal spices and vegetables. The whole idea is to have you eating the freshest and most appropriate energy influencers for your mind-body energy balance.
The last 24 pages of the book are extremely helpful. Here you'll find topics like:
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Seasonal Cleansing
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Tools and techniques you need for an Ayurvedic kitchen
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Cooking Tables and Seasonal Shopping Lists.
The book ends with a Glossary and a list of helpful Resources, followed by the author's Acknowledgments.
Why Ayurveda?
Ayurvedic medicine has been around for thousands and thousands of years. It is the medicine of nature and teaches us to put into practice Nature's great principles of health and natural living.
It is a simple yet profound system of living according to an energic system of the elements and biological humors.
Ayurveda often heals people when modern medical practices fail to help… Especially with chronic lifestyle diseases like obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure
Furthermore many conventional doctors use Ayurveda as a complement to modern medicine.
My Thoughts
I purchased this book before the ink was even dry at the publishing company! I love to cook, but more than that I love to cook healthy and Ayurveda is a passion, so it was a no-brainer, as they say.
It's my favorite Ayurveda cookbook because the recipes are simple, delicious plus it keeps Ayurvedic principles in front of me daily! The recipes use fresh seasonal ingredients that enable me to create, in the middle of a busy day, authentic, healing meals.
If you're like me and believe in the power of food to prevent and heal disease, then The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook – A Seasonal Guide to Eating and Living Well is for you too.
Long post… But great information.. I got many new things to learn so i am thankful to you.
Hi Giselle, Thanks for connecting. I hope you enjoyed the review of The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook! It’s my favorite everyday cookbook so I’m happy to share it… take care, be well… xo Jackie
My God, Indeed this book is really worth reading. I have also purchased this book from Amazon. Love all the chapters of the book. I am crazy about Ayurveda and Ayurvedic Stuffs. Learned so many new things from this book. Love to cook too so it’s really worth buying too. Best wishes and regards.
Hi Katherine! I can’t tell you how happy I am to learn you love this book as much as I. It’s like a practical guide to living Ayurvedically… and the recipes are a bonus! Thanks for taking the time to connect and report your experience.
Hey there, the book seems to be great i have ordered one as soon as i read this blog was tired of eating some what the same stuff, thanks for sharing appreciate it.
Great! Let me know what you try and like!
just couldn’t leave your website before telling you that we really enjoyed the quality information you offer to your visitors… Will be back often to check up on new posts…
Can’t wait to get the book and try some yummy recipes. Thanks for the review
You’re going to love the roasted beet recipe I was telling you about! Make sure to try the Tahini sauce with it and invite me over for dinner! 😉
An Ayurveda is really a Nature’s gift for us! Worth reading your blog as I got such a useful tips here, rveda has always proven to be effective in many areas. Thanks a lot for sharing such a wonderful blog!