Book Review: The Forks Over Knives Plan

I’m really excited to talk to you about today’s review. I’m reviewing a book, and it’s full of awesome information and delicious dishes.

Before I proceed, this book was given to me to read and review. I was contacted to review The Forks Over Knives Plan, and I honestly couldn’t have been more excited about it.

I never read the original Forks Over Knives, but I did see the movie. It was life-changing. I was already very attuned to the food supply and just how backward our country is when it comes to growing, producing, slaughtering, and consuming food. But then I saw Forks Over Knives and it shed additional, scientific light on many health claims and how tons of diseases can actually be reversed when we take care in choosing and consuming food.

One of the things that always intrigued me about the movie Forks Over Knives was how many delicious whole-food, plant-based dishes they showed clients and supporters enjoying. My husband and I always thought the meals looked delicious. We had just begun our whole-food, plant-based journey ourselves, and were very new to all of the different flavors and dishes and ingredients available. Most of the ingredients for vegetarian or vegan dishes I had never even heard of when I started cooking without meat. Now I know a bit more, but I still never figured out what exactly they were eating in the Forks Over Knives movie…

The trailblazing film Forks Over Knives exposed an entirely new generation to the whole-food, plant-based nutrition revolution and inspired thousands to want to transform their diets, and their lives. With so many people looking for change, the outstanding question became, “How can we put these dietary ideas into practice?” That’s what authors Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman reveal in The Forks Over Knives Plan: How to Transition to the Life-Saving, Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet — a clear, easy-to-follow plan that outlines the steps to take each week to transform your diet by cutting out animal-based and processed foods.

Brilliant!

So here’s what I think about this new book, The Forks Over Knives Plan: A 4-Week Meal-By-Meal Makeover.

It’s detailed. There’s a lot of wonderful information. If you haven’t read or seen the original Forks Over Knives, most of this information is very useful. Having already seen the movie a lot of the information was a refresher for me.

The plan is easy. If you aren’t already eating a whole-food, plant-based diet, this book eases you into it. It teaches you simple things to help you along the way — reading nutrition labels, for example. Some people do this easily every time they go to the grocery store. But others have a harder time deciphering what’s what. And how could you not, really? Nutrition labels in the U.S. are basically a joke. They make no sense.

The plan teaches you how to plan! It’s amazing, really. A lot of meal plans I’ve checked out have basically just told you what to do, leaving you high and dry with no explanation. The Forks Over Knives Plan never does that. There are several sections for meal planning, as well as trouble-shooting if you’re having a problem sticking with the plan or if you get confused about something.

There are tons of recipes. Once you get past the informative portion of the book, you come to the recipes section. And recipes there are! The photos shown of some of the recipes made my mouth water and I didn’t even understand what I was looking at, if you can believe that. I’ve made two of the three I’ve dog-eared so far.

Clockwise from top left:
Millet Croquettes with Dill Dipping Sauce;
Butternut Squash Soup with Sauteed Green Peas and Pesto Sauce; White Bean Lettuce Wraps.

So those are the things I really love about the book. There’s one thing I really do not love, however, and I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t tell you about it.

The recipes are complicated, in-depth, and time consuming. Eek. I feel that I must elaborate on this point a bit. I’m a stay-at-home-mom with two very young children. Cooking is a chore and an event in itself. I do cook six out of seven days a week, however. I cook vegetarian meals 99% of the time. My favorite meals are crock-pot stews or soups, or easy-to-put-together dishes such as ‘Vegetarian Fajitas‘ or ‘Pasta with Roasted Veggies.’ These tend to be less stressful.

One thing I noticed about the recipes is that there is no “prep time” or “cook time” information, which I find very useful when trying new recipes. I’ve reviewed another somewhat complicated recipe book in the past and those times were included, which made it a teensy-tiny bit less stressful.

The recipes we did try, Polenta Curry and Tuscan White Bean Burgers, were very good. But like I said, very time consuming and stressful, even for someone who cooks as much as I do.

All in all, I am very pleased with the new Forks Over Knives Plan. There’s a lot of wonderful information, and if I didn’t already adhere to a lot of the plan and didn’t know where to start, I would find the information extremely helpful. I’m looking forward to sharing a few of the recipes in upcoming posts. Stay tuned for those.

So bottom line — would I recommend The Forks Over Knives Plan to a friend or family member? Absolutely.

In fact, I will probably go out of my way to recommend it to my family members. It contains a lot of useful and informative stuff. Not to mention that most of my family members have more time to devote to trying new recipes, which would make it much more fun to cook rather than being attacked on all sides by two little people under the age of 5.

That’s that. I highly encourage you to check out Forks Over Knives if you aren’t familiar with it already. It’s eye-opening and life-changing. And the recipes in the new book are pretty rad…