First Slice Your Cookbook ...

One of my resolutions before the end of the year was to somehow organise a huge pile of magazine/newspaper cuttings. Anything interesting or inspiring I rip out. One particular pile is of adult human height (I kid you not). In my attempt at reorganisation I stumbled across a cutting on the re-launch of Arabella Boxer’s First Slice Your Cookbook (I grew up with a parental cooking bookshelf overflowing with authors such as Boxer, Jane Grigson, Margaret Costa and Elizabeth David).

I’m not someone who makes a big deal about eating a raw/high-raw diet, I just get on and quietly do it. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been interrogated by family/friends about where I get my protein, or how much my daily calcium intake is (or perhaps I’m just lucky)?! Oddly enough though, from time to time, I interrogate myself. I know it’s ridiculous, these questions never occurred to me when I ate a ‘standard’ diet ‘fortified’ with crisps and sweets, yet despite an unequivocally improved food intake, they continue to cross my mind from time to time. Has this happened to anyone else? When it happens to me, I always turn to Plant Based Nutrition and Health. Written by a scientist and former Chair of the Vegan Society it calmly guides you through everything you need to know about vegan food intake – chapters on calcium, fats, minerals and vitamins, even raw food. Even better, if you’re rushed for time, each chapter has a one-page summary, so you can make instant and simple dietary tweakings. Turning the pages makes me feel better every single time my mind starts its bizarre chattering about minerals, calcium, protein and the like.

Hoisting my own copy of First Slice Your Cookbook off the bookshelf I was inspired to take some of my own advice re. having favourite recipes to hand, link it to my sometimes questioning nutritional path, and present it in First Slice Your Cookbook mode. That way, I can not only plan daily menus and come up with new combinations of favourite food (the book is split into three which allows you to mix and match), but also see at a glance my intake ratios of fat/fruit/greens etc. It’s my first resolution for 2009...