Review of Vegan Planet: 400 Irresistible Recipes with Fantastic Flavors from Home and Around the World (Paperback)

This book makes an excellent gift for someone just starting to explore the vegetarian lifestyle. Surprisingly, it is also an excellent resource for the tried-and-true vegan.

For those just familiarizing themselves with the vegan diet, the author explains all potentially new terminology and describes common ingredients used in vegan food preparation: tofu, seitan, and miso for instance. For the most part, his recipes use readily-accessible ingredients, available in most supermarkets. In the rare cases where exotic ingredients are called for, the appendix lists mail-order sources for those who may not live near a natural food store.

The book starts with an excellent first chapter on nutrition. The author notes that a vegan diet provides all essential nutrients, though without proper supplementation it can be deficient in vitamin B12. This deficiency is often considered by those reluctant to switch to a vegetarian diet as the "Achilles Heel" of a vegan diet. In fact, having just one easily-remedied deficiency makes the standard non-vegan diet look pretty awful in comparison. While a standard dairy-and-meat-based diet may not be deficient in vitamin B12, it is certainly problematic in its propensity to cause heart disease, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, and a wide range of other serious illnesses. In fact, as the author points out, a comprehensive set of long-term studies on diet and health done at Cornell University indicates that 80 to 90 percent of all cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other forms of degenerative illness are directly linked to the consumption of meat and dairy products. Talk about an Achilles Heel!

Interspersed between the recipes in this book are lots of hidden gems including lists of 10 environmental reasons to go vegan, 12 really great health reasons to go vegan, 7 great reasons to eat soy every day, and 9 compelling ethical reasons to go vegan. The author provides useful kitchen tips, such as stove-top cooking times for 15 kinds of grains and for 13 different beans. Nutritional profiles are provided for many foods, including the vitamin, mineral, and fatty acid content of 16 different nuts and seeds and 10 different kinds of sea vegetables.

For those interested in switching away from use of white sugar, the author introduces the alternative natural sweetener called stevia. He also provides guidelines for using maple syrup in place of white sugar in baking (indicating how to reduce the liquid in your recipe when you use a liquid sweetener instead of sugar). Furthermore, the author explains how to bake using eggalternatives.

Gosh, I haven't even mentioned the recipes themselves yet! The collection of tempting tasties covers the whole spectrum from A (Adzuki beans) to Z (Zucchini). 20 chapters of recipes provide great ideas for tasty chutneys, gnocchi, curries, pizzas, burgers, pancakes, "cheesecake", and so much more. This is the most comprehensive vegetarian cookbook I've ever come across.

This book is a great addition to any library of cookbooks, helpful to vegetarians and soon-to-be vegetarians alike. (Even meat-eaters won't feel deprived by the very creative recipes in this book.) I can't resist giving Vegan Planet my highest recommendation.



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