Today starts a new series – book reviews! I’ll be taking a look at the plethora of books out there for new, experimenting, and more experienced vegans, and helping you see which ones can really make a difference in your kitchen and your life. First up, appropriately – The Vegan Cheat Sheet, which bills itself as “Your Take-Everywhere Guide to Plant-Based Eating“. I flipped through it myself and thought that it had some good resources, but I thought a better, more valuable, test would be to give it to someone who was just starting out and see if, and how, it actually helped them. And I just so happened to have a friend doing a 30-Day Vegan experiment. (Check out his thoughts on the 10 Keys to Vegan Success. :) ) So – perfect!
On to the review…. :)
The book!
The Vegan Cheat Sheet is a useful and informative book to help transition and maintain a vegan lifestyle. At first I wasn’t sure – I even had to skip parts of the first few chapters for my own sanity. There’s only so much “eat vegan or die” propaganda one should consume. As with most vegan sites, books, and talks, bunnies get a little fuzzier and kittens purr a little louder… but if you’re allergic to dander, push through the sneezes and at the end of this book, you’ll find the cure to your allergy – is a plant based diet! Get through the beginning and The Vegan Cheat Sheet offers some gems making it worth the read.
For instance, “Study Your Labels” sneaks into chapter 5 and gives you most (if not all) of the tricky ingredients you may not realize aren’t vegan. As a beginner vegan, I assumed if it didn’t say “meat” or “cheese”, I was golden. I mean, albumen totally sounds like a mineral, right? And who knew gummies were made from boiled pig bones? Public education let me down on that one. I can’t tell you how many bears, worms, and coins lost their gummy lives in the wee hours of the morning.
The standout resource in The Vegan Cheat Sheet is the chapter on grains. It very simply explains each grain with some of its benefits. After the read, grains are much less intimidating and I’ve found myself substituting in a plethora of different choices when I would normally “put it over rice”. Of course, choosing a grain substitute is done scientifically by picking one with a cool name. Take that amaranth! This revelation alone makes the book a substantial value.
The authors continue on with a great three week meal plan including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The outline of the plan allows for plenty of options for people with real lives (read: don’t spend two hours in the kitchen for each meal). Best of all, all of the food recipes are in the back of the book – even cheesy popcorn! Yep. Vegan “cheesy” popcorn is on the menu and the recipe is included.
Speaking of recipes, smack-dab in the middle of the book is an amazing collection of vegan recipes, neatly tucked into one place, segmented by category, and full of things I can’t quite pronounce but taste incredible. The categories are more fun than “Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner”. You can browse through “One Dish Meals”, “Sauce on Top”, and “Simple Salads and Wraps”. Each category is a combination of traditional vegan dishes and vegan style replacement recipes for your favorite foods. When I did my vegan trial, the biggest issue I had was snacks! What else fixes that sugar craving besides fresh fruit?! The Vegan Cheat Sheet has a section dedicated to answering that very question: “Desserts and Sweet Treats”. Try making chocolate birthday cake, apple cobbler, and biscotti! All vegan.
Bonus: Each recipe has a little quip or story to go along with it, adding just a touch more fun than a collection of ingredients.
The Vegan Cheat Sheet also has a few short, but specific chapters that give you a great place to start on a few situations you don’t really think about in advance when committing to the vegan diet. What to take on a road trip, going to parties / events, and general eating out tips are slipped into the pages. There’s also a pretty extensive section to help “Survive the Restaurant Chains”, which gives you a host of options at all the big names and many of the small names. Definitely worth a look over if you’re a traveler or find yourself meeting people out frequently. I like to skip eating out in favor of leftovers for the cost factor, and I’ve found it’s actually easier to drive by the drive-thru knowing I’ve got a healthy option in the fridge, just a microwave away.
Is it worth the buy? There were a few morsels of information I didn’t know when starting to read it. That’s a win. How do you look up something you don’t know you need to know? I also like a cookbook to give me inspiration and ideas, rather than just recipes for things I already know exist. Again, a win for The Vegan Cheat Sheet. Given the extensive recipe section, it definitely doubles as a cookbook. This will be a great resource to have on the shelf when you want to try something new. Grab the Kindle edition, and The Vegan Cheat Sheet lives up to its “Take everywhere guide” tag-line, giving you an on-the-go reference to keeping yourself from ingesting anything that used to have a face.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stu uses old world philosophies to help people navigate what mystics call “everyday life in the real world”. He tells Unbranded Stories, helps people find professional freedom, teaches yoga, and uses a bit of design savvy to find fulfillment on the fringe.