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portico801's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not rating this book yet because I haven't tried the program or made any of the recipes.
I've been looking for a program/meal plan to help me cut out sugar for a certain period of time so I can be more aware of how much I'm eating. This was one of the only ones I found that didn't encourage artificial sweeteners. The idea behind this program is similar to the Whole30, which I hated, with two important differences:
1. There are 3 different "levels" of the 21 Day Sugar Detox. Level 3 is the most extreme. On this level you would basically be following the rules of the Whole30, ie a strict paleo diet. On levels 1 & 2, unlimited full fat dairy is allowed, and on level 1, you can have 1/2 cup gluten-free whole grains (like quinoa or rice) or beans a day. There are also modifications for pregnant or nursing mothers, athletes, and even pescetarians.
2. There is less BS. It Starts with Food (the book about the Whole30) is full of condescending statements and seriously faulty logic. I have a feeling this author's other book, Practical Paleo, may have a lot of these issues, but since The 21 Day Sugar Detox is not a paleo diet book, it avoids the things I hate most about the paleo diet (which is another story for another day). Instead of defending a diet that makes little logical sense by cherrypicking scientific studies, the author gives a basic description of how sugar affects the body. Basically her paleo agenda is not as obvious as Dallas and Melissa's in It Starts with Food, which I appreciated. The book is very focused on sugar, which is why I bought it.
So I'm pretty okay with this program, and I think I'm going to try it, but it's going to take a lot of work to find a way to both comply with the program AND to stay true to my own beliefs about food. There's a recipe in this book that calls for a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork, and it says it makes four servings. That's a HALF A POUND OF MEAT PER SERVING. Barf. I would love to follow the pescetarian modification of the program, but I can't afford a serving of seafood every day for 21 days. Whatever. Updates to come!
UPDATE: I tried the program and made it 11 days. It's a very well-designed, well thought out program... it's just too much meat for me. maybe one day when I'm rich I'll be able to afford enough fish to do this following the pescetarian modification. but even doing this for less than half the recommended time gave me an awareness of how much sugar I was eating before, and how faulty my diet was (even when I thought I was doing well). today I took a bite of my favorite peanut butter (forbidden on the program because it's peanut and because it has cane sugar) and I almost spit it out because it tasted so different than I remembered. SO sweet. sickeningly sweet. I love the program for this awareness, and I'm going to do my best to keep eating as little sugar as possible.
the recipes I made from this book were simple and reasonably good. I really have to give the author credit for writing such simple recipes, because the side effects of giving up sugar and carbs do NOT put one in the right mindset to cook complicated food. I loved the pumpkin pancakes, the spaghetti squash bolognese (I don't recommend subbing pumpkin for tomato as the notes suggest, though-blech), and the coconut milk smoothies.
I've been looking for a program/meal plan to help me cut out sugar for a certain period of time so I can be more aware of how much I'm eating. This was one of the only ones I found that didn't encourage artificial sweeteners. The idea behind this program is similar to the Whole30, which I hated, with two important differences:
1. There are 3 different "levels" of the 21 Day Sugar Detox. Level 3 is the most extreme. On this level you would basically be following the rules of the Whole30, ie a strict paleo diet. On levels 1 & 2, unlimited full fat dairy is allowed, and on level 1, you can have 1/2 cup gluten-free whole grains (like quinoa or rice) or beans a day. There are also modifications for pregnant or nursing mothers, athletes, and even pescetarians.
2. There is less BS. It Starts with Food (the book about the Whole30) is full of condescending statements and seriously faulty logic. I have a feeling this author's other book, Practical Paleo, may have a lot of these issues, but since The 21 Day Sugar Detox is not a paleo diet book, it avoids the things I hate most about the paleo diet (which is another story for another day). Instead of defending a diet that makes little logical sense by cherrypicking scientific studies, the author gives a basic description of how sugar affects the body. Basically her paleo agenda is not as obvious as Dallas and Melissa's in It Starts with Food, which I appreciated. The book is very focused on sugar, which is why I bought it.
So I'm pretty okay with this program, and I think I'm going to try it, but it's going to take a lot of work to find a way to both comply with the program AND to stay true to my own beliefs about food. There's a recipe in this book that calls for a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork, and it says it makes four servings. That's a HALF A POUND OF MEAT PER SERVING. Barf. I would love to follow the pescetarian modification of the program, but I can't afford a serving of seafood every day for 21 days. Whatever. Updates to come!
UPDATE: I tried the program and made it 11 days. It's a very well-designed, well thought out program... it's just too much meat for me. maybe one day when I'm rich I'll be able to afford enough fish to do this following the pescetarian modification. but even doing this for less than half the recommended time gave me an awareness of how much sugar I was eating before, and how faulty my diet was (even when I thought I was doing well). today I took a bite of my favorite peanut butter (forbidden on the program because it's peanut and because it has cane sugar) and I almost spit it out because it tasted so different than I remembered. SO sweet. sickeningly sweet. I love the program for this awareness, and I'm going to do my best to keep eating as little sugar as possible.
the recipes I made from this book were simple and reasonably good. I really have to give the author credit for writing such simple recipes, because the side effects of giving up sugar and carbs do NOT put one in the right mindset to cook complicated food. I loved the pumpkin pancakes, the spaghetti squash bolognese (I don't recommend subbing pumpkin for tomato as the notes suggest, though-blech), and the coconut milk smoothies.
seesylread's review against another edition
5.0
Looking forward to following this plan starting on January 4th (in conjunction with the FB/website program). Great advice to get going on a healthy eating plan. Get rid of cravings and sugar overload.
girrllie's review against another edition
3.0
It’s annoying but ultimately helpful. I do think it helped keep me on track and is worth the extra expense. The program itself is free online. The book adds more explanation and tries to be encouraging but I found the prompts a little basic. Some things are annoying like the box telling you to post on SM every day. And there’s no official space to write what you’re planning to eat and what you actually ate. Instead it assumes you’re going to eat the plan and recipes in the book. They have to know hardly anyone actually does that so why not allow for it? I made a few of the recipes and they were good. But I’m used to LC cooking so had most stuff on hand. Quite a few required specialty ingredients that I’m not going to buy and are expensive. This is not a low carb program but feels like a more doable in-between to me. I’m still not clear why only 3 fruits are allowed but everything else makes sense.
bedknobsandbookmarks's review against another edition
1.0
Has a little bit of good information in the beginning but she keeps talking about eating whole foods and then fills the books with recipes full of meat, eggs, butter and animal fats
withthebanned's review against another edition
3.0
This one helped me a lot, the recipes were easy to follow and yummy. The allowance of a few fruits helped me stay on track too!
afro8921's review against another edition
2.0
I've been swindled by a pretty picture before, but this takes the sugar free cake. The pictures are what usually draws me to a cookbook. The recipes seemed to fit my lifestyle and I had most of the ingredients on hand. The problem: little to no spices used in the recipes. If you take our sugar and salt, you have to replace it with something that will make it palatable. Who wants to eat a diet of bland foods unless they are in a hospital? I did a couple of the recipes an tweaked them a bit to add a little flavor. I'm not saying to don't try it, I'm saying rent it don't buy it.
curlyowl's review against another edition
3.0
Easy to read, easy to follow. I just might give this detox a try. The word detox itself sounds gimmicky but the plan it's self really isn't. We obviously have livers that do our detoxing but this plan seems like a practical way to reset our pallets and to crush cravings. I could see how this plan would appeal to someone who is an all or nothing kind of person; especially when trying to get back into fitness and healthy eatings.
solitarysoul's review against another edition
2.0
This isn't what I was looking for so it might be great if you are looking for a total sugar detox. I wanted more tips and snack ideas. Also, not a vegetarian friendly book. A couple of the dessert recipes look good. There is a sugar free ketchup that I hope to try.
bethreadsandnaps's review against another edition
4.0
This seems very do-able except that it eliminates most fruit. :( The included recipes look very tasty and I would eat most of the recipes with little to no modification.