Jules Clancy (pictured) was living in Cooma when I first discovered her blog, https://thestonesoup.com and I was working at the National Rural Health Alliance. Jules was a good example of an enterprising rural woman and I shared much of her nutritional and culinary advice as well as her blogs and books with my readers.
She is a good writer and has a knack for making healthy cooking fun. At her blog and website you’ll find a goldmine of easily digested information and this book is the latest of a long series of excellent e-books. Love Your Waist Line and Your Food: A food lover’s guide to healthy cooking and eating habits in 28 days includes a low-carbohydrate eating plan, simple recipes for meals, snacks and sweet treats, and much more, all written in Jules Clancy’s accessible style.
Why low-carb?
Carbohydrates affect blood sugar levels, creating a roller-coaster of highs and lows that you’ll notice in big fluctuations in your energy. Carbs are addictive, they interfere with hormones such as the ones that regulate hunger and the feeling of fullness, they affect brain health, feed cancer cells and give you wrinkles. If these reasons are enough for you, read on.
Jules Clancy makes it easy to minimise carbs. She understands that everyone is unique, each with our own blend of taste preferences, genes and biochemistry’ and she shares strategies for finding a balance that suits – between enjoying our favourite foods and achieving health goals.
She’s not a fanatic about food preferences. While trying to avoid grain, sugar and starch for the most part, she recommends planning one meal off a week for indulging in whatever you’re craving.
This book has techniques to keep you motivated and some intriguing new insights about exercise and what it will do for you and what it won’t. There’s a low-carb pantry makeover, information on intermittent fasting, avoiding waste, and how to make habits work for you.
Partial to a few carbs? No problem
Jules Clancy tells us that the best book on this that she read was James Clear’s Atomic Habits. When I looked it up in Canberra’s public library system there were 45 reserves on it. If each of those people borrows it for three weeks – I’ll let you do the maths! We can buy the book or buy Jules’ new one where she has the hyperlink for a short video giving practical examples of how habits work.
Jules Clancy has wonderful suggestions about how to make low-carb versions of recipes like spaghetti bolognaise and bread. The substitutes do taste good.
All the recipes I’ve tried easily pass the taste test. The author has her Irishman and this reviewer’s equivalent is my Englishman, who is also partial to a few carbs. These recipes satisfied even him. They are just so tasty that people don’t realise that they happen to be low in carbohydrates.
No guilt! No shame!
With Jules Clancy’s methods of transitioning to a low carb life there is no guilt or shame involved and no forbidden foods, just enthusiastic guidance towards a more wholesome, healthier you from someone who really knows her stuff.
I haven’t tried every recipe here but all I have tried, several from each category, have been an outstanding success. I love her Chocolatey Coconut Granola, the Coconut Pancakes, Zuccini Bread and my absolute favourite breakfast – which I often have for lunch – is Harissa Scrambled Eggs. It is addictive.
The Best Ever Broccoli Salad really lives up to its name. The Bistro Paté, very high in iron, tastes like it does in France. I love it with salad or on sandwiches for lunch.
My Englishman and I found the Spiced Chicken and Onions with Hummus an exciting new combination of flavours – absolutely delicious. Her Cheesy Broccoli is a firm favourite, although only with me – the author categorises it as a girls’ night in type of food and my Englishman and our boys concur: they call it ‘Girlie Food’. (No chillies? I find a couple of shakes of bottled dried chillis is just as good.)
Chimmichurri is something I’d never heard of before reading about it in this book. Jules tells us that it is an Argentinian sauce that they usually serve with steak. That would account for my ignorance of it: I hate steak. Here, in Minute Chicken with Green Olive Chimmichurri, she serves the sauce with chicken. Which was excellent.
Weird list of ingredients
It even worked well when I didn’t follow her suggestion of having it with steamed beans or salad greens on the side. Instead, I had her Okaonomiyaki (Japanese Cabbage ‘pancake’), which had a very weird list of ingredients, all of them good for you but I couldn’t imagine would taste anything but peculiar at best and inedible at worst.
But no: Jules Clancy did it again – that weird combination of cabbage, soy sauce, eggs, almond meal and sesame seeds with mayonnaise actually worked beautifully and went well with her Chicken with Green Olive Chimmichurri.
This e-book is easy to use. You can save recipes in different locations – on your laptop, iPhone or iPad – or print out relevant recipes or indeed the entire book.
There’s a Search Function to save time and Bookmarks and hyperlinks.
Over the years Jules Clancy has made my life easier and richer with her expertise and generosity. I subscribe to her Meal Plans – a life-saver. Her writing and presenting style is characterised by energy and enthusiasm. Her blog has recipes – easy, quick and nutritious, with less than five ingredients – at https://thestonesoup.com
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