Book Review: Raw Foods for Busy People: Simple and Machine Free Recipes for Every Day--by Jordan Maerin

Reviewed by Sonya Sidky

November 10, 2009

I highly recommend this book for beginners and experienced raw foodies alike. It is clear that the author is passionate about raw foods. This book is very well organized and contains a variety of easy to prepare recipes and is packed with useful information and resources.

About the author

Jordan Maerin was already a vegetarian cook, when for health reasons she discovered raw foods. She prides herself in being able to translate cooked recipes into raw recipes. Her talent and enthusiasm are apparent in the recipes themselves as well as the whole tone of her book. In her preface she declared “I have the energy of an adolescent again, and am enjoying a spiritual and emotional renaissance.” Isn’t that what we all want?

You can learn more about Jordan and her offerings at her website: http://www.rawfoodsforbusypeople.com

How the book is organized

This is a very well organized and easy to follow book. Jordan uses symbols to indicate what type of equipment is needed (blender, food processor, and dehydrator). Even where a particularly type of equipment is recommended she uses a special symbol to indicate if there is machine-free option. For each of the recipe chapters, she orders the recipes from the simplest to the most complex. Here are the specific chapters:

Preface Introduction Chapter 1: The ABC’s of Raw Chapter 2: Using this Book Chapter 3: Exciting Salads Chapter 4: Marinades & Other Wet Stuff Chapter 5: Super Simple Soups Chapter 6: Dip This, Dip That Chapter 7: Dehydration for the Road Chapter 8: Almost Effortless Desserts Resources (very helpful) Recipe Index

The variety and simplicity of the recipes

Jordan does a great job of making all the ingredients easy to understand. Raw ingredients that may not be so well-known by the aspiring raw foodist, are explained in Chapter 2. I really like that there is a wide selection of complexity from recipes with just a few ingredients to recipes with several ingredients. Even the most complex recipes found at the end of each chapter are easy to prepare thanks to Jordan’s easy to understand instructions. For example, one of my favorite recipes is the last one in Chapter 4 and it is appropriately named “Cottage Pie”. It is a marinated vegetable dish topped with “mashed potatoes”. This dish makes a beautiful and very satisfying casserole. I can make a big casserole dish of it and eat it throughout the week and it also goes over very well at raw food potlucks. Like many of her recipes, you are introduced to a way of making the food taste good and can vary the ingredients to use what you have on hand or to add variety. Jordan does a great job suggesting substitute ingredients in order to give you different variations or uses of basically the same recipe. For example you can turn her marinara marinade into pizza sauce by adding sun-dried tomatoes. Her creamy avocado soup can be turned into citrus soup, Mexican soup or green soup.

Packed with useful information and resources

It is amazing that Jordan was able to pack key information and resources in addition to the numerous wonderful recipes into to just 93 pages. Don’t be fooled by the thinness of the book. Jordan provides comprehensive information, some of which I have not seen in other raw food books. She explains the different types of raw food diets, raw food terms, common raw food ingredients, detoxification and colon cleansing, raw food equipment and more. She also provides you with numerous strategies for making raw food convenient including eating out, ordering convenience foods, creating foods for travel ahead of time, and preparing a weekly meal plan.

The book includes a resource section with recourse under the following categories: Raw Inspiration, Raw Food Nutrition, Natural Fitness, Colon Health and Detoxification, Raw Recipe Books, Videos and DVD’s, Raw Lifestyle Magazines, Online Resources, Mail Order Resources, and Raw Food Healing Centers.

As of this writing, I am on day 6 of the Master Cleanse. Once I transition off the cleanse, it is of utmost importance to me to take my eating habits to the next level. In order to keep it simple, I have decided to focus on Jordan’s book for the weeks that follow my cleanse, and put her advice and recipes to work for me! I can’t wait to make that cottage pie again!