The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet Recipe - Book Review

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Written by Dr Clare Bailey and Dr Sarah Schenker (a registered dietitian and nutritionist), The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet Recipe Book is the companion book to Michael Mosley's 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet book.

The book contains 150 recipes, and the recipes are based on a Mediterranean-style diet, including staples such as olive oil, nuts, legumes, meat, non-starchy vegetables, herbs and spices.



The book is divided into sections including:


This is followed by an 8-week meal planner on page 200.

Each recipe includes the number of servings, calories, protein, fat, fibre and carbs per serve.

I really like the variety in the book, for example there are both sweet and savoury breakfast recipes, soups and salads, along with vegetarian and meat-based dishes. There is a list of cupboard essentials on pages 18-21, and most of the ingredients are items that you'd find in any major supermarket.

One of the first recipes I made was Michael's Thai Fish Cakes (p.126), which was a quick and easy recipe to prepare.

I also made the Pear and Brazil Nut Chocolate Brownies (p.191), which were quite nice, particularly after being frozen and left to thaw for 10 minutes (they took on an almost fudge-like texture).



For this recipe I used 2 eggs instead of 3, as I've noticed that flourless cakes and brownies can be sometimes taste a bit 'eggy', and I also left out the pear as I didn't have any on hand.

The book also includes various tips on how to manage reduced-calorie/fasting days, and advice on how to adapt certain foods so that they are suitable for the diet plan. For example, there's information on how to increase the amount of resistant starch in brown rice, by adding 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil to the water during the cooking process, and then leaving it to cool in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours, and suggestions for various rice substitutes, such as cauliflower rice and konjac rice.

Is the book suitable for vegetarians?
Yes. While there are many meat-based dishes, there are plenty of vegetarian dishes which include protein sources such as eggs and legumes. For example, there are 37 recipes in the 'Easy Weekday Dinners' section, and 14 of these are vegetarian.

The 'Veg Sides' chapter on p.156 also contains a good range of veggie dishes that can be made into mains by adding protein such as Tofu or Eggs.

Some of the vegetarian recipes include:


Does the book include gluten-free recipes?
Yes, nearly all of the recipes are gluten-free.

There are a couple of recipes that contain wheat flour (Wholegrain Soda Bread, p.180, Thin Seeded Crackers p.75), however most of the other recipes use almond flour or chickpea flour, and the burgers/fish cakes use chia seeds and eggs to bind them together, instead of breadcrumbs.

Recommendation:
I'd recommend this book for anyone looking for low-calorie, reduced-carb recipe ideas.

If you are interested in the science behind the 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet, then I'd recommend reading the book first, but if you're keen to get straight into it, with just a brief overview of the diet, then this book would probably be sufficient.

Please note, if you are planning on following this diet (or an intermittant-fasting eating plan), please read the information on the official website first , as there are certain groups of people for which this eating plan is not suitable.

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