[.ca] 500 Fat Free Recipes: A Complete Guide to Reducing the ... (ISBN 0812992466)

It's a great book if you like beans!!!:
If you are looking for a low fat cookbook with some meat in it, this is not it. Although I tryed some of the recipes, they are good, but boring. One can only eat so many beans.

Good for Ornish followers or lacto-ovo vegetarians.:
In small leters in the introduction, the author explains this collection was developed for her husband who suffered from heart disease. They follow the Ornish program for heart reversal, which is basically low-fat, lacto-ovarian fare. The heart disease people, vegetarians, or those after better health/weight loss in general will appreciate this effort but those who do not know what "Ornish" means or those who skip the preface will be surprised that it's vegetarian and "no meat." Those wishing "meat-y" yet low-fat might be better off with one of Sue Spitler or Sandra Woodruff's books. There is no space/some small space in the margins for notes although there is nutritional info. There are some vegan or vegan-friendly variations, but you have to hunt and pick. It's easier to adapt to L/O than vegan -- it's usually right there in the variation (ex: "use chicken broth or vegetable broth"). There weren't any overly exotic ingredients to me but the introduction does go over the ingredients used and explains what they are. That would be useful for cooking novices. Some of the combinations are a little odd. Sometimes this works great and it's refreshing, other times it leaves me short of expectations. There is however, a consistancy of style across the recipes, and it's not bad if you want to be adventurous. I'd consider this more a "supplemental" cookbook rather than a "hardcore mainstay" one in my cookbook collection. Overall, it's a nice collection, but not necessarily my favorite one when I was l/o and now that I am vegan I rarely use it. I didn't think it was so great that I wanted the other cookbooks she wrote later but who knows? Maybe those improved.

Excellent Book:
Great tasting and easy to prepare. Alot of very creative recipes. Looking forward to making most of them. Since they are Fat Free the recipes do not include meat, fish or poultry but otherwise very exciting.

Creativity, ease, and tastiness!:
Sarah Schlesinger has become my new favorite cookbook author. She suggests combinations that are remarkably creative, tasty, and EASY! Low fat and healthy is a secondary as far as I'm concerned. Try her other cookbooks, too. (As for other commentators who have suggested that her cookbooks fall short of the 500 promised: I really admire her cooking philosophy, that small variations create whole new gastronomical experiences! Sarah Schlesinger has cooking in her bones, and her cookbooks are the closest I have seen to a transcription of that kind of intuition.)

500 recipes is stretching it.:
500 recipes is stretching it. Many of the "500" recipes in this book are simply variations on a theme. There is much less variety in the "500" than one might expect. Also, I found many of the combinations of ingredients repetitive and strange. For example, fruit of some kind in many of the grain and vegetable dishes. Examples of this include "Pineapple Carrots", "Green Beans with Tomatoes and Cinnamon", "Orange Acorn Squash", "Sherried Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Onion", "Butternut-Apple Casserole", "Peach-Blueberry Rice", "Spicy Rice with Dried Fruit", "Barley and Apples", "Carrott-Apple-Raisin Salad", "Carrot, Orange, and Celery Salad", "Oranges and Tomatoes with Honey Dressing". Unless this is your style you're not going to find 500 recipes to use. I found that many of the basic recipes that I liked were already in Dean Ornish's Program for reversing heart disease. He has some funky fruity stuff too.