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Muscle
Meals reviewed by |
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Before we start the review, some background on the reviewer. I am the family cook. My wife is not a natural in the kitchen whereas I was raised in a house where my mother was (and is) one of those great mom chefs. Nothing fancy but great food and a lot of it from scratch ("What's for dinner tonight, Mom?" "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll make us a soup."). Growing up with that I just have a knack for cooking. Again, nothing fancy but believe me when I tell you that I make the best pizza outside of Chicago. Modesty prevents me from being more boastful.
Now let me tell you what I look for in a cookbook. I was not raised on gourmet food so I don't look for gourmet cookbooks. Give me a book with ingredients I recognize and can easily get my hands on (preferably from my cupboard). Unlike my mother, I am not a housewife (neither is my wife, for that matter). Since I generally can't prepare meals until after I get home from work, I need recipes that are fairly quick and fairly easy. The last thing I look for is an abundance of recipes that look yummy. Recipes should look like they're going to produce good tasting food. Those are the three things: basic ingredients, speed and ease of preparation, tasty looking. This should go for all cookbooks, including those aimed at bodybuilders.
Frankly, there are hardly any cookbooks aimed at bodybuilders. Mandy Tanny's Muscular Gourmet (out of print) and Faith Walker's Gainer's Gourmet are two that come immediately to mind. I don't know much about Gainer's Gourmet apart from Faith Walker's column in Ironman and those recipes never grabbed me. I purchased Muscular Gourmet years ago when I just started working out and I just had to eat that bodybuilder food! I think I made one dish out of the book. Usually recipes for bodybuilders are an after-thought in workout books or maybe the occasional magazine articles. They are generally nothing to get excited about.
John Romano (columnist for All Natural Muscular Development ), on the other hand, has written Muscle Meals and it is something to get excited about. Finally, interesting, tasty, low-fat, high-protein foods for bodybuilders. It turns out that John's mother runs a gourmet bakery, his sister and brother are both professional chefs, and his father is "an expert bread baker by hobby." This background suggests someone who was raised around good food and is not going to settle for broiled chicken, brown rice, and broccoli every day. John has come up with page after page of good tasting recipes that anyone can make. Not just recipes, though, John talks about kitchen equipment, utensils, preparation techniques, and every recipe comes with a nutritional breakdown (calories, protein, carbs, and fat). It is also accompanied by illustrations from ANMD artist Lyman Dally (go easy on the veins next time, Lyman).
The really nice thing about "Muscle Meals" is that the recipes can be used as a starting point. In their raw state, they are pretty low fat without many weird ingredients. In fact, the only non-food ingredients he suggests are Equal sweetener, Butter Buds, olive oil-flavored cooking spray, and Twinlab's Vege Fuel (a soy protein powder). What if you don't want low fat or don't have the "weird" ingredients? Simply substitute the real thing! Sugar for Equal, butter for Butter Buds, etc. (though there is no substitute for Vege Fuel you can just leave it out). The recipes are good enough to be used "right out of the box" or you can fatten them up if you're not currently on a strict diet. It's an all-season cookbook.
Of course I have not tried every recipe in the book. I have tried a few (with good results), some I do not need to try because I cook something close to them already, and some I can just tell are going to be good. John devotes an entire chapter to recipes with Vege Fuel and I must admit that I have not tried any of those, yet. I have started adding tofu to some of my recipes and, if done properly, it is a way of adding some soy protein to a meal without adversely affecting the taste. Given what I have seen in the rest of the book, I am definitely going to try some of the Vege Fuel recipes. John also talks about the lengths he went to get a Vege Fuel bread recipe. The guy likes food.
If you are looking to spice up your bodybuilder diet and you can cook, check out Muscle Meals. The recipes are solid, good cooking, and something you can continue to use when you want to ease up on your strict diet.
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