Online Eccentric Librarian's Reviews > Cultured Food for Health: A Guide to Healing Yourself with Probiotic Foods Kefir * Kombucha * Cultured Vegetables

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Cultured Food for Life is a cookbook and introduction to the health benefits of cultured foods; specifically: kefir, kambucha, and cultured vegetables. The recipes are varied and there are some fascinating things to cook - from Watermelon Pico De Gallo to Flu-Prevention Cultured Vegetables. But the lack of images, ingredients hard to come by in normal stores, and that every single recipe includes an ingredient you have to buy from the author's website/webstore do let the book down.

The book breaks down as follows: Part I: Fermenting Health (The hundred trillion friends you didn't know you had; The trilogy; Prebiotics: another digestive ally; Your health and cultured foods; Bringing the trilogy into you life). Part II: The Recipes (The basics; Breakfast treats and smoothies; Dips and appetizers; Main courses; Side dishes and salads; Desserts; Beverages; Condiments, dressings, flavorings, and pickles. Afterward, appendix (21 day trilogy program, metric conversion table, index, endnotes).

I can't fault the author for her enthusiasm over the topic - the introduction chapters are full of health accolades of what cultured foods might do for you: from curing acne to IBS. From the description, the three cultured food types, when taking together and regular, are one step toward curing cancer, not to mention the common cold. Yes, it is a lot of anecdotal evidence of how it helped her family with nearly any ailment with an occasional study result thrown in - but certainly probiotics and the gut are hot topics right now in the diet and health industry. I just don't believe they are the panacea the author makes them out to be.

There were two frustrations with this book I had, though. First and foremost, nearly everything requires a starter. Starters are live cultures so they aren't something you're going to find in your neighborhood stores. And you need to always have a culture growing somewhere, even when you go on vacation, or you have to start all over again. So if you live overseas or in a small town, you might have some trouble keeping up with the cultures/purchasing cultures. Pretty much every single recipe requires one.

But frustrating to me is when health and recipe books tout recipes that have ingredients that can only be bought from that author. Sure, the author can say that it is a convenience to readers, but Schwenk is careful to mention that her starters have been perfected and much better than store bought ones. And all her recipes call for 'packets' of her starters - without mentioning how much that would equate with any other starter product. Since the author mentions many times how important measurements are to get the culture right, it means you're pretty much going to be shelling out money to her to get the recipes followed. Honestly, I find it disingenuous when she says you can use any starter but then lists recipes very specific to her own products.

There aren't a lot of cookbooks out there for cultured foods and that is where this cookbook shines. The author clearly has a love of the topic and has experimented for years in order to create the recipes. And although I am unable to use any of them, they certainly do sound very intriguing. As well, there is a great breadth and depth in the recipes listed and a lot of creativity has gone into them.

So for me, this book is a mixed bag. I certainly wouldn't appreciate being a consumer who buys the book expecting to start making cultured foods - only to find out that to best follow the recipes, I have to pay more money to the author and wait for the items to arrive from her webstore. But on the other side, for those wanting to incorporate more cultured foods into their diet, this is a very creative group of recipes. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.