Just as the weather’s getting hot again comes a new cool cookbook: “Ani’s Raw Food Asia: Easy East-West Fusion Recipes.” This latest from my friend Ani Phyo takes all the Asian dishes you know and love — and uncooks, freshifies, and healthifies them into raw, good-for-you delights.

From Mushroom “Bul Go Gi” for Korean barbecue fans to Yellow Coconut Curry Vegetables for Indian food lovers to Pineapple “Fried Rice” with Pineapple Curry Sauce for foodies craving Thai, “Ani’s Raw Food Asia” covers all the major Asian cuisines — along with green and healthy tips to get you feeling and looking good this summer and beyond.

But “Ani’s Raw Food Asia” goes beyond just the recipes and tips. This book is the most personal and heartfelt from Ani yet. She kicks off the book by revealing the long personal journey it took for her to embrace her Korean heritage — and ends it with a revealing story of her health struggles created by an unbalanced raw food diet and hectic schedule — struggles that she overcame by reintroducing cooked foods — and even fish — back into her diet, following the advice many holistic doctors gave her, and adopting a healthier lifestyle with meditation.

These stories help explain Ani’s forgiving, relaxed approach to raw foods. Throughout her book of delicious raw food recipes, Ani offers helpful suggestions for the less-than-100-percent raw foodie, from heating up the soup slightly on cold days to using toasted sesame seed oil for extra flavor — a substitution she makes herself for many Korean dishes.

Alongside the recipes, Ani offers health and nutritional details of ingredients people may not be familiar with, explaining what nutritional yeast really is and pointing out the power of papaya. And as with all her books, Ani provides a quick crash course on the benefits of raw food as well as simple suggestions for kitchen equipment and techniques — so that raw food newbies who pick up this book won’t be left wondering what exactly spiralizing means. Plus, green living tips — from making nontoxic cleaning recipes to adopting greener beauty regimens — grace each chapter of the book.

But of course, the real highlights of the cookbook are the recipes! I had been craving bibimbap, so I tried my hand at making Ani’s raw Bi-Bim-Bop — a spicy Korean version of your basic Buddah Bowl, for those not familiar with the dish. This was an all-from-scratch feat that included making not only my own raw rice from cashes and radish, but mixing my own gochujang (Korean hot chili pepper paste) and making several namul (Korean seasoned side dishes) to boot!

Luckily, Ani has recipes for all of those — and once the components are made, the Bi-Bim-Bop requires just a simple assembly with the rice on the bottom, namul arranged on top, and a dollop of gochujang topping off the dish. For simplicity’s sake, I made just two namul — mushroom and cucumber — along with a slightly pink rice (I had regular radish on hand that needed eating, so I used that instead of daikon radish) and cayenne pepper gochujang. Behold the result:

The dish — especially the marinated mushrooms — was so delicious and healthy I may have to make it once a week. For the less brave, less raw-curious, or food processor-less, I recommend starting with just making the namul dishes and gochujang — which really only takes a few minutes — and putting it atop brown rice for warmth. If you want a cooler, salad-ier dish, you can work up to making raw rice. Need something even simpler to get started? Vital Juice Los Angeles has Ani’s recipe for raw Miso Soup with Spinach and Bean Sprouts.

Find “Ani’s Raw Food Asia” in stores for $22.50. Or if you’re in L.A., stop by Ani’s book signing event this Sat., May 28, from 1 pm to 2:30 pm at Erewhon Natural Foods, 7660 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles. There, Ani will talk, do a food demo and tasting, answer questions, and sign books.

Earlier: Book review: Ani’s Raw Food Essentials — Cool dishes for dehydrator fans

5 Comments

Lead in lipstick, formaldehyde in hair straighteners, hormone disruptors in face cream…. Beauty news often comes with bad news these days, overwhelming eco-beauty seekers who don’t know where to start cleaning up their beauty routine. That’s where a new book by Samuel S. Epstein — “Healthy Beauty: Your Guide to Ingredients to Avoid and Products You Can Trust” — hopes to help.

You may already know Samuel as the author of the 1995 book, “The Safe Shopper’s Bible.” Now, with “Healthy Beauty,” Samuel provides an updated look at the problem plaguing modern beauty products — which, for the most part, remain unchanged.

As regular green LA girl readers know, the cosmetics industry is largely unregulated. “Healthy Beauty” gives a birds-eye-view of the problem, which centers on the fact that the FDA neither reviews products before they go on store shelves nor has the proper authority to take those products off the market — even when they’ve been shown to be dangerous. Add to that the fact the cosmetics industry’s often deceitful practices — which underplay the dangers of the cheap chemicals and exaggerate the FDA’s involvement in the regulation process — and we’ve got a pretty problem indeed. To drive his point home, Samuel focuses mainly on rising cancer rates, which he says provide the hardest numbers that show this lack of regulation’s creating serious human harm.

After an overview of the problem at hand, Samuel then goes on to devote a chapter each to specific product types — from baby products to nail salon chemicals — going over the dangerous ingredients to avoid in each group and identifying the greener alternatives. Each of these chapters ends with a list of recommended products — but these short lists usually contain just one or two products best-liked by Samuel, and are by no means a comprehensive list of your options.

Samuel’s more scientific-focused bent makes “Healthy Beauty” a much wonkier read than, say, “No More Dirty Looks,” last year’s green beauty book which tackles the same topics, but with a girlier, more personal, and more practical-minded tone. (more…)

3 Comments

For some environmentalists, the reusable bag’s a pesky accessory they always forget to carry. For others, totes are an fashion statement they never leave home without. Both types can get some eco-inspiration from “The Tote Bag,” a new book that celebrates some of the best in tote bag design.

Oh — and the book comes with, you guessed it — a tote bag!

After all, tote bags are highly multifunctional — as makeshift pillowcases, laptop cushions, and in as this case, book covers. The text of “The Tote Bag” doesn’t focus on the repurposing of tote bags much, but it does emphasize their reusability. “The tote bag is an eco product for this century, destined to replace plastic bags,” is how the author Jitesh Patel begins the introduction to his book.

If you’re marveling about how an entire book could be dedicated to tote bags, you likely haven’t yet visited Jitesh’s popular blog, Tote Prints, which showcases tote bag designs. “The Tote Bag” is like an edited down version of the blog, with colorful photo featuring the work of more than 120 illustrators and graphic designers around the world.

The featured tote designs run the gamut, from simple typography with sassy messages to whimsical nature-themed paintings to cute cartoon characters. Many designs have an eco-bent — My favorite being Adrian Johnson’s “Resistance is Fertile” with its smart anti clear-cutting message.

“The Tote Bag” makes for an entertaining coffee table book or a nice green gift for a designer friend who’s looking for creative inspiration — and a nice tote bag. Pick up a copy and a tote for $24.95.

0 Comments

Can a raw diet really cure cancer? Well, it hasn’t cured Kris Carr’s — but the woman behind the 2008 documentary “Crazy Sexy Cancer” has come out with a new book — “Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!” And this vegan-friendly tome’s encouraging its readers to try eating mostly raw — for optimum health, happiness, and eco-friendliness.

The message appears to be popular; “Crazy Sexy Diet” is officially a New York Times bestseller.

The book’s popularity likely isn’t a surprise for those who’ve watched “Crazy Sexy Cancer” — a moving documentary that begins with the then 31-year-old actress Kris discovering she has a rare form of incurable cancer — on Valentine’s Day, no less. But instead of sinking into despair, Kris starts to take control of her life by becoming a self-described “health junkie” — finding more health, happiness, and even love in the process.

Watching the film inspired me to start following Kris’ group blog at Crazy Sexy Life — which features health and wellness tips, advice, and recipes. Early this year, all that advice got compiled into book form as “Crazy Sexy Diet” — and I couldn’t resist getting a copy.

And I’m glad I did. Though the eating advice in “Crazy Sexy Diet” may be considered extreme, the book has a likable, upbeat, sassy tone — kind of like “Skinny Bitch,” except a lot less angry and a lot more encouraging. “Crazy Sexy Diet” is basically all about getting you to eat organic fruits and veggies — and a lot of it. Meat eaters may get a bit annoyed by the vegan menu — and certainly whether or not a vegan diet is the most optimal or greenest diet is debatable. But “Crazy Sexy Diet” isn’t too overwhelmingly preachy about veganism itself, instead choosing to focus on moving away from the inarguably unhealthy and ungreen standard American diet of processed edible food-like substances (including processed faux meats!) and factory farmed meats.

To that end, “Crazy Sexy Diet” weaves in a lot of eco-friendly eating ideas — (more…)

3 Comments

Can a vegan diet taste delicious and leave you filling satisfied — if you don’t let yourself add any fat to the dishes? According to Lindsay S. Nixon, yes, you can. The vegan New Yorker’s new cookbook, “The Happy Herbivore,” is not only all vegan but also extremely low fat. And from the recipes I’ve tried making so far, I’ve concluded that no-added-fat vegan dining can indeed be delicious!

In her introduction to the book, Lindsay reveals that she is against cooking with oil; she believes most added fats (including extra virgin olive oil, when heated) are dangerous to health. Whether or not you agree with her, the gorgeous 4-color photos of the scrumptious-looking vegan dishes in “Happy Herbivore” will make you want to give low fat vegan dining a try.

For lunch today, I had the African Kale and Yam Soup — a flavorful and satisfying dish rich enough to work as a meal. The recipe begins by water-sauteing thinly sliced onions — sans cooking oils! I worried that the complete lack of added oils might make for a bland and thin soup — but I enjoyed the unique mix of spices and the comforting mix of kale and yams.

But can low-fat recipes work for vegan desserts? I got an answer to that question last week, when I baked up a dozen Strawberry Cupcakes using Happy Herbivore’s recipe for a dinner for four. Again, the cupcakes had no added fat — just what was in the flour and soy milk. Yet everyone at the table — after a filling meal — ate two cupcakes each. None were vegan; one called the cupcakes “magical.”

Did the cupcakes taste exactly like “conventional” cupcakes? No. They required less sugar and were made with whole wheat flour — giving the cupcakes a more chewy texture and less cloyingly sweet taste, features preferred by people like me. No one noticed that the cupcakes had no added fat, but everyone was surprised to discover each cupcake had less than 160 calories — before the icing.

The 175+ recipes in “The Happy Herbivore” all have nutritional information at the bottom of the pages, and come with symbols letting you know if a dish is fat free, gluten-free, or soy-free. I’m not vegan or averse to cooking with olive oil, but I think I’ll be consulting “The Happy Herbivore” for delicious veg-friendly recipes a lot this year.

14 Comments