I have heard A LOT about this book, the authors and have
heard both success stories and failures surrounding this book. So needless to
say I was beyond curious to see what all the fuss was about. When I first got
this book, I immediately just flipped through the pages so I could see the
pictures of what types of recipes I was going to find inside. I was really just
looking to see if anything popped out at me that I knew I wanted to try, or
stay away from. Then I got down to the nitty gritty of what did I readily have
available in my kitchen and how much stuff was I going to have to buy. I have
heard people say this is a great book for those on a tight budget and that it
is way too expensive to realistically use daily on a tight budget. Both sides
are very passionate about their stance. So I wanted to see from a single mother’s
perspective raising 4 kids on her own and living barely above the poverty line,
just how affordable was this lifestyle change really. Also, I wanted to know
about the TASTE. After all, it does not matter how cheap or expensive the food
is if no one will eat it!
My first impressions of this book were that a lot of the
recipes looked amazing. I think one of the first pages I opened to was the
Chocolate monkey crepes and knew straight away that I was trying these no matter
what. I love Swedish crepes and spinach crepes, so this was right up my alley. The
other thing I noticed is how very few ingredients I had for most of the recipes
in my house. I also had no clue what half of the ingredients were, things like Gluccie,
peanut flour, not naughty noodles, whole husk psyllium flakes, and sunflower
lechitan, all of which were on the “what to get first” list. The book started
off a little intimidating and overwhelming, especially when I had no background
information on how the program itself really works. The book does give a really
quick intro though into the program breaking down what is Satisfying (S), Energizing
(E) and Fuel Pull (FP) were.
The girls do have a great sense of humor when writing the book,
which made it enjoyable. They really did add their own personal touch and
personality to the book. The pages are bright, bold and colorful and really
capture the food in a way that will make your mouth water just flipping through.
So what type of recipes does the book offer? There are crockpot meals, family
soups, family skillet meals, quick single soups, and quick single skillet meals.
Not to mention all the breakfast foods, drinks, desserts, and chips and dips!
So I do have to say this plan is pretty expensive,
especially at the start up. I am sure if this was your only go to cooking plan,
once you got some of the basic/essential ingredients and stopped buying other
things, it would be a lot more affordable then what it was for me, just trying
to “try it out”. The recipes we did try
though were amazing! I did eat those delicious crepes and loved every last
bite. All my kids loved the Sweddish meatballs in cream sauce and the buttah
chicken. I did not make any breakfast or dessert item the kids did not enjoy
using the crockpot meals was a HUGE timesaver for me. So even though the recipes cost me more than
what I would normally spend at the store, 90% of what we made were huge hits
with everyone, which is a victory and a plus for this book in my opinion. This
book did open our eyes that we can eat healthier and enjoy it, so we decided to
gradually work in recipes 2x’s a week and build from there as our budget
allows. Who knows, maybe in 6 months we will all only be eating the Trim
Healthy way.
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