My wife and I have recently "evolved" our diet from high fat fried to low-fat, no red meat to vegetarian and now finally embracing vegan. During the transition, recipes were a hit-and-miss conglomeration of internet resources and my favorite traditional recipes re-vamped (from my most favoritest cookbook from years past: "The Four Ingredient Cookbook"). The positive aspects of the ever tweaking process was an ability to improvise, plus fine-tune a recipe to meet our palate. The downside was never being sure what your going to get due to your trial & error, and since most of the recipes didn't start out with a health aspect, the tweaking only made them moderately more healthy. Then by accident I happened upon @happyherbivore on twitter. That is the "handle" of a very talented Lindsay S. Nixon. Checking out recipes she had posted on her website made me curious about her new cookbook. Well "The Happy Herbivore" arrived in the mail this week from Amazon, and let me tell you; it's better than I could have imagained. Simple and affordable vegan recipes that center on being low-fat and healthy. Now for the breakdown: The Purpose: As Lindsay explains in the introduction, her goal was to: "bring healthy but delicious vegan food to others." I knew as with all "food regimens" that you typically have an option between healthy and not-so-healthy. I naively thought my wife and I had been on the "healthy" side. It took getting to just page 3 of "The Happy Herbivore" to realize how wrong I was. I was schooled on oils in an eye opening way. Another reason we had unwittingly deviated from the "healthy" side was convenience. There are so many processed foods available now for vegans, that the lure is hard to escape. I was sadly mistaken that eating a "healthy vegan diet" was somehow complicated, or required exotic ingredients or machines I could neither afford or have access to. In just 10 pages Lindsay was able in her introduction to explain the purpose of the cookbook, and all the ins and outs of making it happen. Then you get to the "meat" of the book: Recipes Broken down into logical categories, "The Happy Herbivore" is a great "Vegan Playbook". You can either do the guy thing (look at the pretty pictures to choose the meal you want) or be more dogmatic and use her handy dandy icons. On page 9 she outlines the icons you'll find for easy recipe classification. Categories are as follow: * No Cooking Required * Quick (30 minutes or less) * Fat-Free * Gluten-Free * Soy-Free * Kid-Friendly * Omni-Friendly So as your perusing the cookbook, the top of each page will have the icons that are applicable to that particular recipe. Need something quick & gluten free? Just look for recipes with the appropriate icons. You'll also notice at the bottom of each page is a nutrtition breakdown for each recipe. For an example of one of her recipes check out the "Hippie Loaf" from her cookbook "The Happy Herbivore". Conclusion: I think one of the reasons this cookbook appeals to me is because it is so similiar to the "Four Ingredient Cookbook" I had used for so many years. It uses a few simple ingredients to make a delicious meal without a lot of time and effort in the kitchen. The advantages it has over my "old fave cookbook" is the recipes are healthy and don't rely on processed ingredients. I highly recommend this cookbook if you enjoy eating good food, but don't enjoy spending lots of time in preparation of the meals. ~david