Maria Emmerich has written a lot of books about following a ketogenic diet so I checked out The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse. I wanted to call this a cookbook but the publisher calls it a guidebook. I suppose that is more accurate because it covers a lot of information.
We’ve often talked about the keto diet often on the Fit, Strong Women over 50 podcast. Most recently, we talked to Keto Woman.
Overview of The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse
The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 tells you how to heal your body. This section discusses why a ketogenic diet is good for you. She touches on cholesterol and Alzheimer’s and describes the problems with consuming carbohydrates. She also covers information about consuming fat and sugar and the effects on your body’s production of insulin.
Sections of The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse
Emmerich defines the ketogenic diet in Part 1. She explains how it affects your body and then provides the steps to “establishing a well-formulated ketogenic diet.” The point of this cleanse is to help you get into ketosis. This section also includes information about intermittent fasting and exercise.
Part 2 is the Ketogenic Kitchen which cover subjects such as ingredients and tools.
The meal plan and shopping list broken down by weeks is in Part 3.
Part 4 is the bulk of the book. Here are the recipes that make up the cleanse.
Finally, Part 5 is a list of resources, a listing of personal care products, testimonials and the indexes. Personally, I love indexes (that’s a discussion for another day). This one is split into a recipe index and a general index. I find that usually works well as long as you remember where you’ll find the recipes.
The book is well organized and is visually appealing. It has beautiful photographs. The book is laid out nicely with easy-to-read tables and graphs. Emmerich also does a good job of defining terms.
Recipes
This guidebook has 160 recipes and a meal plan for the first 30 days of a ketogenic diet. The recipes in this book are also dairy free. The first couple of chapters are devoted to explaining what a ketogenic diet is. It’s a high-fat moderate protein and low carb way of eating. The theory of that is that it causes the body to burn fat rather than sugar for energy.
The first 30 days described in this book are set up as a cleanse. The premise is that you follow her meal plan for 30 days and then you should feel great because you’re in ketosis. Once you complete the cleanse, she says that you will want to continue to eat this way.
The book includes a wide range of recipes. There are sections on sauces, breakfast, snacks, salads, soups, and main dishes including chicken, beef, pork, and seafood. The recipes end with what she calls Keto treats. These appear basically to be desserts.
Good Variety
What I like about this cookbook is that the recipes are a nice blend of foods. Many Keto cookbooks are a lot of bacon and cheese recipes. There is some bacon in this cookbook but not much. Certainly not on every page. Since it is a dairy-free cookbook, there’s no cheese at all which I find a welcome change. Don’t get me wrong. I like bacon and cheese but I’m not convinced that I should eat it every day.
Some of the recipes are a bit complicated. Because you’re supposed to eat this according to the 30-day cleanse schedule, she assumes that you have certain ingredients already prepared. For example, a recipe calls for cooked chicken so you need to have it on hand. This certainly isn’t a deal breaker but if you’re going to use the recipes without following the meal plan, make sure to plan ahead.
I don’t always do well with following a set meal plan but there’s lots of good recipes and ideas here that it’s worth checking out anyway.
A Good Place to Start
If you are curious about eating a Ketogenic diet, The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse is probably a good place to start. Emmerich provides lots of information about the diet and why you should eat this way. She includes a wide range of resources and information. Throughout this book, Emmerich mentions that she is a visual learner. It shows in her book design because it has lots of graphics and photos. I think overall this is a book I would recommend to others.
Published in 2016 by Victory Belt Publishing Inc. Copyright 2016 Maria Emmerich