Book review: 4 Ingredients Cookbooks - quick but hardly healthy?
"Fast, fabulous & flavoursome recipes using 4 Ingredients. Written by Rachael Bermingham and Kim McCosker, these bestselling cookbooks are jam packed full of quick, easy and very delicious recipes that you can easily whip up to WOW your friends and family ..." That's the promise.
Post by Catherine Saxelby and home economist and dietitian Diane Temple
We are WOWED by the initiative and drive and marketing smarts of these two "Queensland Mums" as they describe themselves. They took an idea that's been around for a pretty long time (check the number of 4 ingredient cookbook offerings on Amazon), branded it and made it a best seller three times in Australia and are now making a name for themselves in UK.
We like their
- Lunchbox ideas (Book 1, pp 199-206).
- Leftover Ideas (Book 2, pp 215-221). These are always handy when you're stuck with heaps of just ripe fruit or uneaten cooked pasta.
- Vegetables section (Book 2, pp92 -98) has simple and effective ways to lift the flavour of veggies and get the family to eat more - carrots baked with lemon juice, ginger and butter; or an oven-baked casserole of zucchinis marinated with onion, olive oil and oregano.
What's our beef?
Apart from the salad and breakfast recipes, healthy recipes are very few and very far between. Cooking Kim and Rachael's 4-ingredient way means depending on ready-prepared ingredients - packet soup mixes, canned condensed soups, stock cubes, ready-made sauces, commercial dressings, commercial meal bases, sour cream, sweetened condensed milk, cans of caramel topping, chocolate biscuits and rice bubbles.
These types of processed foods tend to be high in artery-clogging saturated fat, blood-pressure-raising salt, added sugars, super refined carbs and additives better known by number than name like colours 102, 110, 124, 127 and 133, thickeners, preservatives 212, 220, 221 and 282 and flavour enhancers 621, 622 and 623.
Overall the recipes fall woefully short on the fibre front. Occasionally wholemeal bread is used but mostly it's white.
And all too often when vegetables do make an appearance, they come to the table with lots of added cheese, butter, bacon or cream.
Possibly the worst recipe ever
We spotted the worst recipe we've ever seen in Book 2 on page 40 (see right). Called Curry Curls, it consists of two layers of puff pastry filled with crushed potato chips and curry powder! A nutritional nightmare of saturated fat and salt!
Isn't anyone else apart from us worried about recipes such as Mozzarella Cubes? You coat chunks of mozzarella cheese in eggs and crumbed Jatz biscuits and then deep-fry them (Book 1, p44). Or Chicken Nuggets made with 1 ½ cups mayonnaise - well at least they are baked, not fried!
With achieving and maintaining a healthy weight a significant problem for many children and adults, and with 200 people a day currently being diagnosed with type 2, we just want to say to Rachael and Kim: "Please turn your talents to creating fabulously healthy 4 ingredient recipes" ... and give recipes like these the flick!
Please make it healthy next time - here's how
We know you can do it because there are some healthy options in your books.
For instance, Fruit Medley (in Book 2, p96) has chopped nectarines, bananas, blueberries mixed with orange juice; Melon Ice Blocks (Book 2, p199) is made from watermelon and pineapple pureed and frozen; Quick Bircher Muesli (Book 2, p16) and red yoghurt dip (Book 2, p23).
Soooo ....
- Forget packet onion soup, sour cream, sweetened condensed milk and get creative with canned tomatoes, canned tuna or salmon, frozen or canned corn, jars of antipasto vegetables, pie-pack apple and frozen spinach can all be used in dishes to make quick meals. Yes they're 'processed' but we regard these are minimally processed.
- In the bread and breakfast cereal aisles, start cooking with products that are have plenty of fibre as well as wholegrains such as rolled oats, mueslis, bran cereals, wheat breakfast biscuits, grainy breads, rye breads, rye crispbread, wraps and wholemeal rolls.
- At the refrigerator cabinet, look for hommous or tzatziki dips, lean ham, reduced fat cheese, fruit and Greek yoghurts, chilled ready-to-heat soups, fresh tortellini and ravioli, custard and Parmesan cheese.
Fast, fabulous and flavoursome recipes using 4 HEALTHY ingredients - that's the one that will WOW us.
Downloads / Fact Sheets
Cook up some of our quick but healthy recipes. For instance, our Fusilli pasta with salmon and spinach has only six handy ingredients - but is good for you.
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This article was researched and written by Catherine Saxelby, an accredited nutritionist, author and award-winning food communicator.
Catherine Saxelby knows nutrition! From fast food to fat loss, she has written, researched and talked about virtually every aspect of healthy eating and her goal is to help busy women eat well, maintain a healthy weight and boost their energy.
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About the Author
Catherine Saxelby knows nutrition! From fast food to fat loss, she has written, researched and talked about virtually every aspect of healthy eating. Catherine is an award-winning nutritionist, food commentator, blogger and the author of 10 books.
Her book Nutrition for Life has clocked up sales of almost 500,000, making it one of the most enduring and popular general nutrition books. Her latest book - Catherine Saxelby's Food and Nutrition Companion - sums up all you need to know to eat well.
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Comments (6)
Jes
1. How unhealthy they ae using so many processed foods (yet when I watched the show on lifestyle channel Kim & Rachael were always mentioning wanting to feed their families healthy foods) - so it's great to see you mentioning the shortfalls of that exactly here
2. If you wanted to actually cook an entire meal wih only 4 ingredients you are hard pressed to do so with this book - most recipes are for say meat alone, so you still need to add something else on the plate, or they count "vegetables" as 1 ingredient when in reality you would be using around 3-4 different vegetables. If every recipe did it this way, there would be so many more "4 ingredient" recipes!
Personally I'd much rather have a nice portion of meat or fish (a good piece of steak or salmon) which tastes great when cooked simply and healthily either by itself or with fresh herbs, along side a salad or steamed/roasted veggies. Plus it's quick and easy to prepare and genuinely has few ingredients.
Catherine Saxelby
Four ingredients works well with the vegetable recipes - it's a great concept to use to dress up Brussels sprouts with say sesame oil, ginger and toasted sesame seeds which you could team with a simple grill.
I have to come to the conclusion that "4 Ingredient" is a nice idea but it just isn't true in the reality of quick family meals, is it?
But love your own suggestion for a quick yet healthy dinner with few ingredients - can't go past a piece of steak or fish cooked simply on the grill or pan with a salad or mixed vegetables. Few ingredients AND few additives to boot!
Catherine~!hello!
long time no talk! I hope you are well -very well in fact.
why dont you do 4 healthy Ingredients book - it would be Great!
Julie Masci
I stumbled on their 4 ingredients health foods version the other day - not bad, it has a more 'natural' feel to it and includes more wholefoods and was written with the support of a complementary therapist. Haven't tried any of the recipes but certainly looks better than the original upon first glance.
Lizzy (Good Things)
Catherine Saxelby