Customer Reviews
Easy, tasty recipes for people who hate diets! - By: Ruth Davis, 13 Dec 2006 
I've used this book for the past few months now, & i can't recommend it enough for anyone out there who, like me, hates dietary 'fads'; a new one seems to appear every other week, & most of them are either unworkable over the long term or unpalatable at any time.
If you want to lose weight fast, then you can choose to stick to Agatston's 3 phase method, of eliminating certain foods for short time periods then graduallly reintroducing them, but not having the patience or interest, I tend to use his recipes to simply eat healthily on a day to day basis.
It's an American book with US terms & measurements, but this isn't a problem; if I can't get any ingredients, or don't like what he's suggested, it's very easy to substitute like for like. The recipes are organised in chapters, by main ingredient - fish/side dishes/veg dishes/salads/meat/desserts etc. Being a dairy lover, I like the fact that cheese & cream aren't eliminated; healthier options are substituted, such as sour cream, ricotta & mozzarella. Pasta is still in there, but whole wheat is recommended. Sweet potato & tortilla wraps are generallly used instead of white potatoes & bread.
This is currently one of 2 hardback South Beach recipe books that are available; there's also a smalller paperback outlining the theories & methods behind the diet which i'm sure is useful if you can be bothered to read it. Personallly, i'm not too interested in the theory but the recipes in both books are great, & I dip in & out of both alll the time. They also work well as stand-alone cookbooks if you're not interested in dieting/health issues & just want some simple, tasty meals to impress your friends & family with.
