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Dee's Mighty Cookbook

Dee McCaffrey is an organic chemist. Her book, Tasty Cuisine for Flourless and Sugarless Living is part cookbook, part motivational, part educational, all good.

Dee traces her first time overeating, aged 9 dealing with her parents divorce, to how that triggered the next few decades of her relationship with food. But it's not just overeating, it's what she was eating.

Like most of us that are overweight, Dee ate lots of refined carbs, sugary foods, processed foods and very little if any fruits and vegetables. Carbohydrates are not evil things. Fruits and vegetables are carbs. Her background in chemistry and personal research helped her make the connection between how the body processed "foreign" foods, processed carbs vs. the real thing.

Keep in mind, our ancestors didn't eat they way we currently do. Food was made fresh most every day and had little shelf life. All the processing food now goes through is mainly to extend the shelf life. It is quite possible the price we pay for convenience is our expanding girth.

Her book goes into detail on why flour and sugar are bad. Once she gave them up, her weight dropped. Within 3 and ½ months she lost 48lbs. One year later, she lost 102lbs reaching her goal weight of 108lbs and have kept the weight off for over a decade.

You may think giving up flour and sugar is too hard or very impossible, but she gives alternatives. Eat flour with the fiber still in it. Raw sugar is healthier than high fructose corn syrup. She also tells you what to look for in the store.

The bulk of the book is dedicated to her recipes. You get breakfast, salads & dressings, veggie eats, snacks, sandwiches and soups and even beverages. The recipes range from the basic, Veggie Omelet, to the exotic, Sunflower-Almond-Sesame Tahini Logs.

Reading and following her advice requires you to have an open mind and be open to change. Going completely sugarless and flourless in today's world won't be easy, but if you feel addicted to those types of foods and powerless to stop, give her book a read. It might help you to see that not only has that change been done, it's been done successfully.

Also available is Dee's Lose Weight For Life DVD, I'll review that one next week and also post some before/after pictures of Dee.