MAGIC MENUS FOR PEOPLE WITH DIABETES (2ND EDITION), is filled with more than 200 low-fat, calorie-controlled meals with recipes for your selection. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack menus, complete with a total carbohydrate count for the meal, are included on each page. For example, one dinner menu with Bay Scallops Parmesan served with 1 small baked potato & reduced-fat sour cream, steamed zucchini, and a slice of Chocolate Angel Food Cake topped with 1-1/4 cups of fresh strawberries is served up for a total consumption of 64 Carbohydrates for the meal.
The recipe suggestions for each meal in MAGIC MENUS sound delicious. Each recipe has a nutritional analysis which includes calories, total fat, total carbohydrates, cholesterol, sodium, protein, dietary fiber and sugars. Exchanges are also included for those who are still on the Exchange system.
The downside to this tasty little book, however, is in the fact that it is so confusing and cumbersome to find those recipe analyses, which are NOT listed by recipe title or even by menu number or page number! They are found at the back of the book, in order of their appearance in the book (from front to back). This is especially discouraging to those of us who cook on the run and don't have time to look for each analysis in random order.
If this book is rendered again in a third Edition, I would strongly suggest that the editors include the nutritional analysis AND exchange information on the same page with each recipe. From personal experience I often search for a recipe at the last minute and I don't want to go on a hunting expedition to see if the fat, carbs and proteins of a recipe that catches my eye will fit into my daily meal plan at the end of the day! MAGIC MENUS FOR PEOPLE WITH DIABETES is published by the American Diabetes Association, Inc.
Reviewed by: Marilyn Helton
