The Spice Diet: Use Powerhouse Flavor to Fight Cravings and Win the Weight-Loss Battle

by Judson Todd Allen

Celebrity chef Judson Todd Allen presents the diet that helped him lose 160 pounds, featuring 60 guilt-free recipes packed with powerhouse flavor created especially for The Spice Diet.

When Steve Harvey wanted to get camera-ready before his hit television show launched, he turned to Chef Judson Todd Allen to help him. While enjoying the flavorful food Chef Judson prepared, Steve Harvey lost 30 pounds and has kept them off. Chef Judson's diet plan is heaven for food lovers. Using the principles of food science, he offers a way to eat that feels indulgent as it satisfies food cravings and reduces appetite. His program will not only help readers break their addiction to unhealthy foods without feeling deprived but will also inspire them to get into the kitchen to prepare irresistable, healthy meals.

The Spice Diet provides a full weight-loss program that includes meal plans, creative spice blends, easy-to-prepare recipes, and a heaping helping of motivation.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Reference, Food, Health, Cooking

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 16, 2018

Reviews

[Marianne Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

stayed up until 1:00am reading this amazing book. The book is fascinating! I call myself a pseudo- chef because I never had any formal training. However, between Emeril, Bobby, Paula, Ree and Alton, I became a very very good cook. I understand capitalizing on herbs and spices - but this book takes my knowledge to a whole new level.

If you want to eat healthy - get this book.

If you need to loose weight - get this book

If you want to elevate your cooking to another level - get this book

If you are cooking for an elderly person who has numerous health concerns OR are loosing their taste buds - GET THIS BOOK.

I know people who are thin but don’t eat healthy. This book will literally show you the error of your ways.

I am taking this book with me to my father in laws next kidney doctors appointment - why? Because the shock and negativeness that his doctor had towards food pissed off my father in law and now my father in law is going rogue. Even doctors need to be re-educated

[Aria · Rating 1 out of 5]

---- Disclosure: I received this book for free from Goodreads. ----

Had I realized this was "celebrity" endorsed I'd have skipped it. I was hoping to come across something to recommend to patients. The personal tale provided by the author was interesting enough, & beneficially demonstrative as to the relationship a typical person struggling with weight loss has to food. Outside of that it was sadly full of metabolic misinformation. Spices are stated as categorically having certain properties that if accurately presented would have been framed as conditionally possible attributes, not as facts. It's also glaringly apparent that this was not reviewed by someone with adequate knowledge of weight loss. Flat recommendations for caloric weight loss needs based on nothing but sex (male vs female sex organs & not gender) is absurd. Finally, 1000 calorie starvation diets are not okay to promote. Caloric recommendations are in truth very individualized things & this book, like so many others, fails to recognize that.

I DNF'd this book before I got to the recipes, so I can't comment as to how practical, economical, realistic, or even tasty those might be. I'll go on to say that the BMI charts provided are standard, & thus can be safely used to plot oneself. Those charts are also readily available online to anyone that calls one up through a search engine, so please do use them as a tool. Beyond that, use your BMI as a jumping off point to assess where you are at, and where you want to be within the healthy weight range. From there, I'll suggest more reliable dietary information & healthy lifestyle plans as might be accessed through eatright.org, or perhaps even sites such as the CDC, or the NIH.

Finally, I didn't see this addressed in the book, but dietary caloric requirements for weight loss will definitely be altered by disease states, activity levels, & even stress levels. That is a large part of why blanket statements like the calorie recommendations for weight loss offered on page 126 of this book are nothing more than bullshit. It's possible the author means well by what he has put together here. It's also possible he is out to make a buck w/ what seemingly qualifies as a celebrity endorsement. I'm glad for his successful weight loss, & the acquisition of his degree that has allowed him enough knowledge he can prepare flavorful & filling foodstuffs to maintain his desired weight & still enjoy eating. Certainly that is a good thing. He should stick to the chef thing, though. Personal health care is clearly not his domain. I can recommend the pursuit of a dietetic degree if he wishes to go down that road. I mean, there's a reason it's an entirely separate degree program from the science of foodstuffs. The human body is a highly varied & intricate machine, the study of which is its own wheelhouse.

I believe that had the author told his personal story, & kept to the discussion of how to prepare flavorful, low-calorie, but yet filling dishes, this book would have been easy to promote. (I mean, people love finding someone to whom they can relate. For example, solidarity & feeling less alone with one's struggle is an important component of the success of Weight Watchers for long-term dietary goal/weight loss maintenance.) As it is, it's full of unproven, almost magical properties assigned to certain ingredients, & as previously stated, highly messed up metabolic & caloric statements. Therefore, it's a fail. Revamp the focus of the thing & maybe it'll be something to recommend. It was a good idea that went too far & tripped over itself, so now we are left with this mess. Thanks dear, but no thanks.

(Sigh. I really hate doing bad reviews. I need to learn to stop getting hopeful when I think I've finally found a book to give to patients. The whole process of searching is so disheartening.)

I will at least leave this review with a starting point for curious weight-loss pursuers to begin their journey. I wish you all well on your path to a healthy weight & improved living. http://www.eatright.org/resource/heal...

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have never read a diet book before, this book is concretely packed with every tip and idea that you will find in those diet books. He even provides you with specific things you can order at ethnic restaurants and fast food restaurants, what to do when traveling and how to avoid eating the cursed food at parties and other types of events that feature food. Sandwiched in all these chapters of dieting tips and advice are his healthier recipes for phase 1 and phase 2 of his diet plan. I had hoped to find meals that because of their spices would help me make fare that might not be accepted by my family be instantly a big culinary success. At family meals I try to accommodate a vegan, a diabetic who loves all the things he isn't supposed to eat and doesn't like the things he is supposed to eat and someone who is allergic to staples like apples (including apple cider vinegar), onion, garlic, oatmeal, etc. and my own issues with products like goat cheese and most fish. Unfortunately, many of the recipes rely on fish, cauliflower rice, eggs, cheese and less on the seasoning than I would have thought based on the title. The best chapter in the book for me was chapter 11 that gave recipes for various blends of spices that would lend ethnic flavors as well as charts that link the spice recipes to the kinds of foods you can use them with. I will check his website to see if there are more ideas.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Chef Judson's style, especially when he tells his story of transformation from an obese young man to a man on a mission to take care of himself emotionally, physically, and in every other way.
I agree with another reviewer that some of the diet information and claims were not solid. The spices could easily have been touted as flavorful and interesting without stretching the healthy claims to the extent that he did.
He has covered every aspect of a weight transformation, so if someone only read this book for a program on how to tackle weight loss they would have a good guide book.
Chef Judson was a remarkable man who seemed to reach for the sky and found it. So sad that his life was cut short on his fabulous journey.

[Sarah W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've got mixed feelings on this one - I appreciated the author's personal story and approach (to a degree). However, I've tried enough diets to be wary of easy fixes and the repetition of the need to retrain one's taste buds gives away that this diet isn't quite as easy or straightforward as the author portrays. I read this book primarily out of interest in herbs and spices and how they can be used to mimic favors and cut down on salt and sugar. I kinda wish I'd just spent more time with a book focus entirely on spices and not one about dieting.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received a copy from Goodreads Give Away.

It is well written with great information. Especially like the spice blends. I have tried the spice blend for soup and love it. Definitely going to try some of the others. The major difference from other diet books is the use of spices. It still requires eliminating certain foods, watching portions and exercising to achieve weight loss. However, it does provide the tools needed to improve the flavor of what you're eating.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. I like to have more fat in my diet than he suggests, (ie: cheese and full fat milk/yogurt) but I haven't had weight issues like he has talked about in this book. I would suggests this book to anyone wanting to make lasting changes. Flavor is so important to feeling satisfied. And I enjoyed his unique approach with food science and curbing cravings.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This spice diet includes a lot of recipes. It also has a section that shows you how to make your own spice blends. My favourite part of this book, is the section that shows, what spices go best with certain foods.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some nice recipes, and I especially liked the section in the back about which spices work together and how to season vegetables with spice.

[Timothy Killoran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't finished the whole book yet, but I might actually try the diet itself. Even though I am not much of a spice guy the diet itself looks like something I can handle.

[Dray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very off the beaten path cookbook/nutrition cook. The food combinations materials is worth the read.

[Heather Balog · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can appreciate a lot of the information in this book (especially about the spices), however I think it was a little over the top and I probably won’t make any of the recipes.

[Chrissy Woj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little too heavy on calorie count and typical diet culture language than I had hoped from the premise, but great recipes and discussion of spices, herbs, and flavor profiles.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very informative book. chef Judson is great on explaining how to make changes in your diet and all the necessary ingredients , spices, and ways to do that.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes a short do-able exercise routine. I was not expecting that as I bought it for recipes and ideas on how to use spice in place of fat for flavor.

[JZ]

I ran across an audio cookbook. Yes, I know.

Fortunately, the pdf file came with it, so it was ok to listen to the first half, at double speed, because there wasn't anything really unusual about his story. And there's no news here. There's no way to lose weight but eat less, and move more. 'Nuff said.

Some of the recipes look interesting, for the flavors, but absolutely nothing will replace Spicy Food, A Collection Of Uncommon Recipes, From The Mildly Tangy To The Frankly Fiery, From Every Corner Of The World my favorite cookbook next to "The Joy of Cooking."

[The _Imagination_Shelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sourcebook has great information about how to make your food taste better. I love it.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

His book reaffirms current diets that eliminate sugar, artificial sweeteners, grains, etc...but Chef Allen emphasizes the use of spices to take the boredom out of traditional diet meals. I am excited about experimenting with the 25 different spice blend recipes he has included in this book.