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East by West: Simple Ayurvedic Recipes for Ultimate Mind-Body Balance
"For anyone with a passion for eating well, feeling great and having dessert at lunchtime!
East by West is a cookbook that champions the ancient Ayurvedic philosophy of eating to nourish, sustain and repair. Bestselling author, cook and TV presenter Jasmine Hemsley continues her passion to balance body, mind and spirit – amidst the challenges of fast-paced modern life – through a love of real food and simple home cooking.
Ayurveda (or the 'Science of Life') was the inspiration behind Jasmine's pioneering Mayfair pop up cafe, East by West. The 5,000-year-old holistic concept has since been tipped in the Sunday Times list of what's hot for 2017.
This book includes 140 recipes and easy tips to help you find out the best time to eat and sleep for your body type, as well as thorough guidance on foods and practices to keep you feeling great throughout the day. With simple mindful rituals and a classic cleanse to revisit when your energy levels need a boost, this is Ayurveda for the modern world. With beautiful colour photography and illustrations, this book brings Ayurveda to life in a fresh and friendly way.
Jasmine’s recipes, inspired by the delicious dishes from her pop up cafe, are a modern take on Ayurvedic principles, combining the indulgent, confident flavours and ancient wisdom of the East with high-quality seasonal produce available on our doorsteps. From Chestnut Crepes with Chai Vanilla Plum Compote to Sesame Roast Chicken, this book has nutritious recipes to satisfy every taste.
Ayurveda will help to take your health and wellbeing to the next level, by focusing on eating high-quality cooked food in a relaxed environment, allowing the body and mind to appreciate the goodness that the food provides while encouraging us to slow down and take in our surroundings. Inspired by her personal journey with food and healthy living, Jasmine’s mission is to make a holistic and healthier life accessible to all."
East by West is a cookbook that champions the ancient Ayurvedic philosophy of eating to nourish, sustain and repair. Bestselling author, cook and TV presenter Jasmine Hemsley continues her passion to balance body, mind and spirit – amidst the challenges of fast-paced modern life – through a love of real food and simple home cooking.
Ayurveda (or the 'Science of Life') was the inspiration behind Jasmine's pioneering Mayfair pop up cafe, East by West. The 5,000-year-old holistic concept has since been tipped in the Sunday Times list of what's hot for 2017.
This book includes 140 recipes and easy tips to help you find out the best time to eat and sleep for your body type, as well as thorough guidance on foods and practices to keep you feeling great throughout the day. With simple mindful rituals and a classic cleanse to revisit when your energy levels need a boost, this is Ayurveda for the modern world. With beautiful colour photography and illustrations, this book brings Ayurveda to life in a fresh and friendly way.
Jasmine’s recipes, inspired by the delicious dishes from her pop up cafe, are a modern take on Ayurvedic principles, combining the indulgent, confident flavours and ancient wisdom of the East with high-quality seasonal produce available on our doorsteps. From Chestnut Crepes with Chai Vanilla Plum Compote to Sesame Roast Chicken, this book has nutritious recipes to satisfy every taste.
Ayurveda will help to take your health and wellbeing to the next level, by focusing on eating high-quality cooked food in a relaxed environment, allowing the body and mind to appreciate the goodness that the food provides while encouraging us to slow down and take in our surroundings. Inspired by her personal journey with food and healthy living, Jasmine’s mission is to make a holistic and healthier life accessible to all."
- GenresCookbooksFoodNonfiction
304 pages, Hardcover
Published November 2, 2017
61 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 18, 2025
I have had this book for couple of years and every time I would pick it up to work with it I would walk away in frustration. I have been studying Ayurveda with various experienced teachers from India for 6+ years and practicing in my own daily life. I love to cook and am always grateful for a recipe developed with Ayurvedic principles in mind.
On organization and layout:
1. No complete table of contents at the beginning of the book, there is no way to quickly scan through the recipes to get an idea what's in the book or to pick something to cook. This is significant flaw as it makes the book ineffective for easy use.
2. When you look at any page with a recipe there is a lot going on in terms of layout. The page of each recipe begins with couple of paragraphs that end a bit short leaving room for the amount of people the dish serves and for 3 mysterious circles. No supplementary table or appendice of symbols used in the book for easy access. The author does cover them at the beginning of the book, but you can only find them if you read every single word of the introduction.
In the middle of the page there is a name of the dish in such an excessively large font that no matter how hard you try to read the rest of the page that Dish Name will always be there in your face. Quite loud and distracting.
Further the page splits into 2 columns listing the Ingredients on the left and Method on the right. The ingredient column further splits into 2 columns. Those 2 columns are so narrow (1 inch wide) that it often takes 3 lines to list just one ingredient and its amount rendering the ingredient list to appear very long. The Ingredient columns are printed in a fine font, quite smaller than the method column. MY GOD! But there is more.....at the bottom there are more columns. Sometimes one, sometimes 2 and sometimes 3 of varying widths covering the tips and the Dosha modifications. So incredibly busy and stressful for the eyes and the mind! It would hurt my eyes and give me a headache every time.
At any point when you are looking at the recipe you are looking at - 3 different fonts, lots of uneven columns, very busy ingredient list that gives an impression to be very long due to a narrowness of the column and overall just very disorganized, busy and discombobulated space. It is very strange that the author didn't perceive this while putting the book together.......You would think that If one truly lives Ayurveda, balance in all things becomes a priority. There is nothing balanced about how this book is organized.
It is extremely difficult to follow any recipe from this book due to all of the above. It's just user unfriendly.
On Recipes:
1. I haven't tried all the recipes but I reviewed them all very closely to understand if they would work for me. A lot of them are quite imbalanced due to the use of incompatible ingredients as well as extremely heavy to digest ingredients - beans and cheese, lentils and cheese, beans and meat, dairy and vegetables, cooking with yogurt which is not supposed to be heated and others. I am by no means an Ayurveda purist, but I would not use such combinations.
2. A lot of recipes use coconut milk, cream or coconut. Coconut is a wonderful food if you live in the land and climate where they grow naturally. But if you live somewhere where they do not grow then it is neither sustainable nor healthy to use them. Ayurveda is about eating seasonal, locally grown foods. Coconuts are very very cooling and are amazing for very hot climates, they can become a liability for our digestive system when used often in cooler climates. I am not even going to go into the costs to ship, chemicals, over-farming, etc. If the food doesn't grow where we live we are not biologically and physiologically meant to eat it. At the very least regularly. People who relocated is a different more complex case.
3. Several recipes I tried either didn't taste great or didn't work out. For example Moong Bean Bread didn't rise and didn't taste great. When several recipes in a row don't turn out you kind of start getting an impression and don't want to waste anymore ingredients.....
4. Modifications for the Dosha under each recipe are very inconsistent throughout the book. Some recipes have it and others don't even though there are a lot of spices and a Pitta could use less.
5. There are no recommendations for the seasons in which the dishes are most appropriate to be used. Seasons are very important. None of these dishes can be used year-round. On rare occasions here and there something is mentioned but for most of the recipes nothing.
6. Many recipes are unnecessarily complex with a lot of ingredients and give a new-age vibe, something fancy, designed to be unique and popular among the new-age crowd rather than simple, balanced and wholesome. Ayurveda food is simple food. Not bland, but simple.
6. Unnecessary use of Sanskrit terminology and foreign dish names that are not always translated. Pakti Bowls, Parana breakfasts, etc. It would have been very helpful if the author included the List of Sanskrit Terms and foreign dish names fore easy reference and learning at the end of the book as not everyone knows those. Not everyone memorizes foreign words easily. I was born and grew up in the Middle East, speak 3 languages, have been studying and living Ayurveda for over 6 years, very familiar with Ayurveda Sanskrit Terminology and many terms from various cuisines of India, still I didn't know what Pakti and Parana meant. What about people who are not familiar with Ayurveda or Asian cuisine at all? Is this book written to help people or to show off?
On Ayurveda educational info:
1. Educational info about Ayruveda is poorly organized. Some of it is presented at the beginning of the book, some of it at the end of the book. It doesn't have a flow. It creates a situation where you don't know whether to go to the front of the book or to the back of the book to recall the info. It would have been much more logical to concentrate the info in one place instead of splitting it.
2. This book is a mix of good, correct information and incorrect information which gives an impression that the author doesn't understand Ayruveda in depth . The only reason why I know it is because I have studied and practiced Ayurveda for quite some time, but if one doesn't know what they are to do? There is a potential to be harmed by misinformation. I know that first hand. I got hurt a lot by the incorrect, incomplete information at the beginning of my Ayruveda studies.
For example the author says that Coriander seeds are cooling and slightly warming..... Which one is it? It's either cooling or warming, it cannot be both. Coriander seeds are warming (ushna in Sanskrit). They are not cooling for Pitta. They are just only slightly warming and therefore not aggravating for Pitta in general, BUT if your Pitta is very aggravated then even Coriander seeds might make it worse. Out of all spices they would be one of the least warming. Same with fennel. It's not a cooling spice as the author claims. It is warming, more warming than coriander, but less warming than cumin. It's not cooling for Pitta, it is simply not too heating. But if your Pitta is severely aggravated fennel will add to aggravation. Please experiment with it and you will find out for yourself. Also refer to the classical Ayurvedic Texts.
There is a lot of other incorrect and incomplete information that I just can't go into here.
On overall language:
1. The author's references such as "Eastern Wisdom for the Western Well-being" or "Western Linear Way" and in general rather minimizing referral to the Western thinking just rubs the wrong way. It is divisive and lacks awareness. It is popular to put down the West these days, but it neither conveys the truth nor it serves anyone. It is time to let go of such divisive language. Wisdom is not Eastern or Western. Wisdom does not belong to anyone. Every ancient indigenous community around the world regardless of location saw the Wisdom Of Nature which is what Ayurveda is - The Science Of Life. Science Of Life does not belong to the East or to the West or to any group of people. It is universal. It is Nature herself. The ancient Ayurveda Rishis said so themselves as well in various ancient writings.
2. There is a lot of Self Promotion in this book, a lot of emphasis on author's experiences and "inventing" the recipes. I didn't find it attractive. I am more interested in Ayurveda and how to effectively use it in our daily lives.
Overall my impression of this book is that it is written as a business project, perhaps also to show off knowledge, for achievement and fame. There is some good information, but no deep understanding of Ayurveda hence quite a bit of incorrect information. I wouldn't recommend this cookbook.
On organization and layout:
1. No complete table of contents at the beginning of the book, there is no way to quickly scan through the recipes to get an idea what's in the book or to pick something to cook. This is significant flaw as it makes the book ineffective for easy use.
2. When you look at any page with a recipe there is a lot going on in terms of layout. The page of each recipe begins with couple of paragraphs that end a bit short leaving room for the amount of people the dish serves and for 3 mysterious circles. No supplementary table or appendice of symbols used in the book for easy access. The author does cover them at the beginning of the book, but you can only find them if you read every single word of the introduction.
In the middle of the page there is a name of the dish in such an excessively large font that no matter how hard you try to read the rest of the page that Dish Name will always be there in your face. Quite loud and distracting.
Further the page splits into 2 columns listing the Ingredients on the left and Method on the right. The ingredient column further splits into 2 columns. Those 2 columns are so narrow (1 inch wide) that it often takes 3 lines to list just one ingredient and its amount rendering the ingredient list to appear very long. The Ingredient columns are printed in a fine font, quite smaller than the method column. MY GOD! But there is more.....at the bottom there are more columns. Sometimes one, sometimes 2 and sometimes 3 of varying widths covering the tips and the Dosha modifications. So incredibly busy and stressful for the eyes and the mind! It would hurt my eyes and give me a headache every time.
At any point when you are looking at the recipe you are looking at - 3 different fonts, lots of uneven columns, very busy ingredient list that gives an impression to be very long due to a narrowness of the column and overall just very disorganized, busy and discombobulated space. It is very strange that the author didn't perceive this while putting the book together.......You would think that If one truly lives Ayurveda, balance in all things becomes a priority. There is nothing balanced about how this book is organized.
It is extremely difficult to follow any recipe from this book due to all of the above. It's just user unfriendly.
On Recipes:
1. I haven't tried all the recipes but I reviewed them all very closely to understand if they would work for me. A lot of them are quite imbalanced due to the use of incompatible ingredients as well as extremely heavy to digest ingredients - beans and cheese, lentils and cheese, beans and meat, dairy and vegetables, cooking with yogurt which is not supposed to be heated and others. I am by no means an Ayurveda purist, but I would not use such combinations.
2. A lot of recipes use coconut milk, cream or coconut. Coconut is a wonderful food if you live in the land and climate where they grow naturally. But if you live somewhere where they do not grow then it is neither sustainable nor healthy to use them. Ayurveda is about eating seasonal, locally grown foods. Coconuts are very very cooling and are amazing for very hot climates, they can become a liability for our digestive system when used often in cooler climates. I am not even going to go into the costs to ship, chemicals, over-farming, etc. If the food doesn't grow where we live we are not biologically and physiologically meant to eat it. At the very least regularly. People who relocated is a different more complex case.
3. Several recipes I tried either didn't taste great or didn't work out. For example Moong Bean Bread didn't rise and didn't taste great. When several recipes in a row don't turn out you kind of start getting an impression and don't want to waste anymore ingredients.....
4. Modifications for the Dosha under each recipe are very inconsistent throughout the book. Some recipes have it and others don't even though there are a lot of spices and a Pitta could use less.
5. There are no recommendations for the seasons in which the dishes are most appropriate to be used. Seasons are very important. None of these dishes can be used year-round. On rare occasions here and there something is mentioned but for most of the recipes nothing.
6. Many recipes are unnecessarily complex with a lot of ingredients and give a new-age vibe, something fancy, designed to be unique and popular among the new-age crowd rather than simple, balanced and wholesome. Ayurveda food is simple food. Not bland, but simple.
6. Unnecessary use of Sanskrit terminology and foreign dish names that are not always translated. Pakti Bowls, Parana breakfasts, etc. It would have been very helpful if the author included the List of Sanskrit Terms and foreign dish names fore easy reference and learning at the end of the book as not everyone knows those. Not everyone memorizes foreign words easily. I was born and grew up in the Middle East, speak 3 languages, have been studying and living Ayurveda for over 6 years, very familiar with Ayurveda Sanskrit Terminology and many terms from various cuisines of India, still I didn't know what Pakti and Parana meant. What about people who are not familiar with Ayurveda or Asian cuisine at all? Is this book written to help people or to show off?
On Ayurveda educational info:
1. Educational info about Ayruveda is poorly organized. Some of it is presented at the beginning of the book, some of it at the end of the book. It doesn't have a flow. It creates a situation where you don't know whether to go to the front of the book or to the back of the book to recall the info. It would have been much more logical to concentrate the info in one place instead of splitting it.
2. This book is a mix of good, correct information and incorrect information which gives an impression that the author doesn't understand Ayruveda in depth . The only reason why I know it is because I have studied and practiced Ayurveda for quite some time, but if one doesn't know what they are to do? There is a potential to be harmed by misinformation. I know that first hand. I got hurt a lot by the incorrect, incomplete information at the beginning of my Ayruveda studies.
For example the author says that Coriander seeds are cooling and slightly warming..... Which one is it? It's either cooling or warming, it cannot be both. Coriander seeds are warming (ushna in Sanskrit). They are not cooling for Pitta. They are just only slightly warming and therefore not aggravating for Pitta in general, BUT if your Pitta is very aggravated then even Coriander seeds might make it worse. Out of all spices they would be one of the least warming. Same with fennel. It's not a cooling spice as the author claims. It is warming, more warming than coriander, but less warming than cumin. It's not cooling for Pitta, it is simply not too heating. But if your Pitta is severely aggravated fennel will add to aggravation. Please experiment with it and you will find out for yourself. Also refer to the classical Ayurvedic Texts.
There is a lot of other incorrect and incomplete information that I just can't go into here.
On overall language:
1. The author's references such as "Eastern Wisdom for the Western Well-being" or "Western Linear Way" and in general rather minimizing referral to the Western thinking just rubs the wrong way. It is divisive and lacks awareness. It is popular to put down the West these days, but it neither conveys the truth nor it serves anyone. It is time to let go of such divisive language. Wisdom is not Eastern or Western. Wisdom does not belong to anyone. Every ancient indigenous community around the world regardless of location saw the Wisdom Of Nature which is what Ayurveda is - The Science Of Life. Science Of Life does not belong to the East or to the West or to any group of people. It is universal. It is Nature herself. The ancient Ayurveda Rishis said so themselves as well in various ancient writings.
2. There is a lot of Self Promotion in this book, a lot of emphasis on author's experiences and "inventing" the recipes. I didn't find it attractive. I am more interested in Ayurveda and how to effectively use it in our daily lives.
Overall my impression of this book is that it is written as a business project, perhaps also to show off knowledge, for achievement and fame. There is some good information, but no deep understanding of Ayurveda hence quite a bit of incorrect information. I wouldn't recommend this cookbook.
March 19, 2019
I heard the author Jasmine Hemsley taking about this book on Desert Island Dishes so when I saw it at the local library I picked it up for a read. It has some lovely recipes and also explains the principles of leading a heathy Ayurveda lifestyle in simple easy to understand terms.
October 16, 2025
East by West by Jasmine Hemsley is a vibrant, heart centered exploration of Ayurveda for the modern reader one that feels as nourishing to the mind as it is to the body. Through 140 thoughtfully curated recipes, Hemsley translates ancient wisdom into practical daily rituals, showing how mindful eating can become an act of balance and self care.
From comforting breakfasts like Chestnut Crêpes with Chai Vanilla Plum Compote to grounding meals such as Sesame Roast Chicken, each dish reflects a harmony of flavor, intuition, and healing intention. What truly sets this book apart is Jasmine’s ability to make Ayurveda approachable a living philosophy rather than a distant tradition.
Her tone is warm and encouraging, guiding readers to listen to their bodies, honor their unique rhythms, and rediscover joy in simple, home cooked food. With its stunning photography and heartfelt storytelling, East by West is both a cookbook and a companion on the journey toward mindful living. It’s a timeless guide for anyone seeking balance, clarity, and renewal in today’s fast paced world.
From comforting breakfasts like Chestnut Crêpes with Chai Vanilla Plum Compote to grounding meals such as Sesame Roast Chicken, each dish reflects a harmony of flavor, intuition, and healing intention. What truly sets this book apart is Jasmine’s ability to make Ayurveda approachable a living philosophy rather than a distant tradition.
Her tone is warm and encouraging, guiding readers to listen to their bodies, honor their unique rhythms, and rediscover joy in simple, home cooked food. With its stunning photography and heartfelt storytelling, East by West is both a cookbook and a companion on the journey toward mindful living. It’s a timeless guide for anyone seeking balance, clarity, and renewal in today’s fast paced world.
September 20, 2020
This is a beautiful book and ideal for anyone starting on their Ayurvedic journey. As always, Jasmine explains everything in a clear and easy to understand way, and shares her wisdom and personal experience of her own journey. This book has never made it to my actual book case as I am constantly referring to it, so it’s either in my kitchen, on the coffee table on by my bedside.
May 25, 2021
There is a recipe here to suit single and varietal moods, seasons, climates, energies and times. These simple medicines remedy and prevent micro and macro stressors that inhabit our reality and soak into our nervous system. All done with the wisdom and nurture through ayurvedic nurtition in the school of life.
May 10, 2018
Absolutely love this book! Beautiful, easy to follow recipes.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews