Doctors Group Identifies Worst Recipes From 2022’s Top-Selling Celebrity and Restaurant Cookbooks

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Braciole al Latte (pork in milk) baked in a full cup of lard, Overnight Mac & Cheese with 88 grams of saturated fat per serving, and a Black Bottom Cranberry Tart with seven egg yolks and whipping cream, have been deemed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to be among the most nutritionally shocking, calorie-laden, artery-clogging recipes from some of today’s most popular cookbooks.

Dietitians from the Physicians Committee, a nonprofit organization that promotes a whole food, plant-based diet and has 17,000 doctor members, reviewed five of Amazon’s top celebrity and restaurant cookbooks for 2022. These reviews are based on their nutritional analyses of recipes in the books.

The authors include celebrity chefs, such as Ina Garten, and restauranteurs from Via Carota, which has been dubbed “New York’s Most Perfect Restaurant.” Many of the recipes in these cookbooks are heavy on meat, cheese, and cow’s milk — and loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol — both of which are linked to heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

“In the midst of the United States’ worsening obesity epidemic,” said Stephanie McBurnett, a registered dietitian with the Physicians Committee, “most of these cookbooks send not only the wrong message, but the exact opposite message, about what families should be eating.” 

Physicians Committee dietitians hoped the popular cookbooks would contain more recipes that showcase plant-based foods, which are full of fiber, rich in vitamins and minerals, free of cholesterol, and low in calories and saturated fat. Studies show that a plant-based diet can help reduce the risk of heart disease, as well as help control diabetes and high blood pressure. `

Check out the entire report, including reviews of all five cookbooks, here.