cover image The Low Carb Cookbook: The Complete Guide to the Healthy Low-Carbohydrate Lifestyle--With Over 250 Delicious Recipes, Everything You Need to

The Low Carb Cookbook: The Complete Guide to the Healthy Low-Carbohydrate Lifestyle--With Over 250 Delicious Recipes, Everything You Need to

Frances Monson McCullough. Hyperion Books, $23.95 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-7868-6273-3

In 1995, McCullough edited the manuscript of Drs. Michael and Mary Eades's Protein Power (1996), a book about carbohydrate intolerance, or hyperinsulinemia, a metabolic condition in which ingestion of carbohydrates stimulates excessive production of insulin which in turn causes fat cells to store more fat. Finding that she could control her own weight by limiting her intake of carbohydrates (she reports a 60-lb. weight loss), McCullough (Great Food Without Fuss) embarked on a mission to develop the 250-plus low-carbohydrate recipes here. Conventionally arranged, the recipes emphasize vegetables, meat and fish while eschewing the ""whites,"" e.g., potatoes, bread and pasta, and, of course, sugar, which are the main high-carbohydrate foods. McCullough writes convincingly about her own experience of low-carb eating and has devised appealing recipes in which such fats as butter, oil and heavy cream are allowed more freely than potatoes and grains. Such recipes as Rosemary Walnuts; Cream of Tomato Soup With or Without Crab; Southern-style Smothered Pork Chops and Rum Coconut Ice Cream may prompt readers to ask, Where's the diet? But this is McCullough's point. She doesn't minimize the task of severely cutting down on sugar, bread and pasta, but her recipes, along with instructions for stocking a low-carb pantry and her source list for substitutions, will prove indispensible for readers who want to try the low-carb path to health and weight control. Author tour. (June)