Healthy Living

East Greenwich resident Joy Feldman has done us all a great favor. She has written Joyful Cooking: In the Pursuit of Good Health. No ordinary cookbook, this is a collection of more than 100 recipes that restore and heal people through nutritional balancing.

Feldman knows what she’s talking about through firsthand experience. Twenty years ago, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that left her tired, weak and in pain. The powerful medicine she was prescribed only brought on horrible side effects. Joy refused to accept this fate and started researching how to improve her health. A new physician familiar with the concept of nutritional balancing recom- mended a new diet. Within a few months, Joy was off her debilitating medications. Within a year, she was her former healthy self.

Nutritional balancing is a method of healing that draws upon Western medical science and ancient healing wisdom with diet being a critical aspect. In brief, the recommended diet includes cooked vegetables (preferably steamed and organic), natural, organic, grass-fed meats and certain fish, with a minimum of sugars, sweets and processed foods.

Other suggested foods include organic corn products, wheat-free grains such as brown rice, full-fat dairy (raw, if possible), certain fats and oils, a minimal amount of fruit, and carrot juice. On and off throughout my own life, I’ve tried to follow that kind of eating plan. I’ve always felt so much better after having done so.

This combination cookbook and wellness guide offers step-by-step instructions for total health through nutrition, with chapters dedicated to expectant mothers and children. Joy tells us how to organize our kitchens and make our refrigerators healthy with specific shopping lists to follow.

The French writer Maurice Edmond Sailland said, “Make food simple and let things taste of what they are.” Many of Joy’s recipes are so simple: scrambled eggs with grated cheese for breakfast, a chopped chicken salad for lunch, grilled and glazed lamb burgers for dinner. There are soups and stews to get us through the coming winter months, and plenty of veggie recipes to make our meals not only healthy but delicious as well. What a wonderful holiday gift for those you really care about.