Magazine Monday…Healthy Cooking

So this is a real testament to how little I look at a magazine to review before I buy it. It wasn’t until I sat down to get the particulars, I realized it is published by Taste of Home.  It is also the December – January issue that was supposed to be pulled January 31, 2011, somebody isn’t checking the magazine racks at ACME. So this is becoming one interesting scenario, all I saw was shrimp, an alcoholic beverage, $3.99 cover price and I said ‘done’. Ok shall we…

• May 2, 2011
• Magazine Name: Healthy Cooking
• Website: tasteofhome.com/healthycooking.com
• Publisher: Reiman Publications
• Issue Number and Date: Dec – Jan 2011
• Newsstand Cost: 3.99
• Number of pages: 66
• Pages until contents: 1
• Inserts: 4
• Pages of Advertising
• Full: 5
• Partial: 4
• Types of Advertising
• Food: 5
• Other: 4
• Articles: 4
• Issue Features: 3
• Recipes: 62
• Picture count article or recipe related: 63

The front section is a collection of short departments called blend, it was pretty interesting, there are various helpful hints, a workout, gym bag test, also a test drive of 5-Hour Energy. Guilty as charged I have an entire Costco sized box of them sitting in my kitchen. I don’t drink them with any frequency but from time to time need a boost. So much better than Red Bull that is some nasty sodium juice.

There are also sections devoted to lightning up recipes, six in total from a variety of different meal times which was nice. My favorite section was a contest they had for recipes made from scratch, which let me tell you look really good.  How many processed foods are in a recipe is one of the first things I look for, it was a nice change to see these. The one article or feature I didn’t care for was the skin care one, ‘great food better skin’, anorexic model, wearing 5 lbs of makeup, sorry save it for the beauty magazines. That being said it was the only part I didn’t think was great, well planned and designed.

The photography was nice, plenty of pictures, there are a lot of recipes that I will most likely give a try, all in all they do cover a variety of meal areas.  The recipe index is broken down into various categories based on time, health issues such as diabetic friendly, low carb, low-fat, nicely done. And the beverage on the cover is a ‘mocktail’, which you can add vodka to, so all is right with the world.