At last, a cookbook that will allow you to eat healthier without sacrificing good taste.

Traditionally, African-Americans have eaten what we know as "Soul Food", which was really survival food many years ago. The Soul Food diet is usually high in fat, sodium, and sugar. These ingredients made the taste we loved and came to know as "our way" of cooking. Family gatherings were centered around the food, then and now. That legacy and tradition should continue with the bonding around our traditional foods. However, with our awareness of what "our way" of cooking is doing to our health, we should gather around tradition with an astuteness of health consciousness.

This cookbook is not meant to be "vegan", vegetarian, or even health food. It's simply called "Meatless". We are certain that many of the meals will be healthier than traditional Soul Food just by eliminating the meat. We don't want the health gurus to balk at some of the ingredients and scream "Foul! It's not really healthy!"

Most people never change their bad eating habits, though many of us know that it's not best for our health. The change is too much of a challenge for most of us, so we rebel against it.

This brings us back to where we started, with many reasons why it's OK to be there in the first place. Haven't you heard, "Our Grandparents are this way for years and lived to be 94". We won't consider that our grannies walked miles to go pick the greens that were homegrown in non-chemically treated soil. They walked even more miles to find the meat that was raised and slaughtered by them instead of a processing plant. And what about the pure water they drank that was not bottled? How can we eat the way our grannies did without going back to their times? We can't!

This is why the Meatless Soul Food cookbook will take you in small steps to eating healthier. We know that change is hard an sometimes not enjoyable. We want your experience of "Family Tradition" to be just as enjoyable as our Grandparents' was, with a few added health benefits.