Review: Bo Sebastian's The Protein-Powered Vegetarian

The Protein-Powered Vegetarian, From Meat To Vegetable Protein
By Bo Sebastian

This 188 page book is bound with a bright glossy cover depicting veggie hot dogs and a char-broiled veggie hamburger nestled between two buns. The text itself is black and white on reasonably thick, even-edged paper. The font size and style allow for easy reading even when the book is sitting on a counter far below tired eyes. The book includes no photos or illustrations; nor is there an index.

The book offers up its recipes in an orderly fashion with neat lists of ingredients and easy, descriptive instructions. There are no nutritional breakdowns given for the dishes.

Mr Sebastian is a good-looking man who seeks to share his personal philosophy and recipe trove out of a desire to improve the health and well-being of others. I respect that. Nonetheless, for my purposes, his cookbook is not useful.

Bo does acknowledge the risks of margarine, but he supports the use of questionable oils like canola. He also suggests using Braggs Liquid Aminos which are, in effect, pure MSG in water. I realize monosodium glutamate may not be harmful-—the jury is still out--but the fact that it may be affecting people’s appetites and nerves rather badly shouldn’t be completely ignored. At the least I believe a cookbook author has the duty to inform readers of potential risks and allow cooks to choose for themselves based on the latest information.

More disastrously, Mr Sebastian bases the majority of his recipes on soy products and vegetarian processed fake meats such as Harvest Burgers and Morningstar Breakfast patties. Since I believe soy is harmful and I cannot eat 99% of the veggie fake meats on the market (due to the inclusion of wheat gluten), his recipes were useless to me.

He did introduce me to the existence of the Italian bean lupini, but since I’ve learned soy itself is likely harmful, I am not prepared to trust this other bean.

I couldn’t recommend this cookbook to anyone, vegetarian or low-carb dieter. It doesn’t offer good or novel ideas for dishes. Rather, it’s just different presentations of processed fake meats. I’m sure Mr Sebastian intended to help others with this text. I thank him for that. Still, this book is the worst of the many veggie high-protein books I’ve read.

I still wish him the best of health, peace and happiness in this life.

~L