High-fat, low-carb is the key to ketogenic eating

Patricia Daly knew Domini Kemp before they met. In that two degrees of separation way they had a couple of mutual friends. But it wasn’t until 2013 when Kemp came for a consultation that Daly realised the friends who insisted the two would get along like a house on fire were spot on.

Both women are working mothers with two children apiece. Both have had cancer, twice. And both were convinced that food was something they could use to help them get through treatment and onwards. Now they’ve published The Ketogenic Kitchen, a collaboration cookbook based on what they learned and ate through illness to wellness.

The book comes in the middle of a clean-eating wave that can feel like the attack of a clone army. Beautiful 20-something women report glowing skin and endless energy from wheat-, dairy- and sugar-free diets making dates and coconut oil sound like a recipe for immortality served with a side order of fabulousness.

The buzz about nut butters is a mixed blessing. Do they hope keto (short for ketogenic) is going to become the new paleo? Kemp and Daly both do a grin-grimace at the question. “I actually hope it doesn’t,” Kemp says. Britney Spears and comedian Melissa McCarthy have been reported to be eating by the keto rules: manna from publishing heaven. But Kemp is not delighted by it, not least because of the backlash that inevitably follows the adulation of another trendy diet. “You don’t want it to become a fad. It’s metabolic therapy. It is such a serious thing and has such serious benefits for some people.”

The Ketogenic Kitchen by Domini Kemp and Patricia Daly – Cookbook Review

Pass the cheese board, fat is our friend! When faced with the demon white stuff, sugar, we should embrace our inner Mean Girls and simply say ‘you can’t sit with us’! With a tagline like ‘Low Carb. High Fat. Extraordinary Health’, media hysteria and the usual bandwagon hopping on to the latest fad diet could lead you to believe that this is the key message to take from Domini Kemp and Patricia Daly’s new cookbook, The Ketogenic Kitchen. Look closer and you will discover that this book, both in its motivation and content, is far from another flippant ode to a trendy diet dogma. No ‘eat for abs’ or ‘cheat meal’ here, the ketogenic diet, we learn, is not a quick-fix or crash diet but a long term lifestyle designed to facilitate optimum health. Armed with curiosity and partiality to a challenge in the kitchen, I set out eagerly on my keto crusade.

I have long admired Domini’s work, as an author of multiple cookbooks and one half of the Kemp sisters at the helm of the Itsa empire (think Alchemy, Joe’s and Hatch and Sons) but Patricia, a nutritional therapist, was a new face for me. What is immediately apparent upon getting stuck in to this bright and glossy offering is there are few people who can speak as authoritatively on the subject of tailoring a diet to fuel optimum health as Domini and Patricia, smiling on the cover, looking the picture of health themselves.

The words and wisdom within come from two inspiring women who have both fought the battle against cancer and admirably have set their sights on educating others on the food philosophy which aided their respective recoveries alongside treatment. Readers are treated to a collection of inventive recipes to avoid carbohydrates as well as an amazing insight into the benefits this approach has been proven to yield in the face of illness. Domini and Patricia themselves are the best advertisement of this way of eating and the tone of the book manages to be light-hearted in the face of a very serious issue, a gentle companion to navigate the storm with readers faced with a life-changing diagnosis.