Shoku-Iku: Japanese Conscious Eating for a Long and Healthy Life

Shoku-Iku is about a brand new relationship with food. It is part of the Japanese culture and signifies the way that Japanese people are taught about healthy food. It can best be described as conscious eating: ditching that just-grab-something attitude and believing that you deserve to be a little more mindful about the relationship between what you eat and your body. It is about choosing foods based on their power to invigorate, enliven, energise, fuel and give you true nutrition. By making sure meals include five colours, five tastes and textures and come from one of the five food groups, you too can eat as the Japanese do. When you do this you simply feel better, lighter and in control and over time it will become a way of life.

Each of the five chapters in the book centres on one cooking method: steaming (or microwaving); grilling; simmering; no-cook; and sushi. You don’t even need an oven to make the recipes. Learn how to make a simple supper dish of Ginger chicken with beansprouts, a no-cook vinegared prawn salad served with a light, ultra-savoury dressing, or grill a satisfying Japanese turkey burger, made lighter with the addition of tofu.

The recipes are joyful and playful: learn to make ‘cupcakes’ from sushi, celebrate a party with a Japanese shabu-shabu, or hot pot, where you and your guests cook your food in a communal pot, or enjoy a ‘full Japanese’ garden breakfast.
As with Japanese food in general, most of the 70 brand-new recipes here are largely gluten-and dairy-free, many are vegan and some raw. And all the recipes are unbelievably simple, as that is the Shoku-Iku way.

Makiko Sano grew up in Tokyo, where she was immersed in cooking from a young age. Her cooking inspiration comes from the females in her family: her mother, grandmother and her aunts, their bustling Japanese kitchens and food styles. Her family was all about preparing meals from scratch. Makiko has lived in London for the past 20 years with her four children. Makiko's restaurant, Suzu, specializes in Japanese tapas, including traditional sushi, sashimi and tempura as well as dishes that she has created herself. She decided to offer sushi classes because people kept on asking how to make it and she has now taught thousands of people. As with Japanese food in general, most of the 70 brand-new recipes here are largely gluten-and dairy-free, many are vegan and some raw. And all the recipes are unbelievably simple, as that is the Shoku-Iku way. Makiko's first book Sushi Slim, also for Quadrille, was published in April 2013.