Cookbook Review: The 3-Day Reset by Pooja Mottl

PROS: The book is effective. From the one reset I’ve tried so far, it was effective. My dislike of salad has changed using the salad reset. The salad recipes I tried were tasty but simple. The methodology of immersing yourself in something for three days is a great technique.

CONS: Some of the ingredients in the recipes are hard to find or expensive to buy.

I received this book to review from TLC Book Tours. As I’m sure you saw, I recently did a giveaway of one copy of this book. Now is the time for the review! You can track the reviews here as it visits different blogs. Just for a disclaimer, this book was provided for me to review. All the opinions in this post are my own.

I figured the best way to review this book was to actually do a reset. So first, let’s talk about what exactly a reset is to begin with. Mottl preaches the power of WAMP. What is WAMP? Whole And Minimally Processed foods. Those are the foods we should be eating. Mottl lays out an easy way to tell which foods are probably WAMP.

“WAMP foods are usually perishable. They won’t last too long on that top shelf in your pantry.

WAMP foods usually don’t come with ingredient labels. If they do, they’ll likely have fewer than five ingredients.

WAMP foods rarely have ad budgets. You’ll never see a commercial or advertisement for them.

WAMP foods don’t have “natural flavor” in their ingredient lists.”

The reset itself is about learning new skills to point you to the best foods. The three days set for the reset allows you to immerse yourself into something new and to stick with it.

This book has 10 separate resets including, sugar, salt, wheat, chocolate, yogurt, chicken, beverage, breakfast, salad, and take-out. She suggests you either start with sugar, salt, and wheat first or find the reset that seems to inspire you the most. While I intend to do most of the resets in the book (maybe not beverage or take-out, because those aren’t things that have much to do with my current diet,) I didn’t go in order. I chose the salad reset to start with.

Why? I don’t eat enough of it. And why is that? Because I hate it. So I picked three days that I knew I could cook everyday, opened the book up, and saw that she provides a grocery list of what you’ll need to do the reset. How helpful! I did have to make some dietary changes though because my boyfriend has an allergy to certain raw fruits. On each day of the reset, Mottl provides information and asks you to question certain things. Below, I’ve shared my experience with you. PS – this has made me realize I need a salad bowl and salad servers badly.

DAY 1: Strawberry, Romaine, and Radish Salad

The recipe Mottl provided actually used peaches instead of strawberries. Peaches are one of the raw fruits the boyfriend can’t have – so I took her suggestion and replaced it with peaches. I liked having the pieces of fruit in the salad. It added more dimension, more flavor – not just lettuce.

In the book, Mottl asks me to actually think about what I was eating. What flavors do you taste? I tasted mint, balsamic, sweet strawberries! How does it compare to the salads you’ve been used to eating? Honestly, my mom always makes salads like these. But I have been stuck in the pit of being a little vegetable hating kid. Making the salad myself changed that. That’s also how I got over my dislike of meatloaf actually. How do the strawberries contrast with the radish? The radish was so earthy, the strawberry so juicy and sweet.

DAY 2: Basil, Lettuce, and Cucumber Salad

On day two I had accommodations I had to make as well. This recipe called for apples, which are also a no-go here if they’re raw. After google searching, I found a replacement that could suffice – a cucumber. While obviously not as sweet as an apple, it has a similar watery quality to it.

Mottl suggested that on day two you talk to your friends about salad and find what they think of them. I didn’t quite do that. I did talk my boyfriend’s ear off about it though and brought up to my mom I was eating a salad everyday (hopefully forever?) She seemed impressed actually.

DAY 3: Orange and Mixed Lettuce Salad

I had to make another change with this recipe also – apparently my grocery store doesn’t sell arugula by itself. I instead bought a bag of mixed lettuce, which included arugula in it.

On day three, Mottl suggests going to the grocery store and looking at the labels on salad dressing bottles. How many ingredients are in them? Can you pronounce them? I didn’t have time to do that, but I did pull a bottle of dressing out of my fridge and realized how many more ingredients go in the prepared variety as opposed to a dressing I could make on my own. And I think my salad dressings taste better also – less salt.

The aftermath: Since I’ve concluded this reset, I have been craving salad. I’ve been incorporating homemade salads into my diet and have made choices that choose salad over other, less healthy options. Sounds like a success!