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Michael Greger

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Gene Stone

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Read Time

8 min read

Our age bandAdult
Reader rating
4.6 · 11,847 Amazon ratings
reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
$14.56 on Amazon
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Front cover of The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease

Our review

The How Not to Die Cookbook

The How Not to Die Cookbook by Michael Greger and Gene Stone Review: A Science-Backed Plant-Based Kitchen Companion

by Michael Greger and Gene Stone

Published by Flatiron Books in December 2017, The How Not to Die Cookbook is the practical, recipe-driven follow-up to Michael Greger's New York Times bestselling book How Not to Die, delivering more than 120 plant-based recipes for meals, snacks, and beverages designed to help prevent and reverse disease — grounded in Greger's Daily Dozen framework and intended for health-conscious home cooks ready to put science-backed nutrition into action.

$14.56 on Amazon
Our age band: Adult

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for

Readers of Michael Greger's How Not to Die who want a structured, science-backed recipe companion to put its whole-food, plant-based dietary recommendations into daily practice.

Worth it if

You are committed to — or actively moving toward — a whole-food, plant-based diet and want your cooking organised around a repeatable, physician-designed daily framework rather than culinary trends or cuisine categories.

Skip if

You want a broad, all-purpose cookbook that works alongside a conventional or omnivore diet, or if culinary creativity and flavour-first cooking matter more to you than a clinical, disease-prevention structure.

Publisher descriptions retrieved via Porchlight Books and Barnes & Noble position the book as a "beautifully-designed, comprehensive cookbook" with more than 120 plant-based recipes and frame it as an ideal gift for health-conscious eaters. Reader comments retrieved from Walmart note that practical items such as overnight oatmeal, breakfast bites, and smoothies have become regular staples, with reviewers describing easy-to-follow recipes and accessible new tastes for the whole family. A snippet retrieved via books.google.com, citing the Daily Mail, characterises it as "a lavish, beautifully illustrated cookbook full of delicious recipes based on the groundbreaking nutritional science of the original book."

Sources: Porchlight Books, Walmart Reviews, Barnes & Noble, Google Books
4.6from 11,847 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score

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Was this helpful?

The How Not to Die Cookbook is the practical kitchen companion to Dr. Michael Greger's New York Times bestselling How Not to Die, delivering more than 120 plant-based recipes — spanning meals, snacks, and beverages — all organised around Greger's Daily Dozen nutritional framework for disease prevention and reversal. It is a standout choice for readers already committed to whole-food, plant-based eating or actively moving in that direction, offering structural coherence and physician-backed credibility that sets it apart from trend-driven plant-based cookbooks. The key caveat: its deliberately narrow, clinical focus makes it a poor fit for cooks seeking an all-purpose kitchen reference or those who prioritise culinary creativity over nutritional goals.
Is it worth reading?
For readers committed to whole-food, plant-based eating — particularly those who have engaged with How Not to Die and want to put its dietary recommendations into daily practice — The How Not to Die Cookbook delivers genuine value: a structured, science-grounded programme with the credibility of a physician-author and the organisational logic of the Daily Dozen framework. Its transition from peer-reviewed nutritional science to the home kitchen is described as one of the more direct in recent publishing. However, cooks seeking an all-purpose kitchen reference or those who want flavour and culinary creativity at the centre of their cooking will find the clinical, disease-prevention orientation a mismatch.
Similar books
Readers drawn to The How Not to Die Cookbook will find natural companions in the broader science-backed nutrition space. Greger's own How Not to Diet extends the whole-food, plant-based approach into the science of healthy, permanent weight loss. Gene Stone's Forks Over Knives covers similar plant-based, disease-prevention territory from a different angle. For foundational reading on the science underpinning plant-based diets, The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell is a landmark reference, while Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food offers a complementary eater's manifesto grounded in food-system thinking. Dan Buettner's The Blue Zones approaches longevity through the dietary and lifestyle patterns of the world's longest-lived populations.
Who should read this?
The cookbook is most squarely aimed at two audiences: readers of How Not to Die who want a direct, practical tool for living out its dietary recommendations, and health-focused home cooks who want their recipe choices anchored in nutritional science rather than food trends. Greger's large existing audience at NutritionFacts.org gives the book a ready readership that already trusts his framework. It is also described as an accessible entry point for those seeking to eat more plant-based foods, and as a well-suited gift for health-conscious recipients.
About Michael Greger and Gene Stone
Michael Herschel Greger is an American physician, author, and speaker on public health issues, best known for his advocacy of a whole-food, plant-based diet and his opposition to animal-derived food products. Gene Stone is his co-author on this cookbook, as he was on the original How Not to Die.
What is the Daily Dozen?
The Daily Dozen is Dr. Greger's checklist of the foods and food groups he identifies — based on the nutritional science literature — as most beneficial to incorporate into daily eating. It serves as the central organisational feature of the cookbook, giving the recipe collection a structural coherence that distinguishes it from anthology-style plant-based cookbooks: readers are guided toward a repeatable daily eating pattern, not simply handed a list of dishes. The framework makes the more than 120 recipes actionable across an entire day — meals, snacks, and beverages — rather than focusing narrowly on dinner.
How does it compare to How Not to Die?
How Not to Die is a science-focused text that marshals peer-reviewed evidence for how a whole-food, plant-based diet can help prevent and reverse many leading causes of premature death — it is primarily an argument, backed by research. The How Not to Die Cookbook takes that established framework as its foundation and translates it directly into more than 120 recipes, shifting the emphasis from scientific persuasion to practical kitchen application. The review describes the transition as one of the more direct pipelines from peer-reviewed nutritional science to the home kitchen in recent publishing. Readers who found How Not to Die persuasive will find the cookbook its most natural next step.
Summarize this book

Summarize this book

Published by Flatiron Books on December 5, 2017, The How Not to Die Cookbook is the companion cookbook to Dr. Michael Greger's New York Times bestseller How Not to Die, co-authored once again with Gene Stone. It contains more than 120 plant-based recipes covering meals, snacks, and beverages, all structured around Greger's Daily Dozen — a framework of foods and food groups identified in the nutritional science literature as most beneficial to incorporate each day. The book is explicitly positioned as a disease-prevention tool, not a lifestyle-trend cookbook, with its subtitle — 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease — making that clinical ambition plain. The publisher describes it as a "beautifully-designed, comprehensive cookbook" and an "essential tool in healthy kitchens everywhere."
The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone

The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone

4.6

/ 5

Published by Flatiron Books in December 2017, The How Not to Die Cookbook is the practical, recipe-driven follow-up to Michael Greger's New York Times bestselling book How Not to Die, delivering more than 120 plant-based recipes for meals, snacks, and beverages designed to help prevent and reverse disease — grounded in Greger's Daily Dozen framework and intended for health-conscious home cooks ready to put science-backed nutrition into action.

View on LuvemBooks →

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone

4.7

/ 5

How Not to Die: Revised and Updated is a New York Times bestseller by physician Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM, and co-author Gene Stone, now available as an audiobook from Macmillan Audio narrated by Greger himself. The book makes the case that the fifteen leading causes of disease-related death are largely preventable through diet and lifestyle, marshalling peer-reviewed scientific evidence to identify the foods and habits designed to extend healthy life. This review is based on the book's content and published reception, not hands-on use.

View on LuvemBooks →

Follow up

What is the Daily Dozen framework?
Do I need to read How Not to Die first?
What kinds of recipes are in the book?

Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review

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Our Review

This review assesses the cookbook's content, structure, and published reception from available sources, not a kitchen test.

What the Book Is and What It Sets Out to Do

Interior page showing fresh vegetables and ingredients with text describing 120 plant-based recipes for disease prevention.
Interior page showing fresh vegetables and ingredients with text describing 120 plant-based recipes for disease prevention.
The How Not to Die Cookbook, published by Flatiron Books on December 5, 2017, is the companion cookbook to Dr. Michael Greger's New York Times bestselling book How Not to Die. Where that original volume — co-written with Gene Stone — marshalled the scientific evidence behind a whole-food, plant-based diet's power to prevent and reverse many leading causes of premature death and disability, this cookbook is designed to translate that science directly into the kitchen.
Greger, a physician, FACLM, founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and the force behind the widely followed website NutritionFacts.org, co-authors the cookbook once again with Stone. The result is a collection of more than 120 recipes spanning plant-based meals, snacks, and beverages — all organised around Greger's "Daily Dozen," his framework of the best ingredients and food groups to incorporate every day for long-term health.

Its Place in the Plant-Based Cookbook Landscape

Companion cookbooks to bestselling nutrition books are a crowded genre, but this one arrives with unusual institutional weight behind it. How Not to Die was not a modest sellers' success — it was a New York Times bestseller with a large and engaged readership, and its transition to a recipe-format follow-up is one of the more direct pipelines from peer-reviewed nutritional science to the home kitchen in recent publishing.
The book is explicitly positioned not as a lifestyle-trend cookbook but as a disease-prevention tool — its subtitle, 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease, makes that clinical ambition plain. The publisher describes it as a "beautifully-designed, comprehensive cookbook" and frames it as an "essential tool in healthy kitchens everywhere."
That positioning — equal parts medical reference and practical recipe guide — sets it apart from plant-based cookbooks motivated primarily by environmental or ethical concerns.

Strengths: Structure, Scope, and the Daily Dozen Framework

The cookbook's central organisational feature is Greger's Daily Dozen — a checklist of the foods and food groups he identifies, based on the nutritional science literature, as most beneficial to incorporate into daily eating. Building a recipe collection around this framework gives the book a structural coherence that distinguishes it from anthology-style plant-based cookbooks: readers are not simply handed a list of dishes but are guided toward a repeatable daily pattern.
The more than 120 recipes span meals, snacks, and beverages, making the Daily Dozen actionable across an entire day's eating rather than just at dinner. Some reader accounts note that breakfast items — including overnight oatmeal preparations and breakfast bites — and smoothies have become practical staples for those cooking from the book, which reflects the cookbook's stated design intent to serve health-conscious eaters across all occasions.

Honest Limitations: Audience Fit and Dietary Scope

The book's strengths are inseparable from its constraints. Because every recipe is plant-based and anchored to a specific nutritional framework, it is designed for readers who are either already committed to whole-food, plant-based eating or actively seeking to move in that direction.
Cooks looking for a broad, all-purpose kitchen reference, or those who want only occasional healthful recipes alongside a conventional diet, will find the book's scope deliberately narrow. The clinical framing — recipes organised around disease prevention rather than cuisine, season, or technique — means the book reads differently from cooking-first titles; flavour and culinary creativity are in service of nutritional goals, not the reverse.
Some readers approaching it as a conventional cookbook may find the medical orientation more prominent than expected.

Who This Book Is Genuinely For

The How Not to Die Cookbook is most squarely aimed at two audiences: readers of How Not to Die who want a direct, practical tool for living out its dietary recommendations, and health-focused home cooks who want their recipe choices anchored in nutritional science rather than food trends. Greger's large existing audience at NutritionFacts.org gives the book a ready readership that already trusts his framework.
Reader accounts describe it as an accessible entry point for eating more plant-based foods and as a gift well-suited to health-conscious recipients. For those motivated by the prospect of using food as a genuine tool against chronic disease — and willing to embrace an entirely plant-based, whole-food approach — the cookbook delivers a structured, science-grounded programme with the credibility of a physician-author and the reach of a major New York Times bestselling franchise behind it.

Sources & Further Reading

The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.

  1. Cited in this review
  2. 1
    3 must-try recipes from Dr. Greger's top-selling cookbooks

    loveveg.com

  3. Further reading
  4. 2
    The how not to die cookbook : 100+ recipes to help prevent and reverse disease : Greger, Michael, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Inte

    archive.org

  5. 3
    The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger and Gene Stone via @porchlightbooks

    porchlightbooks.com

  6. 4
    The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease (International Edition) - Greger M.D. FACLM, Michael; Stone, Gene: 97812

    abebooks.com

  7. 5
    The How Not to Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease | Barnes & Noble®

    barnesandnoble.com

  8. 6
    Google Books

    Google Books

Age & Reading Level

Our age band

Adult

Our age band groups books for browsing; it isn't an age a review gave.

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Skip if you want an all-purpose or omnivore-friendly cookbook where culinary creativity and flavour exploration take centre stage.

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In our catalogue

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

Michael Greger and Gene Stone

The science-first predecessor that builds the nutritional case behind every recipe in the cookbook — essential reading for understanding the Daily Dozen framework.

Where the cookbook gives you the kitchen practice, this book lays out the peer-reviewed evidence: chapter by chapter, Greger examines which foods have been shown to fight the fifteen leading causes of death. Readers who want to know *why* a particular ingredient earns its place on the plate will find the detailed disease-by-disease breakdowns here. It suits anyone who needs the reasoning before they'll fully commit to the recipes.

In our catalogue

How Not to Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss

Michael Greger

Greger's follow-up shifts focus from disease prevention to weight loss, applying the same evidence-first, plant-based lens to a different health goal.

If you liked The How Not to Die Cookbook

In our catalogue

Forks Over Knives

Gene Stone

Co-author Gene Stone's companion to the landmark documentary makes the same whole-food, plant-based case in an accessible, myth-busting format — a logical next read.

In our catalogue

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health

T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

The landmark epidemiological study that underpins much of whole-food, plant-based nutrition — delivers the deep scientific foundation that the cookbook takes as given.

In our catalogue

The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest

Dan Buettner

Real-world proof that plant-centred eating extends healthy lifespan — grounds the cookbook's disease-prevention claims in the lived experience of the world's longest-lived communities.

In our catalogue

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Michael Pollan

Pollan's concise manifesto attacks nutritionism and processed food from a cultural angle, complementing Greger's clinical approach with a broader food-philosophy lens.

Not your thing?

In our catalogue

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Michael Moss

For readers put off by the prescriptive recipe structure: Moss's investigative narrative exposes why whole-food eating is so hard without telling you what to cook.