This Is The Cookbook Giada De Laurentiis Is Most Proud Of

Giada De Laurentiis' latest cookbook may be her greatest. De Laurentiis herself ranks Eat Better, Feel Better, which came out March 16, as the book she's most proud of. She said as much last week in an Instagram post announcing the book's release. "It's the culmination of my personal health journey with recipes, wellness tips, my three-day clean eating reboot & the reason I can honestly say I feel better (w/more energy!) now at 50 than I did in my 30s," De Laurentiis said.

Maybe it's easy to see why Eat Better, Feel Better is De Laurentiis' biggest source of pride if you look at her array of past cookbooks, displayed on a page of her website. The titles do kind of run together: Weeknights with Giada, Giada at Home, Giada's Family Dinners, and the rest. The next best thing to Eat Better, Feel Better might be De Laurentiis' 2013 cookbook Giada's Feel Good Food. That book seems lighter and more upbeat.

Her latest cookbook, on the other hand, tries to solve a problem that had been plaguing De Laurentiis even before Giada's Feel Good Food came out: The celebrity chef with the glamorous lifestyle felt terrible a lot of the time. Eat Better, Feel Better, which took ten years to come together, according to her Instagram, shows De Laurentiis' fans how she found physical well being through her food choices.

Giada De Laurentiis' busy schedule of jetting between New York, Los Angeles, and Italy to film her cooking shows, often left her drained and feeling sick (via Williams Sonoma). A doctor helped De Laurentiis realize it wasn't her demanding lifestyle that was dragging her down as much as her food choices. In fact, she wasn't making conscious choices so much as simply getting energy fixes through sugar every now and then (via CNN).

De Laurentiis decided to restrict her intake of sugar and dairy. It only took her three days to feel the difference, and this personal experiment with food became the three-day reboot she recommends in Eat Better, Feel Better. As the Williams Sonoma blog explains, the 100 recipes in the new cookbook turn away from problem foods such as sugar and dairy, red meat, refined grains, gluten, caffeine, and booze. The cookbook emphasizes gut-friendly foods, including dark greens, fresh herbs, olives, dark chocolate, and whole grains.

Don't worry, the chef who made a name for herself with Italian cuisine isn't saying farewell forever to cheese. The point is to reduce the amount of foods that cause her trouble. "Now that I understand how they affect me, most of the time (well, at least a lot of the time) I choose feeling good over the momentary pleasure of a chocolate chip cookie," De Laurentiis said (via Williams Sonoma).