There are hardly any recipe books devoted to a single person. All the recipes are for two, four, six or more persons where one has to mentally divide the quantities for a single person (it’s easier to multiply up than to divide down).
I live by myself and I do not wish to buy produce and prepare a meal for more than one person (I have limited storage space).
This also applies to members of a family where only one of that family has a diet condition to be addressed.
Even ‘Specialist’ cookery books for diabetics seem to assume that where there is a diabetic in the family therefore the whole family must be diabetic and ‘double-up’ the recipes accordingly.
The only recipe book with single person recipes that I have come across is Delia Smith’s ‘One is Fun’. But that is hardly a ‘Diet’ book or a book for diabetics.
I do not think it is beyond the wit of any chef to accommodate the above suggestion. So how about it?

**peers over spectacles & purses lips**

If you followed British politics or watched terrestrial television you would know that singletons over the age of 25 are a figment of our own imagination.

There have been exceedingly rare sightings of the 40+ ‘child free by choice’ bird in the north of England … but her existence has been denied by hard-working families, vulnerable pensioners and the BBC.

I suspect the last specimen was eaten by her own hoard of cats.

That was a serious question or are you the local clown?

Laugh or cry?

The singleton between ‘young voter’ and pensioner is practically invisible unless they (a) are likely to produce offspring, (b) have a decent current or anticipated income, (c) both.

Singletons on a low income or on benefits have one electoral vote (may well not even register), rubbish spending and borrowing power … it’s a numbers game for local and national government/ sales/ marketing/ advertisers.

Likely won’t run a car, won’t take out insurances, low priority for social housing or long term private rented, can’t afford fancy TV/ phone/ internet contracts …

I know (or know of) far too many such singles. Many sofa surfing or in short term accomodation, many with current or previous mental health/ alcohol/ drug use/ minor criminal histories. The single men are getting the least help or support, not classed as homeless or ‘vulnerable’ by the powers-that-be, blah blah blah.

Why would a celebrity chef or medical professional write a healthy eating cookbook for us? No $$$ in it. Can’t market a line of kitchen equipment, can’t sell a linked primetime TV series, newspapers and magazines won’t print double page spreads (AKA free advertising). TV cookery programmes are all about families or baking sweet stuff. Online it’s families or anti-baking (low carb/ ‘clean eating’).

My other post was so much less depressing! 😉

If you’re short on storage space – presumably one of those tiny, at-the-top-of -the-fridge freezing compartments, and not many cupboards? – it can certainly be a problem. Miguel Barclay’s ‘One Pound Meals’ has recipes for one, and many of them can be tweaked to fit the Clever Guts ethos. Not sure I’d agree with his £1 per portion, though – obviously does his shopping in a different place to me!

@1303liesl
Miguel Barclay’s ‘One Pound Meals’. Haven’t heard of him. I’ll look him up – thanks.

But as for storage space, I’m talking about these recipes for 2, 4, 6 or more suggesting that you consume one portion and freeze the rest…
Not always possible.

Try Tesco’s bookshelf!

Paid a visit to ‘Workzone’ – a shop that sells end of line or out of print books – and found “Skinny Blood Sugar Diet – calorie counted recipes for one” by CookNation.
CookNation do other ‘Skinny’ books seemingly aimed at singles: ‘5:2 Fast Diet Meals for One’, ‘5:2 Fast Diet Slow Cooker’, ‘5:2 Fast Diet Meals for One Vegetarian’, ‘5:2 Fast Diet Bikini’.
I’ll do a further search.

Did a google search for ‘cooknation’. Came up with hundreds of books most with a similar theme – low calorie meals for one.

There are also widows with grown children (like me) or even families where only one of the people needs/wants to do the diet.

I agree completely that singletons, for whatever reason are woefully under resourced in the cooking department.

Edit my last post. It’s “TheWorks.co.uk” not “Workzone”.

I just purchased ‘Solo’ by Linda Tubby (£3 in The Works sale). Many recipes are Mediterranean/ Middle Eastern style. Quite a few unusual ingredients, so requires some substitution or sourcing (fancy deli/ online).

‘Small Bites’ by Paul Gayler spans the Mediterranean (tapas), Middle East (mezze) and Far East (dim sum). Would suit couples more than singles tho.

Mezze/ tapas dishes in general are based around vegetables, pulses, olive oil, fermented dairy whilst being fairly light on grains. Not sure why I didn’t think of this avenue earlier!

I have not yet been eaten by my hoarded cats, although got severely nibbled last week! I agree, I tried to make a shopping list for the week, and realised that it would more likely cover a month of mains whilst the salad stuffs etc would need to be stepped down and bought more frequently. It’s not just storage, it’s coughing up the dosh for a months’ worth of proteins.

There are apps out there such as ‘thedrop’ (and http://www.getdrop.com which tells you about the connected scales) that will scale down recipes down for you by you inputting the recipes and then you select the serving size you want and it recalculates everything. Thedrop is free as they are trying to sell you the scales, so I would be really interested if anyone is using it and what they think.

Would be wonderful if the Cleverguts app had all the book recipes in it, would scale recipes up or down and create shopping lists for you, substitute ingredients (as thedrop does) plus give you calorie and nutritional info. But then I guess it would be more than AU$8!!