Empowering Reading: Cooking For Mother Book Review

Cooking for Mother: Dieta-Friendly Recipes for Working with Ayahuasca, by Guy Borgford. 2025. ISBN: 979-8274993876.

So many great aspects of Cooking for Mother, including an education on our poor food system, explaining the purpose of a dieta, and wonderfully simple recipes.

Caveat: The author, Guy Borgford, is a dear friend, and thus, I will admit I am biased about this book; however, I also genuinely appreciated nearly everything in it, separate from our friendship.

This is a book for people planning a plant medicine experience, especially for those planning to sit with the mother of all psychedelics, Ayahuasca. As someone who has sat with this powerful substance (a brew of the leaves from one shrub and the bark of another), I can attest to the importance of following a strict diet regimen – known as the dieta – for multiple reasons.

But, this is also a book for people looking to eat “cleanly,” focused on reducing their reliance on convenience foods and moving to eating that is closer to nature. The author writes, “Food is medicine. And much of what is passed off for food in our culture is poison.”

The first pages of the book educate readers quickly on the broken food system – and not just with all the ultra-processed, packaged, convenience foods, but with all the conventionally grown foods as well.

Borgford writes: “Aside from the packaged goods that can barely be classified as food, much of the meats, vegetables, fruits, and dairy are sourced, grown, and raised in factory farms, the crops, animals, and animal products pumped full of GMO goodness, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, food coloring, and preservatives.”

While a dieta may be too strict for most people, it is such a good starting place for eating cleanly, and then adding back quality foods to your diet, to your meal planning.

In fact, here is the list of foods that need to be eliminated on the dieta:

• Red meat

• Pork

• Fried foods

• Processed foods

• Smoked meats

• Dairy

• Alcohol (and other drugs)

• Aged and fermented foods

• Spicy foods

• Onions, garlic

• Refined sugars

• Seed (“vegetable”) oils

• Salt

• Citrus

If this list of foods that are eliminated in the dieta disturbs you, remember that the typical dieta is only for a few weeks before a plant medicine ceremony, which I think is also a good enough time to reset your body if you are simply looking to reset your eating.

Having done several dietas, I can assure you that while you may feel slightly deprived if you are a big beef person, once the dieta is over, you can start adding it back – just remember to source your beef from grassfed-everything, regenerative ranchers, not from your local supermarket.

The great thing about this book, though, is that the author does not leave the reader hanging, wondering how to cook tasty meals. His book includes a nice variety of recipes for sourdough bread, breakfast, snacks, sandwiches, and fish and poultry meals.

Borgford developed the recipes from his decades of working with plant medicines and performing dietas. And I love that he introduces ingredients many people may have little knowledge of, including coconut aminos (much better than soy sauce) and nutritional yeast (that adds a cheesy flavor to recipes).

Here are some of my favorite recipes from the book, which I incorporate into my regular meal planning:

• Baked sweet potato fries

• Hard-boiled eggs with paprika

• Roast chicken (which one could also spatchcock)

• Love Soup (truly the best)

• Herb chicken

• Coconut curry chicken

• Mustard herb chicken

• Mediterranean tomato chicken

• Herb-crusted pan-seared fish

I can’t recommend this book enough, both for the educational value in understanding how broken our food system is… to explaining why people are encouraged to undertake dietas… to providing healthy and nutritious recipes that will feed your soul and raise your energy.

Finally, the book is partly dedicated to Guy’s mother, who encouraged him to learn how to cook from an early age – just as my own mother did for me. But the great thing about this book is that its recipes are suitable for all levels of cooks, from beginners to chefs.

This book was crafted in love, and it truly is his gift to the world. Healing comes in all forms, including what we put into our mouths.

Find more book reviews and advice for living a happy, healthy, and healing life here.