Product Description

Packed with tasty and healthy family recipes that can be made without the "big four" allergens-gluten, eggs, nuts and dairy-this reassuring cookbook explains how to adapt classic recipes to avoid harmful ingredients and how to create a healthy, balanced diet for the entire family. Alice Sherwood also offers advice on party planning for those with food allergies. AUTHOR BIO: Alice Sherwood is a former-BBC producer whose husband and son have serious food allergies. Dissatisfied with the existing cookbooks for people with food allergies, she used her degree in chemistry and love of delicious and nutritions to write her own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278825 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-18
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Allergy free = unusable recipes
My son has been on an elimination diet (no wheat, soy, dairy, eggs, corn, nuts, peanuts, fish) for nearly a year, so I was naturally attracted to a cookbook promising to avoid nearly all of those ingredients in its recipes.

Like many such cookbooks, the "claim" on the cover is false. Most recipes eliminate only one or at most two of the allergens listed on the cover, and nearly all are built around plain everyday ingredients like milk, wheat, and eggs.

Each recipe contains a sidebar with suggestings for eliminating other ingredients. A baking recipe calling for milk and eggs, for example, has a sidebar saying to avoid eggs by using commercial egg replacer, to replace milk with a non-dairy substitute, etc.

Well...yes. I can do that, but in the end I'm left with the same not so great plate of cake or cookies that I would have gotten making these substitutions in a regular recipe.

Despite the fact I've turned to this cookbook again and again (I've had it quite a long time), I have not found any recipe that comes out well when *all* of the allergens listed on the cover are eliminated.

It's probably fine if you have to avoid just one or two ingredients. But then, most allergic people know how to make those substitutions, already.

Not what it appears
I echo the review about many of the recipes not really being GF, DF etc. as the book says and the optional way to make each recipe isn't simple for most of the recipes. The way it's set up is confusing and many of the ingredients are expensive and unusual. This is not a book for someone who wants to find allergy-free, easier food to make, especially if they're looking to save time. It's more like a gourmet allergy-free cookbook for people that want to spend their whole day in the kitchen and have plenty of money to spend and time to read directions. And although she calls them "family" recipes, a lot of the recipes are not very kid-friendly.

Title is Deceiving
I bought this book because the title says: Allergy-Free Cookbook, no eggs, no dairy, no nuts, no gluten. I was disappointed to find that this is not entirely true. Nearly all of the recipes contain at least one of those ingredients if not all of them! Variations are given on the right side of the page for the "free" versions. Things like replace heavy cream with soy cream (we don't do processed soy foods). The baked goods may be made gluten-free, but still contain dairy and eggs.

I have 2 ADHD sons and they are on the GF / CF diet. My husband is also allergic to eggs so I cook mostly without eggs. This cookbook just didn't suite my needs. It is a nice looking book with good photos. And I have found a few recipes that we all like. The Chicken Fajitas are good and we use brown rice tortillas with them, we also like the Noodles in Hot Ginger Broth.

I would check this one out from the library before purchasing it. There are other great books out there that are healthy and gluten / dairy free.