Customer Reviews

Allergy Self-Help Cookbook

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a both a pain and a blessing. It's a pain, because I never know if a recipe will work. It's a blessing, because when they do work, they are spectacular.

The recipes are easy to follow, and have pleased even the most picky of eaters ( my 5-year-old son and his friends.) The variety is extensive, and substitutions are carefully laid out, along with the changes they will make to the appearance, flavor, and texture of the dish. Unfortunately, not all the recipes work. The Boston Brown Bread is an utter moist gloopy flop, as written.


In spite of the problems with recipes, the reference information is even more valuable; it contains lists of biologic families of foods, (Did you know that mangoes and cashews are in the same family? What about avocado and cinnamon?), information on how to avoid nutritional deficiencies, and an extensive appendix of suppliers.

A diappointment. My 4yr.old would eat none of the recipes. Don't blame him, they were not edible. The baking soda replacing the baking powder left a strong taste. The quantities for the carrot cookies stated 30 and make 12. Again the baking soda flavor was horrible. These recipes could not have been tested! My son has horrible allergies. I told him he was going to get all new "special food".After 2 weeks of cooking attempts with these recipes, he's eating only fruits and vegetables. Try again Marjorie.

Review by Linda Coss, author of "What's to Eat? The Milk-Free, Egg-Free, Nut-Free Food Allergy Cookbook".

Nine years ago, when my son was first diagnosed with multiple food allergies, this was the first cookbook I purchased. It proved to be very disappointing. The title of the book is quite misleading -- the book does not contain 325 recipes that are "free of wheat, milk, eggs, corn, yeast, sugar and other common food allergens." Many of the recipes contain one or more of these ingredients, and a large number of the recipes contain nuts, which is probably one of the most common food allergen there is.

I tried many of these recipes anyway, with absolutely no success. I realize that my family is not accustomed to "natural foods"-style cooking, but we still found these dishes unpalatable.

I am a naturopathic physician and I deal with many patients who have food allergies and intolerances. I have found this book to be an excellent resource and recommend it frequently to my patients. I have tried some of the recipes myself and they were good. Definitely a great place to start on the very difficult path of changing to a hypoallergenic diet.

I felt the title and synopsis were just a little misleading. I can't eat ANY of the allergens listed. However, only a handful of the recipes don't have all of the allergens. A little disappointing because I had high hopes that this book would be helpful.

My child is allergic to nuts, which is certainly a common allegen. I was very disappointed to find nearly all of the baked goods recipes contain nuts. I did, however, find the general information in the first chapters to be helpful.

Although I did find that there are a few recipes which do contain ingredients that are supposedly not in this cookbook, I found the recipes interesting and tasty. If you ensure you use light buckwheat flour as recommended in applicable recipes and follow other hints provided by the author, I've found the recipes to be very good overall. This is a very good basic cookbook for people, like myself, who are just starting to discover the world of allergy free cooking/eating.