Customer Reviews

The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook: Over 350 Natural Foods Recipes, Free of All Common Food Allergens: wheat-free, milk-free, egg-free, corn-free, sugar-free, yeast-free

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Although this is a very useful book for anyone with an uncommon food allergy, those who are allergic to peanuts, nuts, and shellfish (and those who are gluten-intolerant) would not find this book as useful. Most of the recipes feature nuts or peanuts as main ingredients, and there's no real help given as to how to make a substitution. As the most common allergies (and the most serious, sometimes even leading to death) are to nuts and peanuts, I'm surprised that these ingredients are featured so prominently in a supposed allergy cookbook.

The same could be said with respect to the seafood recipes and the many recipes featuring grains that contain or (as is the case with oats) may be contaminated with other grains that contain gluten. Even a trace of gluten can bring grief to someone with celiac sprue.

I did not find this book very useful. However, those with allergies to rarer items or whose 'allergies' are merely intolerances (ie. no hives, throat swelling, cardiac arrest, etc.) might find this book useful. I can't recommend it to the average food allergy sufferer, though.

As an allergy sufferer who counsels many allergy patients, I am disturbed that this book bills itself as "free of all common allergens" yet contains many recipes with soy, peanuts or tree nuts. It is well known that peanut and nut allergies are among the most severe of common allergies. Less well known is that reactions to soy are increasingly prevalent. Indeed people who are allergic to peanuts are often allergic to soy as well though they may not know it. Deaths from soy in children who had not previously reacted to soy have been reported in Sweden and the Ministry of Health there warns that children who are allergic to peanuts and have asthma are at very high risk. I've also found that those who are allergic to dairy who start drinking soymilk will, in all likelihood, soon be allergic to soy as well. Finally, people who eat a lot of soy often develop digestive problems and "leaky gut" syndrome, causing further problems for allergy sufferers. Yet this book includes lots of recipes with soy. I recommend that people educate themselves as fully as possible on this subject whether they think they have soy allergies or not by reading the book "The Whole Soy Story" by Kaayla Daniel. The book has been endorsed by Dr. Doris Rapp, a leading authority on allergies who has a great website drrapp.com.

My review pertains to the version of the book that has 350 recipes. But I would assume that this version is a similar quality.

This book has really been a great resource for me. My son (who is 3) has multiple food allergies (wheat, rye, corn, eggs, soy, dairy, chicken, foods in the night-shade family like potatoes, tomatoes, bell pepper....the list continues). It has been quite a nightmare to know what to get for him. And he also started developing sensitivities to the food that he ate all the time (oats, pork).

When I got this book, I learnt about the rotation diet, about how one could get sensitive to foods if exposed to them for an extended period of time. It provided me with alternative foods, information about food groups (which is essential when planning a rotation diet), lots of alternative things to use instead of sugar (agave nectar, maple or date sugar), how to use alternative flours (amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, teff) which have all been so much help.

I have been using the breakfast and better breads section extensively, and also the snack and dessert sections. With the range of allergies that my son has, those have been the hardest types of food to prepare. The main course sections have some good suggestions as well.

I would highly recommend this book if you need to deal with multiple allergies and are at a loss as to where to start. I found the recipes in this book much better to use than the recipes from the Food Allergy Network, which is rather strange. The recipes from the FAN mostly had wheat flour in them, and provided no information on rotation diets, food groups or alternative flours. Some of the other books that I have bought are also not very strong in these areas. This book is particularly good if you have the type of allergies that I listed earlier. If you only have one or two of these allergies, perhaps you might find the recipes too esoteric and it might be unnecessary to go to such lengths as I have had to, to find the right food.

This book needs to be in your kitchen if any of the following apply to you:

· you are vegan,

· someone in your family has food allergies,

· you are vegetarian and want to include more vegan recipes in your diet, or

· you enjoy baking but cringe at the amount of butter and sugar in most recipes

Author Jones was diagnosed with food allergies in 1976. She defines a food "allergy" as the following experience: "eating a food causes you distress, or if you discover any clear cause-and-effect symptoms that are relieved by avoidance of specific foods."

Her completely updated and revised cookbook includes over 350 recipes. Each is free of all common food allergens. No more getting halfway through a recipe only to realize that it would have been gluten-free if only you had used the other flour option. There are also chapters on ingredients that may be new to you, rotary diversified diets, keeping your home allergy-free, eating out, and helping children with allergies.

Note that this is not a vegetarian cookbook. However, a majority of the recipes are vegan. There are 17 vegetarian main dishes, and several of these have become instant hits at my house. The Better Burgers are the greatest. For Thanksgiving, I served the Zesty Loaf for the first time and an hour later, the loaf was gone, and my sisters-in-law were begging for the recipe.

We have also grown quite fond of the Fresh Apple Muffins. They will be going with us to our La Leche League meeting this month. And I'm willing to bet that none of them will be making the return trip home.

The only recipe that hasn't turned out well was the Date Pecan Pie. Too much blackstrap molasses makes things taste like cough syrup.

My only complaint with the book is that quite a few of the baked goods call for white buckwheat flour or a combination of flours. While the author explains how to grind whole buckwheat groats in the blender, I find that to be too time consuming. With a preschooler and baby around, I don't have time to grind my own flour. I have the same issue with the combination of flours used in some recipes. It takes extra time to get out and measure three different flours.

However, as one who eats a vegan diet in the comfort of my own home, I have to say that I love allergy-free cookbooks: no dairy, no eggs, and all-natural sugars. As a fine example of a cookbook that fits this bill, The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook will always have a place in my kitchen.
--Reviewed by Virginia Delaney

"Yeast free" not, "nut free" not, "soy free" not, allergen free like the book claims -NOT. There are allergens throughout the entire book! There were only a couple I could use out of the 350 recipes!

I was VERY disappointed when I received your book, the title indicates that the recipes are wheat-free....etc. In actuality some of the recipes are wheat free, some are milk-free, some are egg free, some are corn-free, etc. I was (past-tense) excited when I saw your book, as my daughter and I have to avoid these ingredients plus many more and I was tired of "making up" recipes on my own, I thought finally someone has done the footwork for me, however I was sadly mistaken, I have to modify theses recipes as much as my own, so I'll continue on my own.
Signed,

Disappointed in Wyoming

as nuts, especially peanuts, can be deadly for people like my son. She relies a lot on nut products (oils, flours, butters, etc.)so this cookbook wasn't as helpful as I had hoped but it still had some good ideas.

This is a good cookbook, with many excellent ideas and some very interesting information. Unfortunately, Marjorie's desire to help every special dieter creates a book without a specific focus. She attempts to cover all types of food allergies (milk, egg, soy), intolerances (gluten, milk), sensitivities (including a rotary diet plan with food families chart and alternatives for things as obscure as black pepper), and even addresses issues on environmental allergens and toxins. No easy feat I must admit.

If your primary concern is food `sensitivities', this cookbook appears to be an excellent resource for rotary / rotation diets. I would recommend it for this. Yet, the subtitle declares `free of ALL common food allergens.' This is a big promise, and regrettably not one that it kept. Here are the author's claims:

Gluten-Free - There are many gluten-free recipes (breads, cookies, etc.) included and even a great section that explains all of the different flours and how they can be used. However, several of the recipes call for spelt, kamut, or oat products, which all contain gluten.
Wheat-Free - I did not view any recipes that contained wheat specifically, but I believe spelt and kamut are in the wheat family and a problem for many who have an allergy to wheat.
Yeast-Free - Of course, the quick breads, cookies, and other common dishes are yeast-free, but the few `yeast' bread recipes that are included did call for yeast.
Milk-Free - Many of the recipes call for goat milk, goat cheese, sheep milk, soy cheese (not specifying that most soy cheeses contain milk protein), and/or feta cheese (from a cow). The author fails to point out that most people who have a cow's milk allergy will also have a problem with goat milk, and some may even be more allergic.
Sugar-Free - This book is not suitable for someone who has sugar-free needs. Agave nectar, maple syrup, date sugar, and honey are required in many of the recipes. She does include a nice section explaining these natural sweeteners.
Soy-Free - I spotted soymilk, tofu, miso, and tamari sauce throughout this book.
Egg-Free - The quick breads are made with a natural alternative, and the author offers many great suggestions for replacing eggs in recipes. Nonetheless, a few egg-filled recipes did sneak in, including Macaroons and Eggs Florentine!
Corn-Free - I didn't spot any corn in this cookbook, though I am not certain how common of an allergen this is.

Other Diet Comments:
Vegan - One reviewer said this book is great for vegans, but I highly disagree. I don't think any vegan would want a cookbook loaded with recipes for turkey, chicken, pork, fish, venison, lamb, and even rabbit, simply because it has some good vegan recipes in it. Most cookbooks do.
Nuts - Marjorie does not claim that this book is nut-free, but she does state `free of all common allergens.' Tree nuts are one of the top 8 food allergens, but this book is loaded with nut-filled recipes. It did appear to be peanut-free though.
Fish & Shellfish - This is also a top 8 offender. As it is easy to prepare bread, dessert, rice, and other dishes without these ingredients, the book is mostly fish free, but there are specific fish recipes.

For those who have multiple allergies (such as the dreaded milk, egg, nut combo), picking and choosing recipes from this cookbook, could be a chore. I have had this cookbook for a couple of years now, but have only trialed a few of the recipes (with decent results). I would like to sample more, but I have found it too time-consuming to locate recipes that are suitable to my diet, that sound good at the moment, and that I have the ingredients on hand for.

The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook offers many great concepts and what sound to be some delicious recipes. If the author could either break this rather large collection (yes, I think there are 350!) into smaller focused cookbooks, create an index for the book that tells which recipes are specifically gluten-free, soy-free, milk-free, etc., or simply include allergy information after the title for each recipe (so that you didn't need to scan all of the ingredients), it would be a huge improvement.

I was rather disappointed when I recieved this book today. If something claims to be a wheat free, soy free, egg free, milk/corn/sugar/yeast/gluten free cook book, I expect it to actually follow through! The cover claim that this book contains "over 350 recipes free of all common food allergens" is patently false! If you have multiple allergies, this is a very hard book to use. Most troubling to me is that ingredients are not noted in the recipes themselves for what allergens they may contain- for example, a lot of poeple I have talked to do not know that miso and tempeh, both of which are called for in at least one recipe, are soy products. I am soy/egg/milk sensitive and avoiding meat. It is really hard to find high protein vegetarian meals without soy, and I had high hopes for this book (although it is not a vegetarian cook book) and was very frustrated to find a large percentage of the vegetarian main dishes call for soy. This book would be improved greatly simply by adding a list of possible allergens under the title of each recipe and signifigantly modifying the cover claims.

Now, having ranted about the negative issues with this book, it does have some excellent recipes I haven't found elsewhere and which I am eager to try. I can't wait to try out the egg-free banana bread recipe. The veggie burger recipes look interesting too (but watch out if you have nut sensitivities!) Overall I am glad to have this book, but the price was a bit steep for the 10-15 recipes I think I will actually try!
For those looking for a vegetarian focus, do check the soups section as it actually offers more options than the vegetarian main dishes.

If you've been recently diagnosed with food allergies, you will want to buy this book because the author has many suggestions about foods you can eat in place of all of those you can't. She goes into great detail about various different types of flour to cook with and gives hope to those of us wondering, "What can I eat?"

That said, the recipies really fall flat. As one reviewer stated, she tends to rely heavily on nut ingredients and many of the "alternative flours" that she uses are rye, spelt, oats etc. So if you have serious grain allergies like I do, that's hard. Also she rels heavily on fish and seafood for protien, again, if you have seafood allergies, you'll have to ignore this portion of the book.

Lastly, of the three recipies that I tried, one was OK (buckwheat pancakes), one didn't work out (pork chops in rice with apples and celery) because the rice didn't cook (at all) but I've decided I could modify this to make it better, and one tasted AWFUL! (Ginger Gems Cookies)

I'd like to say that this book has enough redeeming qualities to make it a "good buy", but if you have numerous food allergies you may want to get it at your local library before investing the money.