Product Details

• Actors: Jean Duane
• Directors: Jean Duane
• Format: NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Alternative Cook, LLC
• DVD Release Date: July 30, 2007
• Run Time: 75 minutes
• ASIN: B000W5N6WM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,004 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The thing I like about the DVDs by the Alternative Cook is that they are so beautifully and visually appealing to watch. It is like having a gluten free, dairy free, low cholesterol cook in the kitchen right with you. It is fun. You can see what the food looks like, you can see it being processed and put together and what the final product looks like and even wonderful ideas about how to display the food on your plate. We all eat with our eyes, so when we see beautiful food, we are even more enticed to want to eat it. Foods demonstrated in these DVDs are gorgeous to look at and they are visually stunning and they make you want to make them right away. They are extraordinarily healthy and I love the creativity that goes into the ingredients. For example, in one of the DVDs, called Kids Meals, we actually make ice cream from cashews, and while you might not have thought of cashews as an ingredient for ice cream, it makes a wonderful, creamy texture, very much like cream. It is this innovation and creativity that I think these DVDs bring to people who only thought in terms of the realm of wheat, eggs, milk, sugar, the typical things that we Americans cook with which many of us cannot have any more for various reasons. These DVDs show us how to work with many other healthy ingredients that work just as well, taste just as good and look just as gorgeous.

Lots of different groups of folks will benefit from these DVDS. First we have people who simply cannot eat gluten such as someone with Celiac disease, which is the nations most common inherited genetic disorder. Or, someone with wheat allergies who has to avoid wheat, and therefore gluten is part of that. Or someone like me, who has a gluten sensitivity but I am not a Celiac, and I am not allergic, I just get ill when I eat gluten. People who cannot eat dairy products will benefit from these DVDs too. Often having to avoid dairy goes hand in hand with gluten intolerance. Children with Autism also have to avoid gluten and casein because we know they are not able to process those proteins. Recently, we have learned that nursing mothers might do well to avoid gluten and casein because it might help in reducing the extent of colic in their baby.

I would definitely recommend that people buy the DVDs especially if they are people who like to see pictures and photos of what they need to do. And even if you have a lot of other gluten free cookbooks in your kitchen, I think that you can benefit from using these DVDs as a refresher and a way to sharpen your own cooking skills, but also as important is learning some new tricks and techniques and how to use new ingredients that are healthy, that you might not have thought about before, but can add a greater variety to what you are eating, so you are not eating the same things over and over. --Carol Fenster, PhD, Author of Gluten Free Cookbooks

Jean Duane learned about tofu and meatless cooking the hard way. When Jean was a child, her father had a heart attack, which brought radical and often unsavory changes in the way her family ate. Jean and her mother set about creating recipes that were heart healthy and flavorful. Once Jean got older and realized she could not tolerate gluten and dairy, she jumped into even more creative cooking. That led to her attending culinary school and now her new venture, DVD instructional videos that feature gluten, dairy free and low cholesterol dishes. With the DVDs, she hopes to educate those who are suddenly thrust into cooking a GFCF diet.

The DVD comes with a recipe book, so viewers do not have to write as they watch. This is not a Food Network quality DVD, but it is informative. Her style is pleasant and straightforward, with no down-home commentary or Bams. Jean does all her cooking and demonstrating from an island in a plain, contemporary-looking kitchen, and she wears a metal mesh glove so as not to cut herself when cutting vegetables. She has company in the kitchen in the form of a penguin hand puppet, who also does informative side segments that explain an ingredient or cooking method.

The DVD leads off with a no gluten, no dairy song which the web site can be purchased for parties. Please consider an Alternative Cook DVD for your kitchen adventures. --Linda Hughes, Gluten Intolerance Group of North America

Right now, the latest research indicates that out of 150 kids, one will be Autistic and one out of every 104 will be a boy. As a parent, one of the things that we try to do is the gluten free, casein free diet, we do different biomedical interventions, and we also have ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapists that work with my son, we belong to a couple of different organizations as Autism Speaks and the Autism Society. Out of all the biomedical treatments I have done, the one that has positively impacted our life the most is the gluten free, casein free diet. Our son was high into stemming. Stemming is repetitive behavior. Some kids hand flap. Timmy would hand flap, spin around in circles, run back and forth, but since starting the gluten free, casein free diet, we have noticed a significant increase in his cognitive ability. The stemming slowly stopped over several weeks. We barely get any type of stemming, only when he has infractions and that is when he gets either gluten or casein into his system. We now have a child who can attend the task, who can sit for several minutes at a time, who will allow his brother and sister to hug and kiss him, whereas before he would try to squirm away from that. The DVDs are wonderful to watch, and to see the kids expressions. The macaroni and cheese was the one they were really motivated to cook.

Timmy says, Do you know how much I love the Mac and Cheese? It is so good. I love it.

The Alternative Cook DVDs have really made my life a lot easier. --Emmy Conroy, Mother of an Autistic Child

Product Description

Do your GFCF children long to eat the foods their friends are eating? Would you like to be able to serve your kids and their friends Macaroni and Cheese that looks and tastes just like the kind with dairy cheese and wheat pasta? Or, how about mini Pizzas which are fun to make at a party with all of the toppings set out for everyone to create their own? Homemade Bread Sandwiches with mouth watering GFCF fillings like grilled Cheese a peanut butter alternative made with Sunflower Seeds and a Cream Cheese that hits the spot, served with Cream of Tomato Soup. Tacos are a kid pleaser and these feature Marinated Fish or Breaded Tofu stuffed with Coleslaw, an Avocado Spread, and a chopped Tomato Salsa. What could be more comforting than a savory Shepards Pie filled with vegetables and a creamy sauce served with warm, sweet Apple Crisp. To top it off, we make Carol Fensters Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes filled with marshmallow cream and Vanilla Ice Cream made with a secret ingredient (cashews). It is absolutely delicious! These meals are sure to make your kids jump for joy and you will learn cooking techniques that will empower you for years to come in the GFCF kitchen.

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