The Healthy Gluten-free Life: 200 Delicious Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free & Egg-Free Recipes

I will go into more details about why I feel the way I do below but for a quick run down:PROS:-Beautiful Pictures (I am talking, craving inducing photos here.)-Easy and useful layout-Unique and adorable Recipe Index-Good for someone who knows nothing about cooking and is recently diagnosed (more below)CONS:-Basically the S.A.D. diet in GF form (more below)-Over half of the recipes include some form of sugar (more below)-Tons of the recipes are obvious fillers-Lots of recipes that use processed ingredients (more below)-Lots of GF recipes for foods that were already GFI am SO disappointed in this book overall and I was SO looking forward to it. When the package arrived I still had work to do and I flew through my work to get my hands on this book I had been waiting so patiently for. The package itself flew apart and fell to the floor to become an instant cat toy as I revealed this absolutely beautiful book.My husband looked at me as if I may be insane but rather than explain I decided to sink my cooking jaws firmly into this book and without even bothering to sit down I started reading, tiny flags waiting patiently to bookmark my first experiments. I read the story, pretty much the standard everyone has with the GF diagnosis though it looks like they were saved the worst of it for which I am thankful. The family and the children are still young and were saved the decades of suffering many go through. (This part went quickly as I had already read most of the amazon preview.) Then I got to the breakfasts, I admit, most cookbooks disappoint me here and this one did too. Sugar laden crap for most of the breakfasts. But she had talked about how rare her recipes had added sugar, I mean this is supposed to be a "Healthy" cookbook, it says so on the front!!! How could this be? I was flipping through pages of muffins and scones for "breakfast" averaging about 1 Tablespoon of sugar per serving. For a normal adult our recommended sugar intake is 2 Tablespoons per day, do you really want to have eaten half of that for breakfast in one single muffin? Sure, she uses honey instead of refined sugar, though your body does undoubtedly enjoy the extra nutrients from the honey over refined sugar, research has shown that your body cannot really tell the difference between sugar sources (honey, sugar, agave, etc.) the sweet taste triggers the insulin reaction as our body is deigned to do.But at this point I still had hope. Next were entrees, most all of which are meat based (2-3 exceptions) and meat is already gluten free but I thought maybe I would find something good here, I had hoped for more plant based main courses but as I started flipping through the recipes I was aghast as I realized the actual implications of this book. This "Healthy" cookbook, has two recipes for corn dogs (one in the form of muffins), recipe for filet of fish, how to batter and deep fry any food you can find in the house (one of the very few meat free options), several options for breaded chicken, and several other obviously unhealthy options. Of the main dishes, 44 contain meat (which is fine, except that do we really need that many meat recipes when meat is inherently GF?), and 19 of the main dishes include sugar in them. Getting pretty close to half there. Why would you add sugar to steak bites? I am baffled.Still, I continued on and found that the sides were of a similar disappointment, my little flags sitting there sad and almost unused. Me being depressed at the prospects of half a cookbook gone with only 2 recipes flagged for trying. Then I hit the sauces and desserts and I started to get a bit peeved. I work hard for my money just like everyone else and the biggest section in this book is the "Dessert" category? Followed by the meat..I mean "Mains" category which is almost all meat, which is naturally gluten free? Wha?So I went and I did some counting. Of the 200ish recipes 115 have added sugars. 55 call for meat. A whopping 68 called for processed foods not only laden with preservatives but unavailable in many areas (things like vegan butter, vegan shortening, etc.) But she promises in the front of the book: "And while this book is not entirely free of sugar and starch, it is limited..." How is over half of the recipes having some form of added sugar healthy? How is an entire book full of comfort foods to only be eaten on occasion healthy? This sounded so harsh ringing in my head but then I realized something. This book is definitely not healthy at all. Nope. Not even kind of, or sort of.It would however appear healthy to someone who is eating the very standard American diet. The one used to deep fried chicken, fast food, white bread, and dessert every night. This is taking the S.A.D. and replacing gluten with various flours/starches and replacing refined sugars with other sugars like honey, maple syrup, agave, coconut crystals, etc. (These sugar replacements are just as harmful to your body as sugar they just have some health benefits to go with the harm. link to resources here [...] the research behind it seems pretty thorough) and so it is healthier than the S.A.D. Marginally so, but a step in the right direction and she does talk about how healthy is stepping in the right direction. Which I do believe full-heartedly. If only they hadn't labeled the book as "healthy" and if only they hadn't promised only occasional use of sugar... Then I would not feel so ripped off, I would not feel completely cheated out of the money I carefully saved for over a month to buy this book.I am taking the time to go over all of this because I have read every single review as of the time of this posting and there are a lot of happy people with this book and that is great but for those of you who know something about cooking, who don't live in a fast food joint, or were not just diagnosed with celiac or gluten intolerance, skip this book. There are many better options out there. Not as pretty, no but much more useful.Bottom Line: With 115 of the 200 recipes containing added sugar, this is not at all "Healthy" and in my opinion counts as completely false advertising. If you are used to the standard american diet where a meal to you is what you grab at the drive through, or fried chicken with mashed potatoes and a few green beans. This book is for you. It will allow you to get the flavors and comforts of the standard american diet but in gluten free form. Just please take time to learn more about what healthy is. Work your way towards it steadily as it is certainly worth the time, frustration, and effort.

I love this book! Every recipe I have tried is wonderful. I am taking it with me on vacation to our beach house and plan to sample a lot more goodies :) Yeah, the chocolate chip cookies taste like a "healthy" cookie but they are really good too. She talks a lot about her family and how and why they came to eat this way, okay, don't really care, sorry. The English muffins are, as billed, super good but don't be expecting a white bread English muffin because they are not. But they are really good, I could eat a pile of them in one sitting! My three year old granddaughter ate one, with nothing on it, not even cut, just scarfed it down, yum! Okay here's my complaint, nutrition information! Oh boy would I love it if this book provided nutrition information. You can't just eat your fill because it's more nutritionally sound. I am guessing that I am getting a lot more fiber and nutrients from these foods but I guess I'll never know will I?! I could figure it out myself but, agh. It would have been so wonderful if it had been included! Overall though, this book is a Godsend. I am very, very happy to have found it!*2nd UPDATE* I thought one more update might be helpful, this is my last one I promise! The ingredients called for in these recipes are, for the most part, not things most people will have on their pantry shelves. For example, her "arsenal of flours" are; Teff, Brown Rice, Sorghum, Amaranth, Millet & Quinoa. She also uses Coconut flour & almond meal. For starches she uses; Potato starch, Tapioca starch and Arrowroot. For sweeteners she uses Agave, pure maple syrup, coconut nectar, honey, evaporated cane juice. Fortunately, we live near a Bob's Red Mill and we were able to go and get the entire list (well the things we didn't have anyway). It cost us $80, gulp. We bought a big plastic tub and since whole flours without any preservatives go bad so quickly, I put them all in labeled freezer bags in the tub and we keep it in our freezer in the garage. When I'm ready to bake I go get the box and everything is right there and handy. It also makes it easy to keep track of what I am low on.*UPDATE* I would still love to have nutrition information but the recipes in this book are so valuable that I HAD to give it 5 stars! I have tried the English muffins, brownies, pizza sauce, pizza crust, no'tmeal cookies, pancakes and more. Every single recipe amazing! My husband grew up on boxed foods and that is where his tastes still want to go. After serving the pizza last night (his with regular cheese and mine with vegan cheese) he said that mine was so good he would be happy to eat that anytime we have pizza! I have been pizzaless in Portland since I changed my diet and that has been the one thing that I've been really sad about. I can't wait to put a pizza on the barbeque just like old times :) You really owe it to yourself to get this book. This is simply a healthier way to eat. When I made the brownies I was in serious danger of eating the whole batch myself so I froze them. Guess what? They are delicious frozen, agh! You remember those rectangular ice cream bars with the chocolate cakie cookies on the sides and vanilla ice cream in the middle? They taste exactly like that! Oh my, I'm in trouble. I'm thinking of using the brownies and one of the ice creams to make ice cream cake for the next family get together. Oh and the pancakes?! I've never been much of a pancake lover but the morning I made them I ate 4! yikes! Had to throw those right in the freezer too. It's funny, even with all of the successes, I have tried so many healthier alternatives over the years that I am trained to assume the next one is not going to be good but I have been wonderfully, amazingly surprised each time! Get this book!!!

A rather difficult cookery book, rather individual products, and they might be available in the lady's home town, but I live in the middle of the Atlantic in an island, so more difficult. I do not have time for trial and error, I wanted something that I could use right away. I will see how I get on, but seriously not over impressed.

Some good recipes in this booi. Not much around for What Free/Gluton Free folks, so usually buy books if I see them. Thanks.

I was very surprised at the amount of honey and sugar used in the various recipes - Not exactly what I would call "healthy", as per the book title.Very disappointed.

Although I do not have many allergies, (only dairy), my daughter has all kinds of allergies and finding good recipes for her has been quite a rollercoaster. On the bright side her allergies are not life threatening, but I rather avoid all of them as much as I can.This book offers lots of awesome ideas and delicious recipes. I hope I can update this review in the future about other recipes I had tried. The book has a section of photos at the back divided by kind, for example, breakfasts, entrees, main meals, and desserts. (I do not have the book with me right now, but I want to give the idea of how it is). There are beautiful photos of the recipes made, I like all the introduction of the autor.My daughter loves the banana bread, and keeps asking for the snickeldoodles, I find them tasty, but quite flaky, they break easily, but it does not mean is not something I am doing wrong.On the positive side most of the recipes look very easy to prepare, most of the times you do not even require a mixer. (I am all into desserts as you have guessed).We tried the waffles and she liked them, I have some problem with the hotcakes, the taste was very good, but they ended up very flat.Sometimes a recipe that does not contain gluten may vary with the quality and brand of ingredients used. So, as long I like the flavour, I am ok with keep on trying, I would say that the flavours are really good.The only other thing is that I believe there are some recipes with coconut and almonds, to which she is allergic to, coconut to a small degree thankfully, so I am not that concern, but in the case of almonds, I will find a substitute to try the recipes, I believe pumking seeds or cashews are a good substitute, I will try them eventually.The other recipes look very tasty, and I cannot wait to try them in the near future. I will try to post on these ones.

It's difficult to find cookbooks that cater to those of us who are gluten-free and dairy-free, but Tammy Credicott's cookbook does exactly that, even taking into account other food allergies/sensitivities such as soy and eggs. And it's an absolutely brilliant cookbook. All the recipes I've tried so far are the essence of simplicity; they're easy to whip together, and they produce superb results. And each is accompanied by a gorgeous photograph that makes your mouth water. What I especially like about this cookbook is that it's full of recipes that people who don't have food sensitivities will enjoy too. My husband and my friends seem to enjoy the sloppy joes, baked chicken legs, teff scones, blueberry crumb muffins, and orange olive oil bread every bit as much as I do. And I no longer feel deprived of baked goods the way I used to. I'm excited about trying even more of the book's recipes.