Review: The allergy-free cookbook

I often trawl my library's shelves for any books about gluten, healthy eating or special food requirements. So, when I spied The Allergy-free cookbook on the shelf, it was totally natural for me to bring it home and have a read. It's written by Eileen Rhude Yoder and I can't get over how awesome her last name is.

I don't want to be harsh, but I want to be honest with you. If a book proclaims itself as The Allergy-free cookbook, I expect it to mention gluten. Or, at least, clarify the whole "wheat-free isn't gluten-free thing".
Ok, ok, I can hear you coeliac veterans saying: "Coeliacs isn't an allergy, it's a disease! Get it right, girl!" But the things is, most people don't know that. And, lets be honest, it's much easier saying to people "I'm allergic" than "I've got a disease which means that...." etc.

But I digress.
As I was reading this book, I couldn't help but realise that the information in there could be confusing to many people new to allergies and food intolerances. It doesn't qualify "wheat-free" or talk about how people with "allergies" to gluten cannot eat barley, rye or spelt.
I think that the omission is dangerous and could have really awful consequences.

This story played out in my imagination: I'm headed to someone's house for dinner, they know I'm gluten free and assure me that they know how to deal with it. The thing is, they think gluten-free = wheat-free and serve me one of the recipes from The Allergy-free Cookbook; most of which contain barley, rye, spelt, oats or even wheat. As a result of this I would go home, feel sick for a week and gross for a month after that. What if the dish was served to someone who had worse reactions than me? What if they got REALLY sick?

See what I mean? The author of this book could have easily taken all of that risk away by inserting a simple explanation and also clearing up the information on recipes. [ie: under the recipe name say: contains soy, milk and gluten. OR: corn, nut and egg free.]

It could have been so simple.


Hey, look at this, it's a normal healthy food cookbook and (in my opinion) the recipes treat allergies better than The Allergy-free Cookbook!


I bought Coming home to eat Wholefood for the family a few weeks ago, it was on sale for (as I recall) $15 but the normal retail price was over $50! Woo!
I was struck by how well it dealt with dietary needs and intolerances, although it did not advertise that fact on it's cover. Click here for Wholefood guru Jude Blereau's blog.

In conclusion I just want to say: don't buy the allergy-free cookbook (loan it from your library *grin*), there are so many other books out there that are way better. I think The Allergy-free Cookbook shows us that it's really hard to combine the elements of allergy facts and a cookbook in one volume. So, if you're after an informational book, get one that is pure information. If you want a cookbook, get one that is pure cookbook and it will be good at what it does instead of trying to multi-task.