Cooking the Fat-Free, Salt-Free, Sugar-Free, Flavor-Full Way Paperback – September 1, 1997

This is a good cook book for someone starting out learning the fat, salt, sugar free way of cooking. A health scare prompted me into buying this book as I knew nothing of cooking this way. This book really eased my mind about actually changing the way I thought of food and that this new free way could actually work.

great

rather outdated.

Don't remember.

If you need a recipe book that doesn't add outside fats to the ingredients, adds no salt, and adds no sucrose to your diet this is a great book. While one reviewer thinks that a lot of sugar is added via fruit juice concentrates, if you use only concentrates that don't add corn syrup to them, the only sugars you are going to get is fructose. The Pritikins endorsed this book and wouldn't have done so if it violated their diet plan. This book kept my dad alive for several decades when he would have died from a diet full of fat, sugar and salt. I'm glad the author wrote it. Good book to get if you can find one.

I'm astounded that anyone would give this cookbook 5 stars, let alone 2 stars. The title is a complete and utter sham. Fat free? Yes. Salt free? Some of the time. Sugar free? Absolutely not. Almost all, if not all of the recipes have high levels of sugar in them. I'll just give three examples. The Chicken Crepes on page 148 has a whopping 15 grams of sugar. Why? Because the author of this misleading collection has an obsession with adding apple juice concentrate to almost EVERY recipe. Another. The Chicken Fricassee on page 134 has 16 grams of sugar. Why? Oh yeah. Because the author has added apple juice concentrate to the recipe. Oh, and the recipe for Creamy Horseradish Sauce on page 59 also has apple juice concentrate. Yes. One could just eliminate the sugar from the recipe but then why buy the book? Just take any cookbook and leave out the salt and the sugar. Perhaps this should be retitled; "Cooking With Some Fat, a Little Salt, and an Excess of Sugar." The whole idea behind this book has been negated by the addition of fat, salt, and sugar.

When her husband developed significant health problems and was placed on a restrictive diet, Marcia Sabate' Williams had to give up her traditional way of cooking. In Cooking the Fat-Free, Salt-Free, Sugar-Free, Flavor-Full Way, she shares her new, healthy recipes--the ones that brought her husband's cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and weight down to normal levels. Williams says that modifying her cooking habits was hard at first, but it got easier with practice. "It really isn't that difficult, and it's good, regular food--not weird food. I still cook the dishes I made when I was first married, except I just prepare them differently." The Pritikin no-salt, no-sugar, no-fat diet is the foundation of most of her recipes. A native of New Orleans, Williams "cajunized" many of the recipes. She begins her book with a general discussion of how healthy foods can still be flavorful. Then she gives an overview of sodium, fat, and sugar, and how to use herbs and spices in cooking. She provides a list of suggested basics to keep on hand, with explanations of why some ingredients are preferable to others. An extensive list of food exchanges, helpful to diabetics and others following the ADA Exchange System, is also included. The recipes start with the basics, like stocks and gravies, then move to breakfast specialities. Entrees' are divided by meat, poultry, and fish. Vegetables have a chapter to themselves, as do grains and beans. There is also a chapter for salads and salad dressings and one for snacks and dips. As does most cookbooks, this one ends with desserts. All recipes have a complete listing of nutrition information. Each starts with Williams's comments about how she developed it. The ingredients list is printed in bold type, followed by the preparation instructions in regular type. There is one recipe per page. Readers already cooking restrictive diets, as well as those interested in following a healthy diet as a preventative measure, will find lots of useful recipes in Cooking the Fat-Free, Salt-Free, Sugar-Free, Flavor-Full Way.

There is little not to be liked in this cookbook. First, every recipe has the detailed nutrient breakdown of the overall recipe. Second, details are clearly listed in big type with amounts. That means it is trivial for anyone to quickly find the calorie, carbohydrate, fiber content. Why don't more chefs do that. Well of course some do but not enough. Finally with today's internet you can quickly find substitutes for any components listed you may not prefer or have an allergic reaction.The book was written in 1997. Thusly, as you might expect there are no photos of what a dish is supposed to look like. This did not bother me so I didn't subtract stars from it.For the above reasons, this is a five star book. It is salt free, oil free, and full flavor. If you want to go SOS, a quick perusal shows no sugar added either. The book has vegan recipes as well as those with animal components. It is a big book with with many recipes to choose from.