Thanks for the great recipes. ( )

I have been gluten-free myself for about 2 years, but my son has been for 15 years, so I am quite familiar with the challenges of a gluten-free diet. I asked for an Early Reviewers copy of Marlisa Brown's Gluten-Free, Hassle Free as I'm always hoping for new meal ideas, new recipes, and new ways to manage this challenging diet. This title does much more, including introductory chapters about determining gluten allergies and intolerances, what it really means to be gluten-free (think toothpaste, lotion, cross-contamination), how to eat out, and even how to deal with your emotions. Given my years of working with the gf diet, I think this book would be most helpful to those beginning the diet, and I think I will share my copy rather than keep it on my own cookbook shelf. I am also dairy-free and found that many of the recipes depended on dairy a bit too much (without easy substitutions for me). To be fair, Brown doesn't attempt to cover other dietary limitations, but this book won't be as useful to me given my own situation.

Today, there are more gluten-free foods available, and more restaurants that offer gluten-free alternatives, so don't lose heart! Get started with this book and you won't go wrong!

Great recipes and really helped a friend of mine, whose son was recently diagnosed as gluten intolerant. This book serves the purpose for her to create new, fun recipes that a pre teen would enjoy and not be embarrassed by his diet restrictions. ( )

I'm glad I won this book from LibraryThing because I have an undiagnosed- but bad- gluten intolerance/allergy. (I suspect Celiac, but to make a long story short, it's unlikely I can get properly diagnosed because I haven't touched gluten in years.) While I know what it's like to have to live gluten-free, the finer points about it were things I never learned because I've never been officially diagnosed. I've been learning as I go along, so this book helped fill in the gaps with information I was lacking.

I'm going to start off by saying that there was a lot of information in this book which I appreciated. Some of it I already knew, but there was a lot more that I didn't. The fact that there is this much information might discourage some readers, but I didn't see this as a disadvantage. The book includes a wide range of related subjects such as recognizing Celiac disease (and other gluten-related issues), the basics of what you really need to know about it (what you can eat, things gluten hides in, etc), and recipes and food ideas, but there's also more in the book than that. Like I said, it's quite comprehensive. The author is also great at explaining everything; a book like this could have easily turned out too technical, but Brown wrote this to be perfectly understandable.

I particularly liked the fact that there were so many recipes and food ideas. I get into a rut of eating the same things over and over because I've always disliked cooking, so this gave me some ideas that I hadn't thought of before and that I'll definitely be trying out. There aren't any pictures along with the recipes, but since I'm not much of a cook, photos don't usually catch my attention anyway. I look for ingredients involved when trying out something new, not what the finished product looks like. In this case, the recipes here exactly fit my needs since they clearly mention the common allergy foods and how to substitute those ingredients out. They were also simple and not weird or over the top, so I'm itching to try them. (I've had gluten free cookbooks before, but I've never tried anything from them because the ingredients were so strange, fancy, or complicated.)

Another section that caught my attention was the chapter called "Handling your feelings- and knowing you're not alone". I've spent a lot of time being angry or upset about my diet restrictions (I know, I know, I shouldn't be, but it is hard to adjust to) and this chapter hit the nail on the head about what I'd been going through- and made me feel better about it.

The only slight problem I had with the book was that the recipe chapter could have been arranged better. They're listed one directly after another without an index with page numbers. Before each type (Breakfast, Breads, Soups, etc) there's a list of the recipes that fall into those categories, but the pages run together so I found it a little tricky to find what's where. I would have found a general index with page numbers at the start of the chapter to be useful. This isn't too big of a deal, just something I noticed as a reader who isn't too used to reading recipes.

Overall I found this book to be informative and useful and I'll be going back to it in the future. ( )

This book is an A to Z reference on gluten issues. It starts off helping someone to figure out IF they have gluten issues. Although, why would someone buy this book if they didn't? If you have a bookish friend who might have gluten issues, this book would make a great gift to help initiate them into the wonderful world of eating gluten free.

This book is sort of like a report that includes everything you could want to know about gluten free living. It has meal plans, recipes, shopping lists, and even little cheat sheets in different languages for eating out while traveling.

Two CONS: First, NO PICTURES. I was hoping to be inspired to cook and design healthy, gluten-free meals with glossy color photos of yummy food. But, alas, not a single picture of food, except for the cover of the book. Second, too COMPLEX.

The author may have hoped for you to live a hassle free life but this book is so extensive that it is more like researching information in a medical text book. I feel like I need to set aside a week to read it with a set of highlighters and a notebook in hand because there is just SO MUCH INFORMATION. There is nothing "hassle free" about the book itself. Ideally, this book should be broken down into three books. The first book would be diagnosing a gluten problem and would help the reader understand which foods would trigger food allergy problems. The second book would be just recipes. The third book would help the reader with suggestions for eating out and traveling.

If you look at it another way, you are really getting three books in one. But for me, it was just a bit too overwhelming.

There are some really good looking recipes but without photos to show me what the meal should look like, I probably won't be inspired to make any of them any time soon. Probably dumb on my behalf, but that is the reality of it. ( )