Friendly Food book review

Why Friendly Food Is Such An Important Book

Friendly Food – part of the Food for Life series published by Murdoch Books, was written by the allergy experts at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit in Sydney Australia (RPA Allergy Unit).

The people behind the ‘Friendly Food’ are Dr Anne Swain, Dr Velencia Soutter and Dr Robert Loblay. Friendly Food was first published in 1991 and the latest edition is 2006 (Green cover shown here available to purchase).

Friendly Food is very popular in Australia and certain parts of the world, with those who suffer from food intolerance symptoms, food allergies symptoms, gluten intolerance and various other food reactions.

When we were conducting our food elimination diet to find out what our food intolerance symptoms were linked to, we used the Friendly Food cookbook.

I had an earlier version of Friendly Food (purple cover) and while I found this earlier publication of Friendly Food to be worthwhile, the 2006 edition is much more appealing.

So, I actually have an old copy and the latest edition on my book shelf and I still use them today even though we do not have the food intolerance or leaky gut issues we had months ago.

Friendly Food book review

In my opinion, Friendly Food is a must have book for those who have food intolerance symptoms or various food reactions. Why? Listed below are the good, the bad and the reasons I like using this food intolerance book and why I highly recommend it overall:

1. Aesthetically appealing; the pictures contained are professional, clean, appealing and tempt you to try the recipes contained there in. While there is not a picture for every meal, you will still feel encouraged to experiment with the recipes in the book simply because everything about the book is luscious. I would class the photography in line with a Donna Hay or Marie Claire cookbooks.
2. There is a section at the front that talks about understanding food intolerance, naturally occurring chemicals, food additives, food intolerance symptoms, allergies, coeliac disease and general information. A great introduction to the book.
3. Critical to this book are a selection of charts that list food and the level of naturally occurring chemicals in each; being salicylates, amines and MSG. For example, Friendly Food provides a food chemical chart for vegetables and shows a rating of naturally occurring chemicals in common vegetables. To explain further, Friendly Food cookbook may list Green Peas on the chart and show a symbol of “G” and “S” next to it thereby telling us that green peas have naturally occurring glutamate (MSG) and Salicylates  in the column marked “moderate”. The benefit of this is that you can vary your diet based on the charts. Hence, you may have green peas in your meal once a week and use vegetables listed in the “low’ column for naturally occurring chemicals for the remainder of the week.  This all depends on what the results are after you conduct your food elimination diet.
4. There are ample recipes to choose from and if you use this book in conjunction with The Failsafe Cookbook (review here)
   and  additive alert as we did, you will find meal times less stressful. While Additive Alert is not a recipe book, it contains a much more comprehensive list of food additives to avoid than Friendly Food.
5. The recipes are easy to prepare and the key is in having the ingredients handy to use this recipe book successfully.
6. Friendly Food also has a section on environmental sensitivities, which is often overlooked as problem.
7. There were a select few recipes in Friendly Food that I found either did not work or did  not appeal to me.  The Buckwheat pancakes turned out like cardboard pancakes and neither the kids or myself liked them. You need to make sure you don’t overcook the golden syrup slice. The potato souffle was temperamental; but then, aren’t all souffles a bit like that? The sugar glazed potatoes did want to stick to the pan and the crumpets were great but watch they don’t burn on the bottom.  On the whole, I would not be without this book.
8. One down sides of any change in diet based on food intolerance symptoms or food reactions in general is that you do need to access ingredients that are not always found easily. So, you need to start to stock different products in your pantry to successfully change your health by changing what you eat.
9. There is a brilliant index at the back of the Friendly Food cook book organized into recipe categories such as “dairy free”, “nut free”, “egg/dairy/gluten/nut free” to name a few. It is also ordered into “low chemical”, “moderate chemical” for example so you can select recipes based on the level of naturally occurring chemicals in food. This allows you to plan a week’s menu around the levels of naturally occurring chemicals in foods.
10. The recipes themselves tell you the chemical rating and whether the recipe is nut or gluten free for example so you don’t need to turn to the index at the rear of Friendly Food cook book to double check. Very handy for when you want to select a meal quickly.
11. The outer cover of Friendly Food is a cross between soft and hard cover. It is a flexible cardboard front with a lovely smooth, low gloss cover.
12. The size of Friendly Food is appropriate so easy to grab and flick through. Size is 19cm  / 7.5 inches wide when closed, 23.5cm / 9.25 inches high and 2cm / .85 inches thick.

Based on my review above, you can see that Friendly Food cookbook is a valuable resource to have in your kitchen. It will also help you understand your own food problems a little better and assist you in your dietary changes until you can heal your body.

Friendly Food Book Contents

Friendly Food contains over 245 pages of information and recipes. From inside the book:

Friendly Food Contents:

• 6 – food allergies and intolerances
• 26 – breakfast
• 48 – light bites
• 82 – mains
• 120 – sides
• 138 – breads and pizzas
• 150 – tea time
• 184 – after dinner
• 214 – kids
• 234 – basics
• 240 – useful information
• 245 recipe lists

Friendly Food – where to get your copy

The picture of Friendly Food at the start of this post is also a link. Otherwise you can  get friendly food by clicking here.

Please leave your own feedback on recipes from Friendly Food in the comments section so others may read and learn or offer their own advice.

Your News On Food brought to you by

Eileen Baudinette

Food and Health Commentator.

© 2009 – 2022 thenewsonfood.com

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Disclaimer:

I’m no medical expert and information contained on this blog is written through my own experience with the aim of furthering your education on health. It is your responsibility as to how you use this information and I cannot be held liable for any misinterpretation or misuse of the information provided.