Staying Sweet with Less Sugar
Kristina’s Bookshelf
Half the Sugar, All the Love: 100 Easy, Low-Sugar Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
By Jennifer Tyler Lee and Anisha Patel
(Workman, 2019)
Looking to make something sticky, sweet, gooey, and yummy for your family for Valentine’s Day? Oh, and also trying to cut back on sugar and other sweeteners? Here’s a cookbook to help you prepare quick, easy, flavorful, low-sugar meals that taste delicious and appeal to kids. Award-winning cookbook author Jennifer Tyler Lee teams up with Anisha Patel, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University, to produce an informative guide for preparing child-friendly dishes with less sugar.
In addition to the 100 recipes for breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, and dessert, the authors provide helpful advice about sugar substitutes (honey isn’t healthier), how to read food labels to identify sugar content (pay particular attention to added sugar), and how to use fruits and vegetables to sweeten foods. Recipes include a neat graphic using sugar cube icons to show how the sugar used in the cookbook version compares to that in packaged versions or typical recipes. Sweeteners (including sugars, Medjool dates, sweet potatoes, maple syrup, and honey) are used sparingly.
Look for recipes like Oven-Baked Korean Chicken Wings, Beef and Broccoli Teriyaki Bowls, BBQ Chicken Pizza, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (sweetened with Medjool dates, a fraction of the brown sugar used in most recipes, and dark chocolate chips), Double Chocolate Brownies (made with sweet potatoes), and Double Chocolate Layer Cake. There’s even a recipe for “Newtella” with a fraction of the sugar found in chocolate-nut spreads.
Edible East Bay’s book editor Kristina Sepetys is eager to share her ideas and book recommendations with our readers.
