Half the Sugar, All the Love features an abundance of recipes that are all low in sugar. I tried a few of these recipes and was very pleased with all of the results. The recipes have fantastic flavour and were a hit for my friend with diabetes. I loved that all recipes had nutritional information and plenty of pictures!
Highly recommended for all to buy. I will definitely buy a copy of this book to have on hand.

*Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a good recipe book for sweet eats without the sugar! It has some
really good recipes included. I think it is one of the best I've seen for
someone serious about going off sugar. There are even several recipes
for condiments that we eat and sometimes never think of the sugar inside.

Thank you so much to the writers, the publisher and of course to NetGalley
for the chance to read and use this early copy!

Half the Sugar, All the Love is not quite what I was expecting from the title. I thought I would be reading a book with reduced sugar and carb content. Instead, the book focuses on having half of the "added sugar" as compared to other recipes. So the overall sugar content is less, but it is still not necessarily recipes that can be used by anyone currently dealing with diabetes, which is what I thought from the title.

That being said, once I got past that this book what not exactly what I was expecting, I did enjoy the recipes and information that was provided here. Cutting added sugar and using more natural ways to sweeten food can be tricky, but this book does a great job of explaining why it is important and then providing yummy ways to do it!

Lovely photographs with promising recipes. Front matter is extensive and small text size might deter readers. The true test of any cookbook is actually following the directions as written. These directions seemed doable and would be family friendly.

Really enjoyed this cookbook and testing out the recipes. Anytime you can decrease or eliminate sugar from a recipe and it still tastes amazing is a great thing. This cookbook focuses on recipes most will know and the author has re-created them to be tasty while sugar free.

This is a good cookbook with some inventive ways to lessen one’s sugar intake. As a hypoglycemic, I’ve gotten good at collecting recipes for cutting out sugar completely, and there were some recipes here that I could use. I think this would be good for someone just beginning to work on letting go of sugar addiction. I wanted more photos!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

As I'm diabetic I'm always looking for recipes that helps me to vary my dietary regime.
This is a good book, full of interesting recipes and I will surely try some of them.
Recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Yes I am a sugar addict. I can admit it. I am a grown adult who still cannot pass a piece of candy without picking it up. I crave the sweet goodness, I also know how bad it is for me and as I get older how actually unhealthy and what too much sugar really does to your body. However, I am not good at deprivation. So when I find something that helps me get my sweet fix and lower sugar I am all in.

I also love baking and I really enjoyed that this book gives tips and tricks for lowering the sugar in sweets as well as some substitutes that can be made. These have some great family classics that are made in a new way and still just as yummy.

I really liked this book.

Most cookbooks that discuss reducing sugar really mean using *natural* sugars like honey, agave or alternative/artificial sugars instead. I just want to eat whole foods and not add any other sources and this was perfect for that.

Lee uses whole fruits like peaches and dates to sweeten instead of sugar explaining how fiber can help slow the absorption of sugar.

She also helps you to read labels for *added* sugars and make better choices a the supermarket. For example - buy plain almond milk rather than sweetened then add your own (food based) sweeteners later to reduce the overall sugar content. And has 7 Simple Tips for Reducing sugar to get you started.

All your meals are covered with recipes from breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and condiments, sauces and include nutritional comparisons with the original sugar added recipes and hers.

The only thing I wish was included is how much sugar there is in a recipe. While she shows how much you reduced - she doesn't say how much sugar there is in each recipe. Unless I am somehow missing something.

Most of the recipes are simple, with a few more complex (but still easy) and photographs.

I expected to like this cookbook more than I actually did. As a health-conscious mom of five, I am well aware of the hidden sugar in so many packaged foods and meals. When my kids ask for yogurt like Yoplait I remind them that it's basically dessert, filled with sugar and negligible health benefits. I read labels to see how many grams of sugar are in breakfast cereals, and also know to check things like ketchup and pizza sauce (though we tend to make our own). So this seemed like a great book for me.

It wasn't a great fit for several reasons:

1. Sugar is pretty much the only bad guy in this cookbook. The recipes frequently call for ingredients that many families also want to limit, such as white flour, lots of butter, GMO ingredients like corn starch, etc. There is no talk about processed, genetically engineered or other unhealthy foods, or either side of these issues. For the most part, the book is designed only to lower sugar intake.

2. While the sugar is lowered substantially in these recipes, the overall health benefits of many recipes are still pretty lagging. For instance, one breakfast recipe is for blueberry scones. It calls for 2 cups of white flour, 3/4 a stick of butter, 1/2 cup yogurt, one egg, 1/2 of a pear, blueberries, the usual spices and baking soda and such, and 1 1/2 cups of blueberries, with only 2 TBS of sugar. While this is a healthier blueberry scone recipe than most, it's still not packing in much nutrition for a breakfast. Kids would be better off just having the yogurt, blueberries and chopped pear, maybe with a sprinkle of granola on top. Another recipe makes a basically healthier pop tart, with white flour and filled with homemade jam instead of the junk in commercial pop tarts. In this way, it's a great choice for those who are currently serving things like pop tarts and scones to their kids for breakfast but not so great for those who are already serving homemade meals that are designed to pack a lot of nutritional punch with lots of protein, whole grains, healthy fats, etc.

3. The recipes are not allergy-friendly or made with alternative diets in mind. Wheat is featured in most of them, along with dairy, nuts and eggs. No substitutes are provided, and it's one of those books where it's like people with allergies and vegetarians/vegans don't even exist.

4. Many of the recipes don't seem as if they'd actually work well. For instance, she has a nutella-banana roll up featured where you use her homemade nutella alternative spread on smashed whole wheat bread and roll up a half a banana in it, then cut it into slices and put it in a lunch box. Anybody who's ever cut up a banana for a child knows that in less than 5 minutes all the cut areas are browned and the child would rather eat a worm off the ground than said banana. It looks great in the picture, but picturing the way a cut banana-smashed-bread-nut spread roll-up would look hours after being put in a lunch box does not seem nearly as appealing as the carefully styled photo.

5. Many of the recipes are rather time consuming. I'm sure the Salmon Yaki Onigiri (grilled rice balls) are tasty for a child's lunch box, but how many mothers are really going to make a batch of rice, cool it slightly, cook salmon, form the rice balls into pressed triangle shapes, form a well and stuff them with the salmon, grill them, and then brush them with the homemade lower-sugar teriyaki glaze, individually wrap each one in plastic wrap, pack with ice and make sure your child eats it in the next 4-5 hours?

6. There were not many pictures for the recipes (maybe one in 4 or 5?).

7. A great deal of the recipes are for lunches and dinners, and while I know that most packaged soups, sauces and meals are packed with hidden sugars, I cook these things from scratch and don't add more than a pinch of sugar, if that, to my sauces and meals already.

8. I didn't find the recipes that appealing, personally (and most won't work for our family's dietary needs anyway).

I did appreciate the nutritional information for each recipe, and most of the information about sugar in the intro was good to know. I disagreed with some of it. For instance, we do use stevia at times and I consider all-natural stevia products and stevia leaves to be great ways to lower sugar, and I disagree that honey and sugar are equally bad.

This would make a good book for those who are new to the idea of the negative effects of sugar and who usually cook standard American diet types of foods. Keep in mind you are expected to do a fair amount of cooking and prepping for most recipes.

My rating system:
1 = hated it
2 = it was okay
3 = liked it
4 = really liked it
5 = love it, plan to purchase, and/or would buy it again if it was lost

I read a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.

The premise of this book is great and really appealing. It tries to allow you to focus on you and your family's health without giving up things that bring them together like baking. There are some heath focused parts on sugar in many forms and what types are better than others (fiber in fruit vs. the juice stuff like that). It seems to lean heavily on dates as a sweetener in foods.

Overall the book is inviting without being preachy about sugar. I think that is its greatest asset, focusing on moderation.

Cutting sugar does not mean that you have to cut out fruit ... the fiber offsets the sugar.  And, it doesn't mean that you have to cut out dessert .... you can cut the added sugar in other items like condiments and sauces to make room for that dessert.  This book shows you a few ways in which to do just that .... which a lesson in how to read a nutrition label, some tips for reducing added sugar and some great recipes for every meal, including recipes for Creamy Ranch Dressing, Three-Ingredient Strawberry Jam, Newtella, and even Ketchup!  I am planning to try the Blueberry Scones, Carmelized Pumpkin Bread and Double Chocolate Layer Cake with Whipped Chocolate Frosting very soon!

At first I had a feeling that this was not going to be a cookbook for me. I like cookbooks that have a photo of every recipe and this one doesn’t. What it does have however, are a lot of interesting recipes some of which are unusual such as breakfast popsicles. The first few pages contain information on the problems of eating too much added sugar, tips on how to avoid doing that as well as information about each kind of sugar. It also has a section providing clarity around some sugar related myths which I found enlightening. Then I got to the recipes. There are many that I can’t wait to try like the caramel coffee frappe, the strawberry quinoa salad and the chai spiced rice pudding. There are two “newtella” recipes, one which is nut free. There are sections for breakfast, lunches, snacks, dinners, desserts, beverages and more so it covers the entire spectrum. Turns out this cookbook is for me.

This is a great book for anyone looking to reduce the amount of sugar they eat. It is very informative, explaining the dangers of too much sugar and why we need to reduce our intake. I think it is more realistic than most cook books of its type as it doesn't cut sugar out completely. Some of the recipes sound delicious, and the pictures are beautiful (would have liked a picture for everything though). Overall a very useful book

This cookbook is fantastic! Beautiful pictures and delicious recipes galore!

There are so many things about this book that set it apart. First, there are nutritional facts for each recipe. Many cookbooks have this but not all do. I was very happy to see that this one does! In keeping with the low sugar theme, it talks in depth about types of sugar and specifies the amount of added sugar visually for each recipe. It makes it very clear and user friendly when flipping through the books.

Some cookbooks have many less than desirable recipes among a few select enticing ones, however, all of the recipes in here looked so good! I am so excited to try them all out!

I was leary about this one since all of the low-sugar cookbooks I've checked out recently have just had abysmal recipes, but there are a lot of really great ones in here! It's not a low-sugar cookbook, but rather a 'less added sugar' cookbook, so there is still quite a bit of sugar (albeit mostly natural) in these recipes. That said, it will make a great starting point for any family looking to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet. The beginning uses statistics and rationale for why you should be concerned about this issue. Highly recommended for the parent who wants to tackle the sugar beast, but is completely overwhelmed at the recipes and struggle to give up sugar.

I really like the concept of this book. It explains why and how to start cutting down on your sugar and gives some great recipes to achieve that from breakfast through to dessert. Recipes that don't use disgusting artificial sweeteners. Screw you Splenda!

For some of these sections, if you're cooking from scratch, sugar probably isn't a big problem for you already. Dinner isn't going to be sugar laden if you're cooking it yourself for the most part. Some of the other sections though, like sauces and desserts, are very helpful for making lower/no sugar versions.

I'm so happy to have been given the chance to review this book; not only did it have great information ('how sugar behaves in your body', 'added sugar-free is not sustainable') it had great recipes (loved Blueberry Scones, Cinnamon-Apple Coffee Cake)). While I don't have children of my own, this book serves as a great reference to those who are really monitoring their sugar intake. The 7 Simple Tips for Reducing Added Sugar is fairly easy to remember (most important for me was tip #5 'Start Your Day Right'). Breaking down the grams of sugar per type of added sugar was also very helpful (and I cringe to think of all the sugar I used in a cake I baked over the weekend), as was the simply designed layout of the cookbook, including the sugar cube diagrams of 'ours versus theirs'. The only 'downside' (if that) was that some recipes are a bit more labor-intensive than others which can be a bit intimidating. Overall, great reference book that I'll be using time, and again.

A brilliant starting point for anyone trying to reduce or remove sugar from their diet. A good introduction explains the reason we need to cut our sugar intake and is followed by one hundred recipes which are all low sugar. There is a good selection of recipes, many are favourites that have been tweaked to taste just as good but with a lot less sugar. Well set out and easy to follow. Thank you to Net Galley and Workman Publishing for an ARC.

A great collection of yummy-sounding, easy recipes that will appeal to the whole family. Lots of info on sugar, hidden sugars, and reducing sugar throughout our food intake. Recipe chapters are breakfast, snacks, lunches and salads, dinners, desserts, beverages, and basics and condiments.
Many recipes include "what kids can do" and/or "make ahead" tips.
Recipes have an "ours to theirs" sugar content comparison, but it is not clear where "theirs" came from. The recipes do lower the sugar quite a bit .There are lots of color photos, but quite a few of them are of empty plates or other kitchen items and not a recipe.
Even though the cover says the book has recipes for every meal of the day, with the photo being brownies, I think I was expecting the book to have more recipes for baked goods. That said, this book gives me great ideas and ways to lower sugar in all kinds of dishes, and I look forward to trying the new versions of some foods we really enjoy.
I received an ebook ARC in exchange for an honest review.