Fearless Food: Delicious Allergy-Free Recipes for Kids, has good recipes that kids will like and will have fun making with you. It's a good starting place if your kids have one (or more) of the "Big 8" allergies.

Fearless food is a fun book for families with children. It contains easy-to-follow recipes for children and parents to make together, teaching kids healthy eating habits.

This cookbook overall was just ok and lately there have been a lot of cookbooks going allergy-free lately so I would have to compare them.

Anyone who has children understands the daily struggle with food. We want our kids to be healthy and they want food that tastes good. The struggle really gets real when one of your children has an allergy to a certain food type. This brings on a whole other struggle and adds more pressure to your day.

Fearless Food by Katrina Jorgensen is a cookbook that is geared towards children's tastes. It steers clear of the "Big 8" food allergens and each recipe is supposed to be easy enough that your child could make it with little help from an adult.

I decided since this review is focused on recipes for kids that I would let my 10 and 12 year old boys help me review it. We all agreed that the overall look of the book was great. The colors are bright and vibrant and the pictures of each dish are very appetizing.

I wanted each boy to pick out a recipe for us to possibly try and each of them struggled with this task. When I read through the Table of Contents I found many recipes I would love to try but from a kids point of view they were just not feeling it. When I asked them what it was about the recipes they didn't like they couldn't really say. I think it could be that many of the dishes are out of our normal daily eating and that could be what was scarring them off.

As they flipped through the book they would point out a certain recipe that they thought might be interesting but then then would read the ingredients and there would be one item they don't like so they would dismiss it. Gotta love picky eaters.

What I really liked about Fearless Food was that it had an explanation on what a food allergy is as well as a conversion chart right at the beginning of the book which is very handy. What I wasn't too happy about was that I thought this book was focused on children as a whole but upon further inspection realize that though the recipes are formatted for children, many of them I would not trust my boys to cook on their own.

All in all, I would say that this is a decent cookbook for what it is. The layout is clean and easy to read and the recipes are appealing but I wish there would've been more tips for getting your children involved with the cooking process.

would like to thank Capstone Young Readers for providing me with a free electronic ARC of this book, via Netgalley, in exchange for an open and honest review.

Sadly, this cook book wasn’t everything I had hoped it would be. Firstly, it is presented as being a child friendly cookbook and worded in such a way as to suggest that children can cook the recipes. Some of them? Yes. Most of them? No. And I don’t just mean young children, there are some I would be wary of my kitchen savvy 12 year old trying without assistance. So, yes it might be a cook book aimed for feeding children, but not a cookbook teaching children how to cook for themselves – despite its childlike appearance and formatting.

Secondly, I know it says in advance it’s only looking at the “big 8” allergies, but stating there are “no major allergies” is rather misleading as some people may take it to mean “this is a safe thing to make” and then feed it to someone with say salicylate or allium issues… and then wonder why they got sick. These might not be part of the “big 8” but they are big issues in my line of food prep and so this book is rather useless to us because of it. Normally I don’t take offence to recipes that use allium. I’m used to it; I know allium allergies and intolerances are thought to be minor league. But to dismiss them entirely? Just put me off this book in the first recipe and I never really recovered enough to like it a heck of a lot.

I mean, yes, there are some good recipes in there, but they are few and far between. Any recipe that calls for a “packet of this” or a “tin of that” while proclaiming it is a healthy whole food cook book also will get the squinty eye from me. This book got the squinty eye.

Okay, I want to say something nice so… The formatting was good – childish, but good. Clear and precise and basic instructions easy to follow (but when you say use a packet of so and so, instructions will be easy). I did find some of the pictures confusing and misleading as they showed images of foods that were for recipes later on in the book… as if they had to advertise things to come to keep you interested. It might work better in paper format, but when reading an electronic copy, it just added a dimension of clutter and confusion.

This book is also marketed for an American audience. No biggie, I am used to that when working with Netgalley and accept it as part of the deal. But it did narrow the field down even more for those who can read, use and enjoy this book. Yes it starts with a great little conversion table at the front, big thumbs up there, but it then uses those pre-mades I’ve mentioned and without knowing the ingredients and being unable to buy those items outside of the USA… those recipes therefore become useless to try. So if pre-mades must be used, add a glossary explaining them maybe?

Please note that I personally feel cook books that try and tackle multiple food allergies as a thing tend to fail miserably. They up sell themselves and then can’t follow through on being THE food friendly cook book. It would have worked much better as a whole food, real food (besides the pre-mades) cook book that offered suggestions on how to make things say dairy free, nut free or gluten free. Trying to cover all those bases just let it down and meant it didn’t really help many of those with food intolerances and allergies. I mean, saying “if you have a wheat/gluten intolerance, use a GF flour” as a tip. Uh, yeah, thanks! I figured that out in all the other books I use containing wheat. How about just cooking without it?

Would I recommend this book to others?

No I wouldn’t, sorry. In this day and age of online recipe databases, there are far better (free) options out there teaching people how to cook foods for those with food allergies, intolerances and similar issues. This book is too sporadic and the wording just too misleading to be something I would recommend.

Would I buy this book for myself?

I’m pretty sure we all know that answer, right? No, I can’t say I would as, again, there are a lot of much better resources available to me that are far more flexible at meeting our dietary needs.

In summary: Yes this book might be helpful to some with food allergies, but not that fearless as I’d hoped.

I'm always looking for alternative ways to make my daughters favorite foods. While she doesn't have allergies to foods, there are some products that I would prefer to leave out of our cooking if possible. Katrina Jorgensen's book Fearless Food: Allergy-Free Recipes for Kids takes kid favorites and makes them more allergy friendly. Everything from pancakes to macaroni and cheese, and all things in between. The book covers appetizers and snacks through desserts. I loved the alternative options and had my dad looking over my shoulder one day while reading the recipes. He was intrigued and very excited to pick up this book when it came out.

I think all of the options for kid friendly foods is great and incredibly helpful for parents with allergies in the family. Plus some of these recipes are much healthier than the originals. If you are looking for anything along those lines, or are just looking for a great new recipe to try, pick up Fearless Foods by Katrina Jorgensen. Get the family involved. All recipes are kid friendly!

A fun collection, certainly something we'll recommend as a creativity-booster!

It was an ok book. When I saw this I thought it was really going to dig into allergies and maybe even be separated into sections by that in each area but it wasn't. Not really great for someone with gluten allergies and that seems to be a huge allergen.
Over all it was an easy book to read, easier recipes, just another cookbook.

These inventive, tasty, simple recipes will empower kids with allergies (and their parents) to get into the kitchen and whip up something delicious!

I had high expectations for this book, being celiac and having many friends with other allergies. It was a big let-down though, I expected a book of healthier alternatives made allergen-free and that was certainly not the case. Fearless Food is especially disappointing from a celiac (gluten-free) perspective, as the book doesn't actually exclude gluten, only wheat and doesn't even mention that people might be allergic to the gluten in other grains (such as rye and barley) and the majority of recipes involving flour are for regular flour saying "substitute for a wheat-free blend". The way ingredients substitutions are discussed is incredibly inconsistent, which would be very difficult for anyone not knowledgeable about allergies, cooking and possible substitutions to deal with. If you were expecting healthier food that's not what you'll get, most of the recipes are very heavy on refined flour and/or sugar - and calling a recipe that primarily consists of dates "sugar-free" is ingenious, might be free of processed sugar, but it's not exactly sugar free. If you're looking to make allergen-free variations of standard unhealthy food that is just as unhealthy as the original versions, it'll work fine, otherwise skip it.

Fearless Food is a collection of family friendly recipes that avoid food allergens (dairy, egg, nut, soy, wheat, etc.) Lots of great photos and easy to follow recipes. Very useful for families with food allergies. The recipes look good. I think even non-allergy people would make a few of these recipes.

Great foods that are simple enough to make with kids and FOR kids. I love that they are safe eats too, so many times you have school parties or your kids friends over and they have allergies, this provides options.

Fearless Food provides various recipes for those with a variety of food allergies - from dairy to gluten. The recipes are not too advanced allowing for opportunities to get the kids involved with the cooking. The highlights for my daughter were in the snack section - fruit leathers and roasted chickpeas. For those with gluten allergies there were many breakfast ideas to try. Fearless food offers recipes for a variety of allergens so each recipes has to be checked for focus.

This is a book that is definitely long overdue. Written for a younger audience with various food intolerances or allergies it clearly is clearly laid out with a very handy reference as to what ingredients are excluded for each type of dish.
Photos and graphics are appealing and instructions are clear.

Great cookbook with lots of allergy-friendly recipes and tips for accommodating other allergies within each recipe (say, for example if you can't have wheat, try...). I definitely want to try the chicken pot pie soup! Yumm..

Food allergies seem to be on raise and Fearless Food is a great resource for those having to alter diets to accommodating family members. The recipes in this book are easy to make, look gourmet but without all the extra work. Kids will especially enjoy many of these recipes beginning from the Applesauce Waffles to the Banana Ice Cream. Fearless Food demonstrates that food allergies do not mean limited choices or bland tasting recipes, but open up a readers mind and diet to an explosion of colors and tastes while still being allergy-free.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from a cookbook for people with food allergies, but I think it wasn't this. The recipes are fine-simple, child friendly recipes for uncomplicated food. But for me it didn't really sell the premise of being for food allergies because virtually every recipe contained some potential allergen with notes for how to substitute if you were allergic to that ingredient. I think maybe this book was trying to do too much-maybe it should have focused on a single allergy, like wheat or nuts or dairy, rather than all of them. There wasn't anything in the notes about how the results might be different if you had to substitute (non-dairy milks can sometimes give you very different results and I'm sure the same is true about non-wheat flours). I wouldn't buy this book.

Having nephews with food allergies I am always on the lookout to make their life a little easier, especially when it is obscure foods. I love a book that catches my eye and although it’s not always the right book, this one did NOT disappoint.

With a title like ‘Fearless Food’ it made me excited to read what was inside, and it was better than I could imagine.
The book starts with information about what a food allergy is and kitchen safety. For people that are not familiar with allergies or a child has just been diagnosed with allergies then this is some useful and must read information.

My most favourite part of the book is the coloured tabs on the side of the page of the recipes. For example, a recipe in the book for Pumpkin Seed Pesto Pasta has tabs that state it is Egg-Free, Nut-Free and Soy-Free. It couldn’t be any clearer, the cook can see if it is a suitable recipe for them or their child. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen such clear information in allergy cook books before. The book also has allergen alerts and chef’s tips throughout, and the recipes clearly outline the ingredients with a separate section stating which tools are needed to make the recipe. The recipes are achievable for the average cook (aka me) and there is such a variety of flavour filled recipes that people with allergies never need to be bored of eating the same old bland allergy friendly foods.

The photography in the book is full of colour and is tempting to the palate, especially the delicious looking Apple Cake.
I recommend this to families whose children have allergies because there is such a variety of recipes to suit even the fussy eater.

A great array of allergy free recipes for kids in a fun way. Even adults too enjoy these fearless foods.

Catchy photographs are paired with simple kid-friendly recipes in this treasure for food-allergy sufferers.