Beat the Wheat!: Easy and Delicious Wheat-Free Recipes for Kids with Allergies

Gr 3–8—Learning to cook is not only an essential life skill but it is also a great way to foster a sense of agency among students, especially those with food sensitivities. The 13 recipes provided in each book demonstrate that accommodating allergies doesn't mean limiting options. Sidebars alert readers to potential allergen pitfalls (for instance, in Peanuts, "cocoa and chocolate are often manufactured with nuts") or suggest recipe variations that eliminate other categories of allergens for people with multiple food sensitivities. There is not a lot of cooking instruction, and there are occasional inconsistencies between picture and recipe (e.g., the corn dog bites in Egg are baked in a muffin tin, while the photo shows egg-shaped corn dog blobs), which, while puzzling, probably won't bar successful completion of the recipe. Most of these recipes make use of specialty ingredients such as arrowroot, flax seeds, sunflower butter, or coconut amino to replace eggs, peanuts, or soy.