Why buy it?
Summer is fast approaching, and with it, the prospect of all kinds of gastronomic and alcoholic excesses. These are soon followed by repentance and optimistic New Year's resolutions and we promise ourselves that this time, we will become healthier... until our willpower dissolves like Aspirin. But if your food choices have taken a worrying toll on your health, and that you are determined to make a change, reach a shaking, sugar-addled hand for Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar. Journalist and television personality, Wilson embarked on her own crusade after developing adrenal issues and autoimmune diseases, which she attributed, in a significant part, to an excess of sugar in her diet. I Quit Sugar doesn’t issue a decree to stamp out fructose as the dark lord of the food pyramid, but nor does Wilson shy away from the fact that our modern consumption of sugar is unnatural and slowly poisoning us. Wilson’s empowering eight-week program takes the hand of the self-confessed addict and ushers them through detox with tools to help them succeed, from usable instructions to digestible information and gentle encouragement. Laced with facts about how fructose affects our bodies – did you know we’re designed to eat only 5–9 teaspoons of sugar per day? – the deeper you venture into the program, the easier bypassing the confectionary aisle becomes. The recipes in I Quit Sugar aren’t flavourless and fun-free, as you might expect from a detox cookbook, rather, they’re familiar and delicious with a few simple substitutions to guide fructose addicts through the death throes of their sugar dependence. If you’re dedicated to living a sugar-free life, I Quit Sugar is an essential weapon in your arsenal.
Cookability
These recipes are absolutely usable for every day with ingredients that are readily available at supermarkets and health food stores. Wilson focuses on the meals where sugar is the most difficult to avoid, such as snacks and breakfast, but there are also plenty of options for dinners and lunches, too.
Must-cook recipe
Meal-in-a-biscuit crackers. These tasty and crispy crackers are the perfect antidote to the 4pm snack attack and are so simple to make.
Most surprising dish
Crunchynut cheesecake. This luscious-looking dessert is full of decadence with both cream cheese and coconut cream. It proves that sugar-free doesn’t necessarily translate to sweet-free – and a spoonful will surely help the medicine go down!
Kitchen wisdom
Even if a wholly virtuous, sugar-free life is beyond your clutches, I Quit Sugar will help you to identify foods that contain high amounts of fructose, so you know to eat less of them.
Ideal for
Anyone who is tired of that flabby excess baggage that won’t shift, that sluggish lag that drapes itself over your shoulders every day, and those who are exhausted with feeling guilty about their food choices.
Recipes and images from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, with photographs by Marija Ivkovic. Published by Pan MacMillan Australia ($15, ebook; $34.99 pbk)
