Davina's 5 Weeks to Sugar-Free: Yummy, Easy Recipes to Help You Kick Sugar and Feel Amazing

by Davina McCall

'Hi, my name is Davina, and I'm a sugar addict . . .'

Davina McCall loves a challenge. And giving up sugar has been one of her toughest yet. In this beautiful cookbook, Davina shares her favourite super-healthy recipes that have helped her kick the sugar habit and cut out junk food for good.

These recipes:
*are easy to make but taste amazing
*contain the foods that help you look and feel great
*have no long lists of scary, hard-to-find ingredients

This is real food for real life!

5 WEEKS TO SUGAR-FREE also includes a 5 week meal planner that works towards curbing sweet cravings and cutting out all processed foods. Davina is no guru, she's one of us, so her plan also includes pudding recipes that help the most sweet-toothed chocoholic kick the added sugar habit.

Simple, delicious and brimming with flavour, these recipes take the faff out of sugar-free!

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Reference, Cookbooks, Cooking

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2015

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

One tiny problem... most of these recipes are full of sugar. This book is probably not a good idea for diabetics nor pre-diabetics.

For those wishing to substitute honey or maple syrup for the granulated white stuff, no problem this book delivers. Keep in mind sucrose, glucose, maltose, and fructose are all sugars and your body has no way of knowing where they came from or why you are putting them in your body. The body simply responds to chemicals dumped in your system. Personally, I adore the flavor of maple syrup and that's the reason I decided to flip through some of the recipes to see what I could add to my list of yummies.

[Belinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd say this is a relatively simplistic book for beginners. Lots of the recipes are the easy to make sort that I make all the time and always have e.g.: hummus, roast veges, baked salmon on herbs, homemade muesli, porridge, pancakes, anything with spelt in it, the power balls. Jamie Oliver and many others already do all of this in a more interesting way and they often offer alternatives to McCall's only alternative to wheat, spelt. Spelt, btw, is not good for diabetics, it has a 7% sugar rating. I use it, but some can't.

I didn't feel this book enlightened me at all. I did feel that some of the recipes had some sugar alternatives that made them very expensive indeed. Maple syrup is a crazy price in my country. I didn't look at every recipe in detail, but I don't believe McCall mentions agave syrup, stevia, etc, at all. She doesn't have tips such as apple puree being an alternative to eggs, nor does she mention that fruit leather is higher in sugar than sugar and is super bad for your kids teeth. It's all a bit disappointingly naive really.

I give it a 2 because it's a healthy food book, but it isn't a book on how to kick sugar at all if it has 250mls of honey AND dates in the flapjacks. Blimey, that's ALOT of sugar. I think McCall is just jumping on the anti-sugar wagon. Look around, there's sure to be better books than this.

[Angela Mcowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Sugar-free in a hurry, this wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Some advice and dietary information, but mainly recipes.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had a penchant for eating and discovering new biscuits, who hasn’t! But over the last three years I’ve curbed this desire due to a renewed health kick, fitness drive and weight loss and when I had the chance to take a look at Davina’s 5 weeks to sugar free cook book this week I jumped at the chance.

We all know sugar is bad for you, we also know how wonderful it makes the simplest things taste great but in a time when obesity is rife, especially in children, there’s no time like the present to change your diet and eat a little healthier. Davina, best known for her television work and fitness dvd’s, gives us an insight into five weeks of her cutting out non processed and unrefined ingredients as much as possible. It’s a nice idea but not always a simple one, especially when lives move so quickly these days.

For this article I’m taking a look at two recipes, Maple Syrup Digestives (page 177) and Lime & Ginger Cheesecake (page 189) the former making the base for the cheesecake. I can’t tell you how wonderful the aroma was in the kitchen when the digestives were baking, the maple syrup lingered for what seemed hours and had I been selling the house, it would have gone immediately!

Both recipes are easy to follow and the results matched the images in the book – closer than I had imagined – and that’s always a good sign, especially for a new cook! Timings for the digestives were spot on, I used the fan option and the biscuits took between 15 and 17 minutes to bake satisfactorily, well within the guideline of 15-20 minutes.

The great thing about the cheesecake is that there’s no baking required, a couple of minutes to melt the butter, combine the ginger, maple syrup and broken down digestives and the base is done. When thickening the double cream the book suggests to “thicken the double cream slightly” but I decided to thicken a little more due to the cream cheese and lime juice, it worked very well and the consistency and flavour is to die for!

One thing I did notice when I took time out to read the book in work, it garnered a lot of interest. It seems a lot of people are on the look out for new ideas and new sugar free recipes, I think Davina’s hit the nail on the head with this one. A great looking book, easy to follow recipes and an insight into Davina’s new sugar free challenge – are you game? I know I am. Highly recommended. Many of you have been asking on facebook and twitter for the recipes after I published a few images so here we are – recipes and instructions – enjoy!

http://www.milorambles.com/2015/02/02...

[Kath Steel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting approach which made me feel that it could almost be possible to be as sugar free as it is possible to get with a bit of effort and a lot of organising initially in a short period of time. I enjoyed the book - there's not a lot of preach but there are a lot of recipes which aren't always to my taste, but they do give me some inspiration and ideas for changes and how I can bring them into my own kitchen to kick start the improvements I would like to see in my life. I know it's a make sense change but I also think it may be a difficult choice to implement, so I'll be starting with some dark rye bread, lime and ginger cheesecake and banofee pie (predictive text likes it as banshee pie). Then we'll see where we go from there.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good advice from Davina. No obscure ingredients that are only available online or at Borough Market!! No bee pollen or rose hip powder etc etc just good straightforward food that can be made by everyone.

[Ann McNiven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Try it. It works

I have a very very sweet tooth. I live on sweets and chocolate and sugar free fizzy drinks. I actually crave sugar. When I was a child I would eat spoonfuls of the stuff. I can go for weeks without having a meal. I love this book and the recipes in it. I have tried so many times to give up sugar and failed however with this book I feel like I have a fighting chance. I am vegetarian so I've substituted quorn for meat and vegetable stock for chicken stock but so far so good. I'm finding out what I've been missing and what a boring unhealthy diet I've had which has contributed to some health issues I've got. I work full time, shifts and long hours and this 5 week plan is easy to follow. You have to be completely committed to make the changes.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Davina McCall offers her sage advice and quick guide to cutting down on sugar, while providing healthier recipes.
I had hoped for a lot of good advice and easy tips for reducing sugar intake however, what I mostly got was a simple recipe book. There’s only a handful of recipes that I’ll be likely to use in the near future, but might come back to a few others later.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple, healthy recipes and healthier tweaks to family favourites that eliminate processed sugar. Good for everyday inspiration and for the most part recipes that I could happily serve to whole family.

[Keli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book and I enjoy making a lot of lovely treats and meals from the book.
I am now on a gluten-free diet so I can't enjoy all of the lovely things I used to make from this book.
With a bit of creativity I can still enjoy most of them...

[Teresa Donnelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super read

I really loved this book.. it was very user friendly and I really felt like I was just chatting to Davina .super read..

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the recipes replaced sugar with lots of maple syrup which is probably just as bad

[Ellie M · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed this from the library after reading a mix of reviews. I think this book is ok, but the recipes aren't especially original (I've been reading a number of recipe / sugar free recipe books recently, as well as gathering a number on Pinterest). I think if you new to eating sugar free or making sugar free meals, need a book that's easy enough to follow, and you don't mind a book written by a celebrity then it would appeal more than it did to me.

I also have some reservations about this book being sugar free. Yes it avoids refined sugar but the use of whole milk would not make it sugar free for those following, for example, an anti-candida diet or those clean eating. Likewise there is a reliance on butter and cream, where other books have instead opted to advise use of coconut oils, plant milks / creams / cheese. I'd prefer to follow books where alternatives like plant based products are used, which means this book isn't for me.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some great recipes.

[Gem ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas for everyday meals & treats but without the hidden sugar told in Davinas own style

[Mai-ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only given a 4 at the moment until I have tried some of the recipes...easy to read though and the recipes do look good.