Authors: Alan Barclay and Claudia Shwide-Slavin and Philippa Sandall.

Published by: Experiment Publishing

ISBN: 9781615192168

Price: $15.95 US

http://theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/fall-2014/ultimate-guide-to-sugars-and-sweeteners/

This lovely little hand book, with its comfortable rounded edges and softback cover, is an all-in-one reference to sugars and sweeteners. It will make interesting reading for foodies, chefs, carb counters, parents, and clinicians. Its aim is not to change your dietary habits but to provide the most accurate information on sugars and sweeteners.

The book opens with a useful glossary of acronyms followed by the main part of book which is an A to Z of sugars and sweeteners with 185 entries. But a dry encyclopaedia it certainly is not! The A to Z is interspersed with question and answer boxes which offer fascinating “well I never knew that!” insights into all sorts of interesting questions, which adds piquancy to this lively and refreshing book. Each entry in the index offers a fascinating history of the discovery and use of the product along with a whole bunch of associated facts. The sweeteners that it so competently describes are hundreds of times sweeter than sucrose, and in a similar way this little book (256 pages) is hundreds of times more interesting and informative than its size would suggest! For example in just four pages it offers a succinct and welcome enlightenment on glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL).

The second part of the book covers “Health Matters” (with a section on diabetes) which again is as sensible as it is succinct. The book finishes with a “Test Kitchen” where the substitution of sugars and sweeteners in two classic recipes are compared for appearance, taste, texture, and associated GI and GL. It really is a scrumptious dessert to the main course of this satiating book.

Extensively cross-referenced, with “At a glance” footers to each item, this book will be your first port of call whenever you need immediate access to information on sugars and sweeteners.

Jim Young

January 2015