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Down-Home Cooking Without the Down-Home Fat
by Dawn Hall
Rutledge Hill Press
ISBN 1-4016-0104-9
Published February 2004 - Hardcover/Spiral - 216 pages - $16.99

We all seem to be cutting out one thing or another from our diets.  If fat is your "thing", then Dawn Hall's low-fat cookbook might help you.  She explains why it's so important to cut the fats from our diets, or at least to lower them.  She uses seven or less ingredients throughout the book.  She's broken down the preparation time to around 20 minutes (some recipes take a little longer but on average, it's about 20 minutes or less) and the book is divided into Breakfast; Appetizers; Breads & Spreads; Soups, Salads & Dressings; Side Dishes; Entrees, and Desserts and Drinks.  At the very sight of the very first recipe for "Sticky Breakfast Bagels", my stomach turned at the thought of these first thing in the morning.  Never!  I don't like "sweets" for breakfast and if you're trying to lose weight, why have syrupy and sugary things for breakfast?  Anyway, Ms. Hall gives a nutritional guide for each recipe and although her fats are low, her sodium is alarmingly high, at least I thought so.  Take "Chicken Skillet Cobbler" which serves 4 - the sodium is 1,175mg and they used "reduced-sodium" chicken broth.  To my mind, she uses too many packaged foods.  Making food from scratch (and freezing some for later) is a much healthier option.  Packaged gravies for example - make your own and save yourself from eating preservatives.  There's an enormously long introduction to the book which is a combination of her biography, words about God, a lesson in common sense that we should all already know, but don't, a chat about how to eat and how to get your eating under control, and on and on.  There are also sayings by well-known people, quotes, and some Proverbs scattered throughout the book.
Conclusion - Nice selection of recipes but not my style, low-fat or not.  I'd rather stick to "moderation in all things" and not have to load up on potentially harmful sodium or use packaged goods to cut fats.  Just control your fat intake to moderate unless otherwise directed by your doctor.