BOO!
The packaging looks so inviting. Happy yellow plastic enveloping a golden loaf of what feels like moist delicious gluten free bread.
However, what you get is a loaf dry gritty slices that looks like bread. The only thing this ‘bread’ is good for is to make croutons or bread crumbs for chicken coating. (See the entry Hot off the Plate!)
My rating: 1/10 (it had nice packaging)
Finding wheat free soya sauce has been a challenge but is getting easier and more economical with Superstore’s President’s Choice line having gone wheat free ( read labels carefully!). The challenge, though, is “ What do you do when you are allergic to SOY too?” Soy free Soya Sauce? ummmm
Some online searches came up with some options including Marmite and Vegamite blends but I am not a fan of those, regardless of the number of Marmite Sandwiches a friend used to make.
What did we come up with? A reasonable facsimile.
1 cup Molasses
1/3 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1.5 cups Beef Broth
3 – 4 Tbsp Salt
The trick here is the SALT. Keep in mind, it’s NOT soya Sauce. NOTHING is going to taste exactly like soya sauce accept soya sauce. This, however, seemed a very reasonable replacement for stir frys and other uses.
“Millet is gluten-free. It is not Grain Free!”
Just to not confuse new people to the disease and diet.”
Millet, common name for several species of the grass family (see Grasses), and for their small-seeded grain.
Millet is highly nutritious, non-glutinous and like buckwheat and quinoa, is not an acid forming food so is soothing and easy to digest. In fact, it is considered to be one of the least allergenic and most digestible grains available and … usually contains less protein than wheat or rye and more protein than rice.
Fundamental Flour Facts has a lot of info on this topic.
Still, much confusion seems to swirl around the word flour… The Concise Oxford Dictionary offers “any fine powder” as one of the definitions of the word “flour”.
Wheat is a cultivated grass, just like corn and rice. … it became imperative to divide flours into categories: gluten containing grass flours, gluten free grass flours and flours from other plants. I have been able to further sub divide the flours from other plants into ground nut flours, seed flours, legume flours and root or vegetable flours.
This is some of the information I have amassed through extensive reading and careful research. If it contains any inaccuracies, omissions, or errors please bring it to my attention, so I can correct the information. I am not a specialist of any kind, just one woman searching for a way to better understand the foods I eat, so that I can recover my health.
The Grass Family of Plants:…
Gluten Free Grasses or grains:
- Corn / Maize Flour or Meal
- Millet Flour
- Rice Flour – all varieties, white & brown
- Glutinous Rice Flour ( also know as sticky rice or Mochi )
- Wild Rice Flour ( the seeds can be cooked whole or ground into a dark flour )
- Sorghum Flour
- Teff Flour – dark and ivory
- Sugar Cane
- Bamboo
- Job’s Tears / Hato Mugi / Coixseed / Adlay / Adlai ( barley like in appearance, grain that is gluten free and can be ground into flour)
Please check out her site for MUCH MUCH more information!
Summary? Use with care! Determine if it is GRAINS you are allergic to, modified grains ( the genetically altered ones we use so commonly today) OR if it’s the glutens themselves (aka Celiac). If it makes you ill… DO NOT EAT IT.
Well, it’s a whole new language out there now that I have gotten started with reaching out to this world of networking. One could make a full time job of it. So, here goes.
twitter – I can be added as WheatFreeMe
Facebook – there is a Calgary Coffee group to keep up to date on where we are going to meet up.
Questions to consider in the near future? We all are of the obvious villains in this wheat free world – Flour, Barley, Rye… etc etc – but what about questions like;
What other ingredients are we baking with daily without a second thought. Worse yet? What are we getting suckered into paying MORE for just because the market is suddenly aware that it’s a Catch Phrase?! ( Saw ‘Now Wheat Free’ on a jar of jam in the Grocery Store! Wha?! )
So. Will look into that tomorrow morning with coffee.
Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) has been grown and used as food for centuries by inhabitants of the Andes region of South America. Botanically quinoa is not a cereal but the fruit of the plant Chenopodium quinoa which resembles lamb’s quarters and pigweed. It is a member of the goose-foot family Chenopodiaceae, so called because of the shape of the leaf. There are no data to indicate that gluten occurs in plants of this family. There is therefore, no basis for concern about the use of quinoa by persons with celiac disease. An undocumented report indicates that quinoa has been given over a period of several months to a number of persons with Celiac disease with no “untoward” effects.
Quinoa is a very nutritious grain and therefore a very useful alternative to wheat, rye, barley and commercial oats in the diet of celiacs. It is markedly higher in protein, fat, fibre, calcium and iron than most cereals. Its relatively high content of lysine and sulphuramino acids makes it a good supplement to rice and corn as well as to soybeans. Quinoa is reported as having a nutty flavour somewhat like wild rice.
well… worth a try.
5 Jul