Gluten-free Cooking 'Scratch' That

When first told to take gluten out of their diet, most people feel like something you see in the cartoons. The ground beneath them is suddenly gone. They're hanging in mid-air waiting to fall. The struggle to cook gluten-free wasn't like that for me. I had already learned about dealing with a dairy-free diet and I had fell head-over-heels in love with heath food, herbs, and the vegan diet.

During the ninety's I worked in a health food store where I learned about the vegan diet. It felt so good. Veganism naturally reduces gluten, corn, and bake goods from the diet, and incorporates a larger variety of foods into the diet. Unable to stay on the diet I continued to have health issues.

So, for me, the bottom didn't fall out. It more at slowly crumbled. It started with starch. Starch, with its high pectin content, is the quickest, easiest, and seemingly best substitute for gluten. Gluten provides quite a bit of the nutrition and the strength to hold a rise in breads and cakes. Starch's lack of nutrition lead me to develop a number of my recipes free of it. Although, cakes, breads, and cookies can be made without starch, pie crusts, crackers, tortillas, and biscuits don't hold together,crisp up or roll out with it's absence.

It was after embracing starch I hit that emptiness. Potato and corn starches have larger starch molecules. The larger the molecules the better it works as a replacement for gluten. They also tend to be cheapest. Well, what do you do if you're allergic to potatoes and corn. First there is tapioca starch. It's too close to the potato family. Crossover allergy problems happen there. So, scratch that. Arrowroot starch is an excellent corn starch substitute. Turns out, it's not unusual for manufactures to cut potato starch into a batch of arrowroot, if they are a little short during bagging. Well, scratch that. Kuzu starch made from the kudzu plant costs 7USD for 3.5 ounces. Are you going to stick a cup of it in your baking? I think not! Scratch that.

With so many foods scratched from my diet, it has been an ability to cook from 'scratch' that has been the biggest help in my struggle to live with, not only a large number of allergies, but to also put together a family meal which considers other family member's allergy concerns. It helps with remembering the ingredient combinations needed to make a cake rise, or to take out out one nutritious food and replace it with another. It makes me brave enough to can my own food, so I can avoid the starch not listed on a food label, but used to make factory canning machines work smoothly without oil.

What has helped you the most in your struggle with gluten/allergy-free cooking?

This weeks highly recommended website for understanding gluten sensitivity.

The World's Ultimate Resource On: Gluten Free Diets, Gluten Free Research, Gluten Free Help, Celiac Disease, and Gluten Free Recipes. Gluten Free Society

10 Tips and Tricks for the insincere Dieter

1. When adding sugar to coffee, while someone present to observe you, try to keep the conversation lively. This will make it harder for them to know just how many spoonfuls of sugar you've added.
   
   
2. The color of fudge blends well with coffee. No one will know if you use it for creamer.
   
   
3. Know how to spin your grammar. If you have been eating doughnuts all day say, 'This is all I've has all day.
   
   
4. Eat small items like marshmallows and doughnut holes in pairs. If you get caught, you can claim, 'this is only the second one' you've had.
   
   
5. When counting calories, don't tell anyone just how high you've counted up to.
   
   
6. Look for hidden fat. You wouldn't want to miss any.
   
   
7. Satisfy you need for a properly dressed salad. Place extra salad dressing at the bottom of the bowl, underneath the salad greens. While at the table in front of friend impress them by barely sprinkling any dressing on top of your salad. Dig deep and enjoy your delicious salad.
   
   
8. Keep a spray bottle of water near by during your effortless exercise routine. 
   When you hear some one coming soak your skin and intensify your activity.
   
   
9. When eating ice cream, eat straight from the box. You can then honestly say, 'I haven't eaten one dish of ice cream.” Include a note of hurt in your voice.
   
   
10. You've only had one spoonful. Just don't tell them you used the biggest spoon you could find.
    
    
11. Never allow dinning alone go to waste. Enjoy all the food your happy 'little' heart desires.
    
    
12. If this blog post caused you any hearty laughter, you've had your exercise for the day. Go take a break.

Boy, You Sure Can't Eat Much

The Title of this post is what an online friend posted, once, concerning my list of things I can't eats. When one looks at the list of things I can't eat it's easy conclude. However, what the average person eats without thinking about it or reading labels on is nothing more then various combinations of the same foods.

Consider the eight most common allergies – Milk, egg, wheat, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, and soy. In packaged, convenience and fast foods these food items are widespread. If you add to that list gluten intolerance (Celiac's Disease) along with corn, these food items are pervasive. You run into them even in health food. This may cause others to think the list of what I can't eat is greater than what I can eat.

The truth is, this allergy situation is only the end of careless eating whatever is convenient- -unless you can afford to buy the expensive packaged food made just especially for people these allergies and intolerances. I am, also, allergic to the most common flours used in gluten-free baking. It means cooking with fresh foods from scratch.

Daunting, limiting, confining? Not really. I grant you, I have been raised on Grandma's cooking from scratch. I've cooked primarily from scratch for thirty years, since the discovery of my son's allergies (and because scratch cooking is cheap.) Cooking a pot of rice isn't any harder than cooking a pot of pasta. Chopping a fruit or vegetable didn't change since I have learned of my allergies and intolerances, nor has the cooking of meat, or the throwing on of a handful of nuts. It may mean a brown bag for lunch instead of a trip to a fast food place, but what is that, over feeling well for a change?

When I look at the wide variety of fresh foods available on the market and then look at the way I ate before diet change, I find far more food to eat than a sandwich, burger, or basic meat and potatoes. The most common grains in the average diet are wheat, oats, barley, corn, and rice. That's five grains with wheat being the primary source of all three meals. I personally can and do eat, rice, quinoa, teff, millet, garbanzo bean, soy, almond meal, and tapioca. That's nine grains I eat on a regular basis; nearly double the average daily habit.

I have days when I feel limited, but then, there are those days when I feel simply inspired to learn new things about new foods. It's an educational, creative, full of variety, and healthful way of life. From this way of life I find joy in what I can eat.