Are you needing to go gluten free? Let me give you tips for eating gluten free in a healthy way.
Everyone Knows Someone Who is Gluten Free
Gluten Free is such a well-known term these days. When I was a young girl and my dad had to go gluten free, nobody knew what that even was. There weren’t tons of options at the grocery store that were gluten free back then either. (If you would like a little information about gluten, this post has some facts and history that might be helpful.)
Fast-forward to today and you can find so many beloved food options now in a gluten free variety and everyone has someone they know that is gluten free.
Sometimes a doctor or a diagnosis requires gluten free and sometimes it is just a choice, in the hopes that it will help with some body ailment.
If you are going gluten free, for a time or indefinitely, I can pass on a few tips today.
#1 – Eat Foods that are Naturally Gluten Free
There are so many options that are already gluten free but when we are switching what we are eating, often all we can focus on are the things we can’t eat instead of all the goodness we can eat.
Fruit is gluten free. Fruit is great for on the go snack or a side dish to any meal. Smoothies made with fruit are a great breakfast, snack or even dessert.
Vegetables are also all naturally gluten free. Fill up on potatoes, sweet potatoes, squashes, and greens. In fact, making the bulk of your meal out of vegetables not only adds lots of helpful fiber to your diet but it ups valuable vitamins and minerals.
Beans are filling, full of fiber, protein and guess what? They are naturally gluten free. Try beans in a new recipe or even a new variety of bean. There are so many out there. We love bean chili and beans in soups, bean dips and chips, bean salads, and just a nice refried bean as a side dish.
Other legumes are also great. Lentils are a complete protein and also full of fiber. They can be a great base to a variety of meals. Split peas are also wonderful.
Eggs and Non-processed Meats – No gluten here. These items are high in protein. Eggs mixed with some veggies are great for breakfast. All processed meats do not have gluten but it is important to read the ingredient labels.
Nuts and seeds are also gluten free, full of fiber and healthy fats and they are convenient and easy to pack for snacks or on the go. Almond flour is also great!
#1 – Eat Foods that are Naturally Gluten Free – Cont…
Grains (or more often seeds) that are gluten free include rice – all varieties, corn, buckwheat, teff, quinoa, millet, amaranth, oats and sorghum. Have you tried some of those? We love to pop amaranth and use it in granola bars and energy bites.
Sorghum and teff both have a very earthy flavor. I haven’t learned to love either of them yet but I am trying. I do love the flavor of buckwheat. It makes a great blender pancake. This grain free pancake uses buckwheat as well as our version of cream of wheat.
Quinoa is a great alternative to rice and boasts that it is a complete protein. It can be blended up for pancakes or cakes. The quinoa can also be ground into flour. It is very versatile and awesome!
Corn is used in lots of gluten free meals in the form of corn tortillas, cornmeal and corn chips. Cornstarch also can be used as a thickener in place of all purpose flour. I prefer to use non-GMO corn so I buy organic corn varieties. Popcorn is also a great gluten free snack.
Oats are in a class all by themselves. They are naturally gluten free but they are often grown next to or in close proximity to fields of wheat as well as packaged on the same equipment as wheat and so cross contamination can occur. If you have celiac disease or are extremely sensitive to gluten then you will need to be sure that you buy gluten free oats. If you do not need to be so strict, any oat will do.
Oats are awesome to make your own granola or granola bars. They are great for cookies and muffins. Oat flour is a great flour to use in combination with your favorite gluten free flour.
#2 – Avoid Processed Gluten Free Foods
When switching to gluten free, avoid processed foods. Just like with gluten filled diets, processed foods have lots of ingredients that aren’t beneficial to our bodies. Most gluten free processed foods use lots of stabilizers, starches and sugar to make up for the lack of gluten. (Make the almond flour chocolate chip cookies, pictured above and keep them in the freezer for a quick treat.)
#3 – Tips for Bread
At our home, now-a-days, I use sourdough for most of our bread needs – hamburger buns, bagels, english muffins, and sandwich bread. Properly preparing the grains through the process of sourdough allows my kids to eat gluten grains on occasion. Sprouted flours also are helpful for my kids tummies, as well as einkorn flour. This will not be the case for all people who need to be gluten free.
Before we figured out the sourdough skills, we ate gluten free bread items for years. Some gluten free bread items are sadly disappointing. Some gluten free bread items have long lists of ingredients that I don’t love. And unfortunately, what we like doesn’t always mean your family will like it too. So as much as I hate to say it, in the gluten free bread realm, there is a lot of trial and error.
My dad loves Canyon Bakehouse bread. My neighbor loves the Schar brand. Sometimes, you have to go with what is available in your area. This lady gives a great run down of lots of gluten free breads and also looks at ingredient lists. You don’t want to avoid gluten and in turn fill your body up with fake processed garbage just because it is gluten free and so I appreciate her notation on ingredients.
#4 – Tips for Pizza Crust
I have a good gluten free pizza crust recipe here. I love to double the batch and freeze small individual size crusts for my kids that need to be gluten free. It makes it convenient and easy to pull one out at a moments notice.
#5 – Tips for Flour Tortillas
I have tried many gluten free tortillas because I really love tortillas. The best gluten free tortilla as far as taste and flexibility is the Mission brand. However, the ingredient list is long and full of lots of stuff I prefer to avoid, as is the case with most gluten free flour tortillas.
Siete brand has an almond flour tortilla that has a great ingredient list but my kids don’t love them. I like them. I have also tried to make my own gluten free tortillas but I ended up crying on the kitchen floor. If you have better luck making your own gluten free tortillas, I need your tips! We mostly stick with corn tortillas because I haven’t found a great substitute for flour tortillas that everyone loves. (I do make sourdough tortillas on occasion but they are time consuming.)
#6 – Tips for Pasta
Jovial pasta brand is our favorite. They have several different shapes that work well for a variety of things. It is made with just brown rice and water and it tastes great and holds together well. Banza chickpea pasta and Gogo quinoa pasta are also good.
#7 Tips for Gluten Free Flour Blends
In order to make some of your favorite muffins or pancakes it will be helpful to have a gluten free flour that you like. I have tried lots of different store bought gluten free flour blends as well as make-your-own gluten free flour blends.
There are quite a few really good options out there now-a-days and for that, I am grateful. At times, it comes down to convenience and price. Which flours can you find at your local grocery stores and at what price? I have used Bob’s Red Mill 1:1, King Arthur Measure for Measure, Arrowhead Mills Organic 1:1, and Cup 4 Cup Wholesome flour, all with good results.
There are a couple different flours that I didn’t like at all. Namaste, Bob’s Red Mill All – Purpose Flour, and Pillsbury were not my favorite flours. However, everyone is different and you might love them.
#7 Tips for Gluten Free Flour Blends – Cont…
I prefer to use organic flours and so I have found that making my own gluten free flour blend gives me more control of the ingredients, in that regard. When I have time and mental capacity, I make my own flours but when those two items are lacking, I buy flour blends from the store.
I buy my individual flours from Azure Standard. They have organic brown rice flour, organic white rice flour, organic tapioca flour, organic potato starch, organic arrowroot powder, organic cassava flour, and binders such as xantham gum. (As well as many other organic gluten free items.) For a lot of years, I used equal parts brown rice flour, white rice flour and tapioca starch. That worked well and was simple. I like this recipe and this one from the Minimalist Baker.
The thing with gluten free flour, is it doesn’t really create the same results when you use it in a 1:1 swap with all-purpose flour in baked goods. I prefer to use some almond flour with the gluten free flour to help boost the texture.
In general for baked goods, I use ¾ the amount of gluten free flour and ¼ the amount almond flour. For example, in a muffin recipe, the required flour amount is 2 cups. I will use 1½ cup of my favorite gluten free flour blend and ½ cup almond flour. The almond flour helps with the moisture as well as the texture.
There are some times, like in making crepes or when using it for a thickening agent, the weight and texture of almond flour doesn’t work well and so I just use the gluten free flour blend.
#8 – One Ingredient Gluten Free Flours
There are other flours that can also be used in gluten free baking. These are not blends, they are made with just one magical ingredient.
Coconut flour is one such special flour. It is totally different from other gluten free flours. It is made by baking and grinding the coconut meat into flour. It is also grain free – which can be helpful at times. It is extremely absorbent and so you want to find recipes specifically for coconut flour. It is not a good one to try and swap out in your favorite gluten full recipes.
Almond flour is also great as I mentioned above, used in combination with an all purpose gluten free flour blend but you can also use almond flour on its own. It is also a one ingredient flour, with just ground almonds. It is a very moist flour so it is best used in recipes specifically for almond flour.
Oat flour is great and is awesome used in combination with other flours but also can be used on its own. Do a search online for oat flour recipes and you will see it is used in lots of breakfast items. It is a little heavier than all purpose flour but it is a whole grain and is delicious! It can easily be made with a high powered blender. You can blend up oat groats, rolled oats, quick oats or even sprouted oats. Just be sure they are a gluten free variety, if necessary.
#9 – Get use to Reading Labels
When we first started gluten free, we made lots of slip-ups because there were things I just didn’t know to look for. Hopefully this list can make you more aware. Wheat flour is used a lot as a thickener or a binding agent in foods so it is really important to get used to reading labels on everything.
These are a food items that I didn’t even think about at first. That’s why reading ingredient labels is so important. Soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, licorice, candy, hot dogs, processed meats or meat patties, sauces and gravies, spices or spice packets, flavored chips or snack items and there are many more.
When reading ingredient lists, look for words with “wheat”, “wheat protein”, “wheat starch”, etc. “Modified starch”, “food starch”, “brewer’s yeast” and “hydrolyzed plant protein” also are typically made from gluten. Sometimes ingredients like “maltodextrin”, “dextrin” or “natural or artificial flavor or seasoning” are derived from wheat.
Other gluten grains can also pop up in ingredient lists – rye, barley, spelt, malt, triticale, bulgur, durum, emmer, semolina, kamut, farina, farro, and graham.
#10 – You Can Do Hard Things
In all honesty, changing foods can be hard. It is emotional because for better or worse, some of us attach emotions to food. And dang it all, we have to eat multiple times a day! If going gluten free is right for your health, then it is worth it!! Hold on to that. (Plus, that chocolate cake pictured above is gluten free! You totally got this!)
At first it will be very challenging but as you get the hang of it, the challenge will settle down. You will find your stride. If I can help in any way, let me know. Getting to the root of a problem in your body, or your children’s body is SO worth it. You can heal! You can find answers. All the effort will be rewarded!
