The wonderful world without gluten

[sqbr]

I thought I'd record my hits and misses going gluten free, both for personal records and anyone else who might find it useful. All foods are gluten, soy, and dairy free. (Also coconut etc)


It hasn't been too bad, since I'm pretty much stuck at home eating unprocessed foods anyway the main issue has been finding replacements for certain staple my diet relies on, and figuring out what to eat when I crave "something crunchy and full of fibre" etc. I've pretty much given up on bread: the only wheat based bread that didn't make me feel kinda sick was rye, and none of the gluten free ones cut it. Overall the pre-made gluten free baking mixes/goods seem to disagree with me, so I'm going to have to figure out what causes that (the gums? I can't see rice flour etc being the problem) and cook my own stuff without it.

Taking people's advice I checked out The Earth Cafe in Subi (has some obscurish stuff, but more aimed at organic etc), Coles & Woolies (not to bad, and relatively cheap), Kakulas brothers (good for bulk staples like flours and grains), and the nearest large health food store in Morley (very good range) Where something was harder to find I've mentioned where I got it.

I have a bunch of flours etc I've collected and want to experiment with, but don't want to do too much at once, my digestive balance doesn't cope well with too much strange food. Haven't been able to find gluten free baking powder (I have baking soda) or cocoa.

Things I eat a lot it turns out I can still eat and thus am relying on muchly:
Peanut butter, 5 brothers pasta sauce + mince, vegetables and fruit (since I'm still finding complex carbohydrates/fibre I like which don't disagree with me), steak, spices

Wins:
For range, the Orgran flours and mixes. All soy, gluten, and dairy free by default. Health food store had the biggest range.
Norganic Corn Flakes. I like these more than the Kellogg's sort :)
Quinoa, but I knew that already
Orgran premade chocolate biscuit from health food store. Their biscuit mixes all have coconut, unfortunately, but this was nice as a one off treat.
These hazelnut biscuits (I haven't made them again, but plan to now I have an excuse)
Rice and corn thins (these are better than the bread, imo)
Socca Taaaasty. I will definitely be doing more stuff with chickpea flour.
Mondo Nougat

Adequate taste, make me feel kinda ill though:
Rice milk, have tried Soy Natural and Pure Harvest, both ok
Orgran bread mix. Made it in the bread maker with some egg. About as nice as any gluten free bread I've eaten, and helped me get past my bread craving but since then I've not eaten any since it's not that great and makes me feel bad.
San Remo pasta. Not quite as good as regular pasta, sticks very easily.
Pancakes made with Orgran plain flour.

Bad:
Freedom yeast spread. Blarg. But I only really like vegemite :(
Freedom flatbread, so foul I stopped eating it and threw out the rest of the packet

Comments

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

so, is it having a difference yet?

[alias_sqbr]

See my next post. In short: maybe. I hope so :)

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

cream of tartar is gluten free, you can combine it (2:1) with bicarb to make baking powder.

[alias_sqbr]

Hey, thanks. I thought it was something like that but hadn't gotten around to investigating.

[lizbyrd.livejournal.com]

I have some gluten free baking powder I bought from Coles, but I haven't checked the ingredients to see if it replaces gluten with something else you can't eat. It's in a pale blue round container.

[nephron.livejournal.com]

Ward's baking powder:

Rice flour, 36% Phosphate Aerator, Sodium Bicarbonate. This product is Gluten free.

(I bought it because it was the cheapest on the shelf, it seems to work fine)

[alias_sqbr]

Got some today, huzzah!

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Ward's is the brand I think:-)

My sister is kind of doing gluten-free, so I looked. They use rice flour instead of wheat flour. I got it at my local supermarket—but I can't remember if it was Woolies or IGA.

[alias_sqbr]

Woolies in the city had it!

[flyingmopsy.livejournal.com]

In your bread adventures, did you ever come across lupin bread? If so, what was it like?

[alias_sqbr]

I've only eaten the lupin+wheat english muffins, they were ok but not as nice as regular muffins.

[flyingmopsy.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to try it for a while so if I do I will let you know what it's like if you like. I guess that depends on how ok your version of ok is.

[alias_sqbr]

Well, the gluten free ones probably taste different (ie worse) to the gluten-y ones. But yes, if you find some gluten free ones I'd be curious to hear about them.

[velithya]

rye contains gluten, if you didn't already know (it seemed unclear from your above post? I wasn't sure, and better to be safe than sick!) Anyway.

I really only like the BASCO bread mix, if it's soy/etc free as well you should give it a go. Downsides include kind of squashing a little when you slice it hot and it does have a tendency to dry out a little, good for toast after the first day though, and it's delicious when hot. (imo).

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, I know rye contains gluten, thus no more rye bread for me :(

Basco has soy, as I recall. *sigh*

But at least I can still have corn thins :)

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

so, is it having a difference yet?

[alias_sqbr]

See my next post. In short: maybe. I hope so :)

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

cream of tartar is gluten free, you can combine it (2:1) with bicarb to make baking powder.

[alias_sqbr]

Hey, thanks. I thought it was something like that but hadn't gotten around to investigating.

[lizbyrd.livejournal.com]

I have some gluten free baking powder I bought from Coles, but I haven't checked the ingredients to see if it replaces gluten with something else you can't eat. It's in a pale blue round container.

[nephron.livejournal.com]

Ward's baking powder:

Rice flour, 36% Phosphate Aerator, Sodium Bicarbonate. This product is Gluten free.

(I bought it because it was the cheapest on the shelf, it seems to work fine)

[alias_sqbr]

Got some today, huzzah!

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Ward's is the brand I think:-)

My sister is kind of doing gluten-free, so I looked. They use rice flour instead of wheat flour. I got it at my local supermarket—but I can't remember if it was Woolies or IGA.

[alias_sqbr]

Woolies in the city had it!

[flyingmopsy.livejournal.com]

In your bread adventures, did you ever come across lupin bread? If so, what was it like?

[alias_sqbr]

I've only eaten the lupin+wheat english muffins, they were ok but not as nice as regular muffins.

[flyingmopsy.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to try it for a while so if I do I will let you know what it's like if you like. I guess that depends on how ok your version of ok is.

[alias_sqbr]

Well, the gluten free ones probably taste different (ie worse) to the gluten-y ones. But yes, if you find some gluten free ones I'd be curious to hear about them.

[velithya]

rye contains gluten, if you didn't already know (it seemed unclear from your above post? I wasn't sure, and better to be safe than sick!) Anyway.

I really only like the BASCO bread mix, if it's soy/etc free as well you should give it a go. Downsides include kind of squashing a little when you slice it hot and it does have a tendency to dry out a little, good for toast after the first day though, and it's delicious when hot. (imo).

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, I know rye contains gluten, thus no more rye bread for me :(

Basco has soy, as I recall. *sigh*

But at least I can still have corn thins :)