A Gluten & Nut free diet.

[judithr]

Two of my granddaughters have serious nut allergies & I am a coeliac. When my family visit I like to serve food that everybody can eat. One of my granddaughters is coming for lunch on Saturday so I thought that I would make a pie for desert. To be safe I decided to contact the Freephone number on my g/f flour to make sure that the flour was nut free. I was told that they could not guarantee this & they did not advertise it as such. I suggested that if they could not guarantee that it was nut free they should do as other organisations do & say so on the box.

However, surely if they are producing g/f flour they should be doing so in a totally clean uncontaminated area & therefore if no nuts are going into the product they should be able to guarantee this!! I am now wondering whether they can guarantee that the flour I use is g/f!!

I have contacted them by e-mail to raise my concerns & await with interest their reply.

Do be careful if you do have a nut allergy. I took it for granted that all g/f food was prepared in a totally free from contamination environment. I do hope that I am still correct.

[Hidden]

Hi Judith, I know that Doves Farm flours are all milled in the same building as each other. They use separate mills but often have cross contamination problems especially with their buckwheat flour. There was a warning on the FSA site about their buckwheat flour earlier this year. They do have their flours tested regularly to ensure that they are below 20ppm.

I'm sorry that this isn't what you want to hear and I'd be interested in what brand of flour this is.

On a more positive note I think that it's great hearing about a coeliac who makes a pie for all the family so good for you.

[meanioni]

I think there are two issues:

a) Most gluten free flours are a blend of different flours - potato, rice, maize and others. Problem this causes is that they are sourced from different farms, suppliers, etc. Some may even by already ground. This puts the supplier at the end of a long, complex chain of organisations and therefore its hard for them to give a 100% guarantee as they cannot say for sure how pure their suppliers are... Not saying this is right, by the way, just explaining why I think they said what they said.

b) Many millers will mill other flours and products in their factories; inevitably there will be dust in the air or the same machine may be used for different products. Again, not great but that is potentially another explanation.

There is a need for a supplier who can mill flour safely and in a pure environment. I'm not sure if one exists.....???

[Lynxcat]

Hi Judithr, I think you may find that there is no 100% safe flour on the market not fully guaranteed to have a zero amount of gluten and often not produced in a nut free environment.

Having looked at the problem myself I wonder if the answer may lie in having a good quality grinder and blender and perhaps have a bash at making your own. I remember a programme a few years back where someone made a wonderful pastry using butternut squash with a small amount of cornflour and butter.

I have made a shortcrust pastry out of cornflour, GF free baking powder and butter with a little white sugar and two eggs that was really nice and light - just adapting a standard shortcrust pastry recipe and using the eggs as part of the liquid. This was many years ago for a friend who was a coeliac and there was absolutely nothing around other than tinned soggy bread.

Most ingredients can be made into pastry, cakes and bread but they may take a little tweaking to get the consistency and flavour to how you enjoy them. So you can use all root vegetables boiled and mashed and add to these ground almonds, ground apricot kernals, etc (of course if you do make from scratch then it will require a good strong quality blender) you can then decide upon the mixture of things you most enjoy hulled sunflower seeds should reasily grind up and chestnuts (which are usually not considered to be nuts) are usually a good option, chick peas usually have to be soaked over night and cooked for a very long time to be usable but you can buy them ready cooked in cans.

There is a carrot and almond loaf among the vegetarian recipes by Gillian McKeith on this link .. perhaps this could also be tweaked to make it into a pie pastry ..

channel4.com/entertainment/...

[judithr]

Thank you for this & other comments. I can make beautiful pastry with g/f flour & have frequently been complimented on it - I add cider vinegar & a small amount of g/f baking powder & the result is really good. I just looked at my cornflour which I have always used for making sauces, swiss rolls etc & saw that it had "may contain nuts due to the environment in which it was produced" so decided to confirm that my usual flour mix was nut free. My son in Australia makes pastry shells with things like beetroot which they say are delicious!!

I have decided for the sake of my seriously nut allergic granddaughter to forget the pie & have fruit salad & have ice-cream instead. We can have pie & cakes with the other grandchildren another day.

[vince]

DS do a ready made pastry in sainsburys freezer