Gluten free flour varieties

[Lynxcat]

I remember when I first joined this site and was both intrigued and enthralled by the many different varieties of flours that different members had mentioned that were made up of foods that contained no gluten. In other words they were 100% totally gluten free.

The area where I live doesn't appear to have a wide variety of GF flours but I thought it would be worth trying to find some information regarding them. Here is a site that I thought was lovely, colourful and informative and advises the nutritional value of gluten free flours:

nuts.com/blog/2011/09/07/nu...

It would be lovely if those of you who have purchased other varieties to add them onto the list here and perhaps where they are available to buy, may be!

[Hidden]

Hi Lynxcat, I've always felt that because we in the UK can get flour on prescription there is very little info on naturally gf flours.

I find the best sources are Asian and oriental shops plus wholefood shops.

Here's the ones that I've tried and the first 4 are the ones I use regularly:

Rice flour brown and white

Sticky rice flour/ glutinous rice flour

Tapioca starch

Quinoa flour

Corn flour/ maize meal coarse and fine

Chickpea flour also called gabanzo/ besan flour

Buckwheat flour

Soya flour

Teff flour

There's also ground rice which's great for rice puddings, bread making and added to shortbread make them friable even wheaties add it to shortbread

And some people use ground nuts in recipes like ground almonds.

I've always thought that if I lived somewhere remote then I buy a small flour mill and mill my own flours.

[Lynxcat]

Hi Jerry,

I mainly put on the link above because I thought it was well put together with all kinds of flours. We don't have any Asian shops in our area or West Indian shops as I believe these also sell some interesting flours and foodstuffs.

It is possible to purchase flours from Amazon in large quantities so it would be better if several people got together and split the price.

There is also an online store where there are many different types of flours:

healthysupplies.co.uk/glute...

I use pudding rice for rice puddings and basmati for eating with meals but I dislike rice flour - I can always taste it when I have cooked with it even if I have only added a small amount to cakes or puddings and for me it spoils the overall flavour. The one thing that I have noticed with rice is that it is both binding and very fattening so is definitely something that requires moderation as I gain weight extremely easily.

Buckwheat is extremely strong and quite heavy so although I have tried it it doesn't really appeal to my tastebuds.

Soya, I find extremely bloating even in minute amounts - perhaps it is something that just affects.

I have not as yet tried teff flour, tapioca or quinoa flour - but I do use ground almonds. I also quite fancy trying coconut flour as I was reading how good it is for the body: tiana-coconut.com/coconut_f...

Quite fancy some of the nut flours and the bean and pea flours .... I should imagine that they will be tasty and nutritious too.

[Hidden in reply to Lynxcat]

Hi Lynxcat, I feel that because coeliac can get flour on prescription, this causes a few issues, like we are not made aware of the ethnic markets and the ethnic markets do not aim their products at coeliac. We also tend to use supermarkets rather than ethnic shops.

Here's a very popular ethnic shop in Bristol that do mail order:

sweetmart.co.uk/

And here's a list of their flours:

sweetmart.co.uk/shop/catego...

Not all are gf but look at the prices! Gram flour is chickpea flour and is 89p for 500g whereas look how much the NHS has to pay for gf flour.

I am actually putting a directory together that lists independent shops that stock these naturally gf flours as I was amazed at how many naturally gf foods there are out there. I have a Vietnamese supermarket within walking distance of my house and the range of rice and tapioca noodles is much bigger than in any supermarket they also sell rice papers for spring rolls and these can be used like a pie crust.

I think that the secret with rice flour is to use a mix of flours like tapioca starch. Because it's all to do with the gelatinization characteristics of flours. This is the temperature that flours start to cook at. As wheat has a very wide gelatinization range in that it starts to cook at 48C whereas most naturally gf flours start to cook at over 70C. Tapioca starts to cook at 62C so is very useful in a mix. It also depends on how fine the rice flour has been milled because if its coarse it tends to taste gritty. So there's more to baking with naturally gf flours than we realise and the more we as coeliac know about these things the better that we can cope, in my opinion.

I also agree that some naturally gf flours are very nutritious.

[Lynxcat in reply to Hidden]

Oh Jerry, how envious I am that you have so many of these shops near at hand. Like you though I too am amazed how much more nutrition are in natural flours from grasses, nuts and roots. I feel that we, that is coeliacs and those who are intolerant or allergic to gluten are so neglected as this is the information that should be handed out to us all. These are flours that help to rebuild, repair and mend our bodies and yet they are hidden from us because it is only those of us who accidentally come across their existence can hope to ever pursue them for our own purposes.

I do not have any food products on prescription - they have never been offered or discussed with me so I try to find foods that are both free from gluten and that mend and improve the body, I try not to put anything into my body which I know is lacking in nutrition and is difficult or impossible for the body to process. I really aim to try and be as healthy and feel as energetic and super human as possible. So I steer away from anything if it is not pure, natural and good for me. I find it difficult to comprehend when people crave food items that are packed full of rubbish.

By the bye, I'm not sure whether you actually saw the article by Dr William Davies MD - but this I think explains a lot with regard to the ever increasing weight issues of the masses. I read the article and it rather stuck in my mind - never realised about the wheat sugar - am glad that I can no longer eat it after reading this:

"Wheat contains a type of sugar called amylopectin A that raises blood sugar in an extravagant fashion. Eating just two slices of whole wheat bread, can raise blood sugar more than two tablespoons of pure sugar. This leads to the accumulation of visceral fat on the body, the deep fat encircling organs that is a hotbed of inflammatory activity. Inflammation, in turn, leads to hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and other conditions."

[Lynxcat in reply to Lynxcat]

Sorry, meant to add the full article - for those who might like to read it:

boingboing.net/2011/10/26/t...

[Liana]

I have created a primer on flours of all kinds and divided them into plant families for people who already know they can't eat legumes (soy) or grasses. I hope it will be helpful: foodchallenges.ca/food-fact...

[Lynxcat in reply to Liana]

This is wonderful Liana! I think many of us often feel like a coal miner down a pit without a light to guide our way, so every tiny morsel of information is so very, very useful and welcome. It's a shame that we can't star information posts and links to make them easier for everyone to find in the future.

[Liana in reply to Lynxcat]

You are welcome to do whatever you wish with my research. It was done to make people's lives easier, safer and more understandable... it's my pleasure to share. It's on Jamie Oliver's web site as well.

[Penel]

Thank you for some fantastic information. Really helpful.