MNBeth

Sorry I didn't see your post before!

I'm trying to make the same decision, myself. I milled my own wheat for years before my dx last fall, but rice is a whole other ballgame. I did mill some rice in my mill (Whispermill - basically the same as the Wondermill) before I gave it away, just to see what the texture was like, but I'm still not sure what to say about it. I haven't gotten any Authentic Foods flour, yet, so I couldn't compare it to that. And I couldn't bake w/it because it would have been thoroughly contaminated by all the wheat flour in the mill. Looked pretty good to me, but it's so hard to say.

I did "talk" with a dealer whose kids have celiac, and was disappointed to hear that she does sometimes sift her home-milled rice flour. That didn't sound good. I don't remember seeing and "hard bits," as she put it, in the flour I milled, but I may have just missed them.

She did say that she thought the Nutrimill would give a marginally finer flour than the Wondermill, in any case. And I also think you can get a coarser grind w/the Nutrimill if you want it, which I know from my years w/ the Whispermill is quite impossible with that one. I did side-by-side comparisons of flour milled at the finest and then at the coarsest setting, and couldn't detect any difference.

So if I can get hooked up with a natural foods buying club again, I will probably get a Nutrimill. Buying grains in bulk works well for me, and in that case the price is a fraction of the cost of store-bough gluten-free flours. I do find that I prefer millet and sorghum to rice flour in many things, so the rice will be less of an issue for me.

Wish I had more definitive answers for you, but hope this helps a little.

Beth

p.s. I had the KA mill, too, but agree that the flour was too coarse, and you couldn't do much at a time w/o burning out the mixer motor. Also, are you able to get brown rice flour at the Asian stores? I'm still getting up to speed with all this.

I am considering buying a grain mill like a Wondermill or a Nutramill. But I am hesitant because I really like using fine flours from the Asian stores. I am worried that these mills will not grind the rice to a fine enough texture. But I have to go out of town to buy Asian flours, and the risk of CC always worries me.

So, does anyone have one of these mills, and how well does it work? I want to know how fine it really gets the rice flour. I don't like grainy rice flour at all. I used to have a KitchenAid Grain mill to go on my KA mixer, but it wasn't fine enough so I sold it on Ebay.

Anyone know about these machines?? Or do you know of another one that is good??

Thanks!

Just sayin' hi. I'm in Coon Rapids for now; hoping to move down toward Columbia Hts. or the Camden area in Mpls, but haven't been able to sell the house.

I'm in no mood to cook tonight, but everywhere I'd like to get food from is half an hour away. Will likely end up picking up a Costco rotisserie chicken. Again.

(I think I got glutened somehow. Feeling sick, and I'm awful whiney!)

Keep warm!

Beth

Well, I called, and they assured me that the turkey burgers are, in fact, gluten-free. Which is good - I like the Turkey Burgers - but I'm back in the dark as to why I'm feeling so crummy.

I don't know about this particular product, but the natural flavors is something that needs to be checked out. I suggest you call the company and ask them directly.

Yes, I know. Just thought I'd try the sissy approach first. ;-)

I think maybe they're not. I'm only 3-4 months into this, and still don't feel great most of the time, so it gets hard to sort things out. I got sick last night after one of these, though, and looking over my food log, I see this has happened before.

I know it sounds like I'm terribly slow on the uptake, but, as I said, I'm hardly well enough to be able to distinguish between my general ugginess and an actual glutening. And, frankly, I wasn't feeling too hot before the burger, so I just don't know...

(There's nothing obvious on the label - just the ubiquitous "natural flavors."

Oh, my! I'm so sorry you've had so much to deal with. I wish I had more insight than I do. I will say that while I'm not at all sure that celiac could be the cause of all your issues, I do think it would be very possible for celiac to cause an awful lot of them - the muscle and joint pain, the neuropathy, the cognitive difficulties, and certainly the IBS issues and vitamin deficiencies. While I wouldn't wish celiac on anyone, it can, on the other hand, be a relatively painless solution to a host of medical issues.

In any case, I certainly hope you get some clear answers soon. Hang in there!

Beth

My sister will be attending a conference in Irving, Texas this weekend, and I'm wondering whether anyone can recommend places she can eat. I've already mapped out PeiWei, PF Chang's, Outback and Chick-fil-A. Any others she should look for?

Thanks!

Beth

I'm pretty new at this, too, and don't have a bread machine. But I did tons of bread baking with regular flours, and I do know that it is absolutely necessary to substitute something - usually xanthan gum - for the gluten we can't have. Many of the premade mixes already contain xanthan gum, so if you came across a bread recipe that uses a prepared baking mix, it wouldn't have more xanthan gum added. But it needs something, or the dough won't have the stretchiness it needs to form the little air pockets that cause the bread to rise.

Hope your second attempt came out better than you expected.

I did see a recipe on forum that doesn't call for xanthum gum. I'm assuming it isn't needed for bread?

As Lee pointed out, it is the gluten that gives wheat breads their structure. Mixing/kneading develops the gluten, making it stronger and stretchier. That's why quick breads should be mixed minimally - if you overhandle it, the gluten develops too much and you get a tough product.

Gluten-free grains are not, in themselves, somehow delicate, but they do produce a very delicate dough because they lack the strength of structure that the gluten provides. Xanthan gum is a helpful substitute, but it definitely does not behave just like gluten does, nor is it nearly as sturdy. A thorough initial mixing of a gluten-free dough will not harm it, because the air pockets have not begun to form yet. Once it starts rising, however, it needs to handled very carefully to prevent collapse. And everything I've read would seem to indicate that once it collapses it is not, like wheat bread, going to resurrect itself. It seems clear that once it's over, it's over. I'll be delighted if I get proven wrong on that, by the way. Long, slow rises give such character to the flavor of regular breads.

The idea of using less yeast is an intriguing one; I'll be playing around with that, too, and looking forward to hearing everyone else's results.

Oh, I wish I could help! I was diagnosed through Enterolab, not through my own doctor. Even the alt.med. dr. I see doesn't seem all that knowledgeable or up-to-date on these issues - especially non-celiac gluten intolerance, which is always the hardest to be taken seriously about. So I feel like I'm pretty much on my own. I'll be watching this thread! Hope you find someone!!

Beth

Oops; got distracted & double posted.

I just bought some "Naked Nuggets" from the freezer section. Kinda cute, but I'm not sure I'd buy them again. Might as well just buy... chicken. Tyson individually quick frozen chicken tenderloins are just as easy to fix and cheaper. If my kids were really hankering for nuggets, I might feel differently.

I also get Lara Bars, Trio Bars (fruit and nut type bar,) and Nature Valley Nut Crunch Bars (Peanut Crunch - not all varieties are gluten-free, but this is the only one they carry at our Costco.) And I get El Monterrey Beef Taquitos (frozen.) Never ate them before going gluten-free, but now that I can't have much restaurant food, they hit the spot now and then.

No gluten-free cereal, unfortunately. I get that most cheaply at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.

We're currently dairy-free, so there might be other things I'm not thinking of 'cause I can't have 'em. (They have soy milk, but not almond milk, which is what we drink.) Some Costcos apparently have Crunchmaster gluten-free Crackers, but not mine.

I won't try to say where things are, 'cause they love to move everything around every now and then!

Mostly, though, I go there for milk (for the rest of the fam.,) eggs, meats, fruits & veggies.

I'm still pretty new at all this, but I've had better success with muffins that have some extra moisture and flavor as part of the batter itself - pumpkin and banana are our two favorites. I've also done a carrot muffin modified from my favorite carrot-pineapple cake recipe, and they also came out pretty well. I wonder if applesauce in the batter might also help, but haven't tried it yet.

I had a muffin yesterday from a local gluten-free bakery, and I see that they use almond meal and flax seed meal as well. I have almond meal in my freezer, but haven't used it for anything yet.

Do let us know how you get on. I have a newly gluten-free 15 yo boy I'm trying to keep filled up, and he loves muffins!

Giving up dairy was definitely harder for me than giving up gluten was, even though baking - especially bread - was something of an avocation for me.

The dark chocolate thing works for me, since it was my favorite before, anyway. I haven't had the Enjoy Life chocolate chips, as my long-time favorites made by Guittard happen to be dairy free. My local mainstream grocery carries them, so that makes it easy for me.

Our other favorite treat is Jello Instant Chocolate pudding made w/ half coconut milk, half water. That really helped me through the early phase when I just craved "creamy," and I still like it pretty well.

I've found it possible to make all kinds of treats - brownies, pecan bars, peanut butter bars, even truffles for Christmas. I do miss cheese and butter, but I've gotten used to eating a little differently than I did, and it's going okay. I think just plain accepting the idea is probably more than half the battle.

Welcome to the board!

I'm no scientist, so I can't tell you a thing about how they isolate the protein from the other components of wheat flour.

Being something of a home-baked kitchen chemist, though, I can tell you a little about the protein content of flour. Protein content will vary between types of flours and even from batch to batch of similar type flours. For example, cake flour has a very low protein content - something like 8%. That's why it's good for cake - it keeps it from getting tough.

All-purpose flour will range from about 9-12% protein; in the US, the most popular mainstream AP flours are about 10.5 %.

Bread flour is higher still, ranging from 12-15% protein, which gives the bread it's stretch and chewiness.

I used to buy something called "vital wheat gluten" for bread making that was mostly, if not exclusively, wheat protein. It looked a lot like flour, though a little darker. But if you got it wet it would get extremely gummy and be difficult to wash off/out. I learned not to wipe it up with a dishcloth if I spilled it on the counter or I'd never get it out of the cloth!

Probably there's a lot more you'd like to know, but hopefully that's a beginning for you.

Again, welcome to the community!

Beth

I thought the I'd have a little more relaxed time with my family over Christmas as my Dad has had celiac for more than 10 years and my sister (who lives a mile from my folks) and her daughter were diagnosed gluten intolerant the same day as my son and I a couple of months ago.

What I found was that it can be even more awkward to try to deal with people who think they're careful but aren't so much. Mom gave my sister a taste of tenderloin from the cutting board where she'd just made two gluten sandwiches. Everyone rubbed the spaghetti sauce ladle across the top of their gluten spaghetti, ditto the barbecue beef spoon on the gluten buns, we used the same colander for the gluten-free spaghetti that she always uses for regular spaghetti, etc., etc. I even had to give the colander back to her to rewash when I was drying dishes because there were bits of spaghetti still in it. She rewashed it, but was a little defensive about how she doesn't normally use that colander for gluten-free spaghetti, anyway. She uses it for other things things we all eat, but I wasn't going there.

On the flip-side, they have Chik-fil-A where they live. My sister and I got a large order of fries and a salad to split. Then we split another large order of fries. I miss fries! The salad had cheese, though - we're both casein-free, and neither of us noticed. DUH! Fortunately I didn't react as badly to that as I do to gluten.

Somehow I managed not to get glutened, but it seemed like a miracle. And, as I said, it's especially hard to comment and give suggestions when they should know - especially my mom. She says that sometimes my dad gets sick and they can't figure out what it was, but I think her anti-CC practices leave an awful lot to be desired. If I say so, though, she feels like I'm accusing her of not taking care of Dad, and that's hard because it's gotten to the point that she does *everything* for my Dad. He knows almost nothing about how to manage a gluten-free diet. But that's another whole ball of wax.

Anyway, I, too, was glad to be back in my own kitchen, and then we got the flu or something - glutenoids included. Sigh. I'm so ready to feel good for a while. Surely we'll get there soon...

...It's up to you, but that does contain casein.

This is an issue that I've been frustrated about, too. I can find all kinds of lists that have "milk fat" on the no-no list for casein intolerance, but nobody talks specifically about the whys and wherefores, which I think are particularly relevant here.

Milkfat, as tarnalberry pointed out, does not contain casein. Casein is a protein. Milkfat is a fat. The protein is not contained in the fat. So, repeating tarnalberry again, the issue with milkfat should, theoretically, be only the degree of purity - whether the milkfat has been completely separated from the other milk ingredients. I cannot find an answer to this question to save my life.

I'm wondering whether eventually this issue is going to be reminiscent of the whole vinegar/alcohol issue. For years everyone said you couldn't have those because they were grain-derived, but then they realized that once the products are distilled, there are no longer any proteins in them, so being grain-derived is no longer an issue.

I have read that some people react to milkfat itself rather than to casein, but that's whole other ball of wax.

And, yes, this is 100 percent all about whether I can still have my dark chocolate Doves!

A better way to think of this is: is anything less nutritious than white bread?

Many gluten-free breads are made with whole grains, which, in general, are more nutritious than white flour.

Yes, but she asked about whole wheat bread, not plain white. It is a complicated comparison, as breads vary so greatly on both sides. But in general, I think it's very difficult to put together a gluten-free bread that is as nutritious as 100% whole wheat bread. That is because, while you can use whole grains in gluten-free bread, you cannot, as far as I know, make gluten-free breads entirely out of whole grains - you always have to balance it with a significant amount of bare starch flour.

It's a bit of a sore spot with me. I had a grain mill and used to make all our bread products from sandwich breads to tortillas to pancakes with 100% whole wheat. Now I cringe when I pull out the starch flours, and as a result we're gradually reducing our consumption of bread-type products in general because most of them are so full of empty calories.

Except that now it's Christmas and we're making cookies and candy and there are empty caolories everywhere we look!

Well, bless Alton B's geeky little heart - this makes me really happy! I've been so frustrated that NONE of the gluten-free cookbooks I've looked at do anything by weight, and the crazy way that these gluten-free flours and mixes behave makes them a pain to try to measure accurately. Plus, I know he's a great cook, so I can expect these to be good. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

I got Shreve Stockton's book from the library, and read in her introduction that she *almost never cooked* before going gluten-free. I never did try any of the recipes - they may be really great. But that intro just did not inspire confidence!

Mine definitely got worse first - as did my gastro symptoms. But it's getting better, now. (It was worse for about three weeks. Then I actually went back on gluten for a couple of weeks for some tests. When I went off gluten the second time, I felt much better.) I'm still pretty new, though, too, and still a bit up and down. But the depression is definitely better than it was pre-gluten-free.

Did your depression get better or worse going Gluten Free?

La Choy is still gluten free, and it still doesn't taste good. San-J Wheat-Free Tamari and Bragg Liquid Aminos are still, imo, better options. I don't know about any others mentioned.

Hope that helps!

all of these entries are from 2005 for La Choy Soy Sauce is there new information

Oops; my fault. After I posted I remembered that I'd come across that via a search, and that it wasn't current. D'oh!

Your welcome, but it was over seven months ago.

best regards, lm

I love these particularly because they're *not* a super sweet, kid-type cereal. So many of the gluten-free cereals are a bit too "Cap'n Crunchish" for my tastes. These are a little sweet, but heartier and more "adult." And they actually have some fiber!

Does this cereal taste sugary or sweet? I've been eating the Honey'd Corn Flakes which have the same amount of sugar, it tastes fine. I was thinking of trying Mesa Sunrise but it seems more healthier with all the ancient grains, I am worried it will taste like dirt.

Before going gluten-free I was milling my wheat and making all my bread products, including tortillas, myself. I wasn't happy with the 100 percent whole wheat tortillas until I started using my regular whole wheat yeast bread dough to make them. Seemed like the same added ingredients (eggs, milk, lecithin) that made the bread tender helped to make the tortillas tender.

So I'm wondering whether the same thing might work for tortillas. I don't suppose anyone has tried it, have they? I'm still just getting started w/gluten-free baking (and hating being a newbie at something I used to be really good at!), so I haven't even found a bread recipe I'm crazy about, yet.

(I know everyone raves about the Chebe mixes, and I'm sure they're tasty. But I am both completely aghast at the cost of those tiny packets and unimpressed with the absence of any of nutritional value. The transition from 100 percent whole grain bread products to gluten-free starchy baking has, indeed, been frustrating for me.)

This is a very narrowly focused reply, but here's one things that's really helping me get through this - Jello Instant Chocolate Pudding made w/half water, half coconut milk! Sometimes I just need something creamy, and that really hits the spot.

(It mixes up a little better if you whisk the mix with the water first, then add the coconut milk.)