Pizza-lover

Time will tell if a celiac vaccine is safe and effective. I'm old enough (79) that I may not live to see the day that a reliable vaccine is available. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to get vaccines to try to avoid pneumonia, shingles, and influenza. We all have to make our own judgements about these things, and that's mine.

I've eaten gluten-free for five years since a biopsy-confirmed diagnosis, and I guess I'm a bit more mellow about the "craze/fad".  It's gotten more products on the market, and some of the manufacturers have got the extra mile and gotten certification.  So there are a few more things available that one can realistically expect to be safe.  I'm ambivalent about the claims that modern wheat has been bred into being a dangerous food.  But I'm sympathetic to the folks who either believe those claims or want to be on the safe side.  So I have no problem with restaurants that serve "gluten free" food that they admit is not celiac-safe, as long as they make the distinction.

Five years ago I had to read labels carefully.  I still have to read labels carefully.  That's life.  But my life is so much better after cutting out gluten that I'm willing to do read them.

Your analysis of the ingredients was like a breath of fresh air.  I've been trying to find the right combination of ingredients to get a good dough for pizza crust and pita bread for a long time (nearly five years since I had to go gluten-free because of celiac), and while I've found some pretty good combinations, after reading this article I got to the best yet.  Long ago I became resistant to the conventional wisdom that tapioca starch and xanthan gum were essential to any gluten-free yeast bread.  And I'd found that light buckwheat flour was a good component, and that millet flour gave things a good aroma and flavor.  I'd tried including arrowroot, but it had never really seemed to be important.

But based on your explanations and my experience, I tried a mix of millet flour, sorghum flour, light buckwheat flour, arrowroot starch, and potato starch, with an initial mixture of oat bran (Montana Gluten Free), psyllium husk powder, sugar, ascorbic acid, yeast and water.   This produced a dough which worked very well-- as well as I remember wheat flour dough working-- and which baked up into some wonderful pita bread.  As another experiment I used an amount of the dough equal to that for one round of pita, divided it in two, rolled it out fairly thin, and used it to make a couple of empanadas, and that also worked well.  (If you're interested, I can give you the details on the ingredient amounts and preparation steps.)  Anyhow, thank you for the enlightenment-- it is much appreciated.