The Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Gluten Substitution

Disclaimer : These are just some of the ideas I have picked up over the years. I'm a parent, dragged kicking and screaming plunged into freefrom cooking and gradually finding my own way. I'm not a nutritionist, not a health professional, just a parent but one hoping to help others on my freefrom journey. 

Many Recipe Resource readers are "MEWS" free, which for those who don't know means "Milk, Egg, Wheat and Soy free". Increasingly however, children (more so than adults) with allergic gut disease are reacting at cell level to gluten - yet are NOT coeliac. I wrote here about the differences between Coeliac Disease and a Gut Allergy to Gluten. They are NOT the same thing. A person may indeed have gut allergies (non IgE responses rather than systemic whole body IgE reactions) AND Coeliac Disease but that is not because they have the same cause. What IS interesting however is that EGID is increasingly likely to have an autoimmune component.

For the purpose of this post, I'm focussing on ways of creating culinary perfection (or close to it!) WITHOUT gluten. Going gluten free is far more involved than removing wheat -but isn't as scary as it sounds.

SO how do you rework your diet to exclude Gluten? 

Here follows the Ultimate Cheat Sheet on going Gluten Free.

1. To exclude Gluten you need to know what it IS.

Wikipaedia states:-"Gluten (from Latin gluten, "glue") is a protein composite found in wheat and related grains, including barley and rye. Gluten gives elasticity to dough, helping it rise and keep its shape and often gives the final product a chewy texture."

And herein lies the problem.  Many grains contain gluten, and more are contaminated with it due to milling and production processes.

Image courtesy of Amy Myers Md

Gluten is potentially everywhere! You need to check, check, check and check again. Assume nothing.

2. Alternative names for Gluten.

Anything with "wheat" in the ingredients, however low on the list isn't remotely gluten free. Likewise beware of flour, malt (from barley unless otherwise specified), bulgur, semolina, spelt, frumento, durum (also spelled duram), kamut, graham, einkorn, farina, couscous, seitan, matzoh, matzah, matzo, and cake flour. Often marketed as a “wheat alternative,” none of these is even remotely gluten-free. More detail on an excellent site "Gluten Free for Dummies" here

There is excellent, fully comprehensive information on Coeliac UK on shopping gluten free, which symbols mean wheat/gluten free etc and how to avoid gluten.

Interesting fact:-

Wheat starch is actually wheat that’s had the gluten washed out. In some countries, a special type of wheat starch called Codex Alimentarius wheat starch is permitted on the gluten-free diet.

cracker stack image courtesy of thanunkorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

3. Shopping Gluten free

There are now many brands which cater for those eating gluten free and it is becoming increasingly easy to source gluten free products and product replacements. Companies like Udi's, DS Gluten Free, Newburn Bakehouse, Juvela, Genius and supermarket brands all stock an ever increasing range. However, if you are already on a restricted diet this may not be of much help. Our GP practice will prescribe gluten free products as my twins have a diagnosis based on biopsy. However 90% of products available for prescription have soya in which we have to avoid! Multiple food exclusions usually means you are baking yourself...

4. Baking gluten free

Many recipes allow for straight substitutions. For example I bake regular sponge cakes with Dove's Farm flour, and although it contains some Xanthan Gum I usually add another teaspoon. Xanthan Gum is a sticky binding agent and replaces the sticky binding role gluten plays in regular wheat flour.

If, however your child is allergic or intolerant to the ingredients in the blended flours you can create your own from tolerated alternatives. Use the following chart to replace wheat/rice with your choice of flour(s).

4. Binding Agents

If your cannot use Xanthan Gum there are some alternative options to replace the elasticity and air trapping gluten brings. The air trapping is especially important because without being able to hold the CO2 made by yeast or baking soda, baked goods can’t rise. Elasticity makes dough more malleable, holding it together so that it doesn’t turn into a crumbly mess after baking!

You have to following to choose from:-

• Eggs (rarely an option for allergic children so I won't pursue this although do see my Tiana coconut flour recipes if you tolerate eggs.)


• Gums -Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide from fermentation of sugars and used in many food products. It also works as an emulsifier. Guar Gum is similar, coming from the Guar Bean. Both work well in baking. If combined together they thicken and have an effect greater than twice the original effect!


• Gelatin such as Agar. This is a vegetarian/vegan option made from seaweed. Not great for baking and definitely better for more brittle products.
  


• Flax Seed Meal/Chia -When hydrated the oils in the flax create a nice viscous solution more similar in baking properties to a gum. The starch granules become hydrated in a viscous solution and the expansion of air cells facilitates gelatinization of the starch which is the binding effect.

This chart and lots of GF recipes are available on "Gluten Free Palate".

5.  Thinking outside the box

Sometimes, you need to stop thinking of replacement and start thinking alternatives. Do you need a bread alternative or a pasta substitute? Going gluten free can in fact be quite liberating, although tricky for a child with the aded bonus of suspicion around food and reliance on familiarity.

We are so conditioned in the West to reaching for wheat based carbohydrate than it can take a while to educate the mind AND the palate, but there are many exciting alternatives out there.

Avoiding wheat - meal alternatives

Think rice cakes, corn cakes, rice balls and rice noodles for lunches.

Cornbread as a savoury loaf with chilli or sweetened to make a cake.

Savoury Pancakes with Buckwheat and filled with veg and pulse based mixtures.

Potato cakes, with lentil burgers and tomato sauce.

Lasagna using vegetables sliced to make the layers.

Think basic, natural and fresh, then build up from there. There are increasing numbers of Paleo dietary foods and these are grain free and naturally gluten free and generally healthy. We have become so reliant on wheat and other grains that our overly processed diet is dependent on them. Going gluten free can be tough at first, but you can get used to it. Ensure your child gets sufficient protein to fill them up though - fruit and veg are great but are not very satisfying.

Cakes!

This is a general post about cakes, the birthday cake post I wrote some time ago is still valid, in so much as it works well, and the cake is still available. Tesco's chocolate version is even more yummy though!

It comes ready iced too, always a bonus! All our family love this moist, chocolatey cake.

There are lots of options now, it is definitely getting easier to find cake alternatives or ingredient alternatives. My children love decorating their own cakes and biscuits with icing pens too.


If you prefer a dry mix, I have tried two recently. The Hale and Hearty mix on the right (which is good but I prefer their brownie mix for taste)
and the Glebe Farm Mix which is fool proof, works every time and I would love to know why it is so much better than my own efforts when the ingredients are pretty much the same!

My friend Suzanne at "Free From for Kids" has a reliable stock of the Hale and Hearty mix, sometimes found in Sainsbury's and the Glebe Farm one is increasingly available at local outlets like farm shops etc. They make a blueberry muffin mix, carrot cake mix and pizza base mix which I have recently bought to try. Muffins were very successful!

Of course, you can use a regular sponge cake recipe (4oz/100g of flour, same of marge, same of caster sugar with 2 eggs) and substitute everything for free from ingredients which I do very successfully pretty frequently. Works fine with muffins and if you can tolerate banana they help with the rising for beautifully tall cupcakes and muffins.

There are lots of variations on this theme on the "Sweet Treats" page. There is a fantastic chart for alternatives to egg in cakes here too.

Happy Baking! 

PIZZA!!!!

*HURRAH* for high street restaurants offering free from menu choices.

We have been testing a few this year, very cautiously!

ASK

Ask in Ipswich were extremely helpful. They explained that recently their chips have changed and are now coated to make them crispier. This makes them unsuitable for anyone with a wheat or gluten allergy. They always stock small new potatoes in their freezer, coated in a safe pepper/salt/oil combination, part cooked and ready for frying. They also grilled some chicken in the same combination for my two gourmets and served them with a child friendly salad. A real hit!

Sorbet satisfied our allergy requirements too, an excellent meal but a long wait as their online allergen list had not been updated.

PIZZA EXPRESS

Pizza Express have just launched their Gluten Free menu. As a family we love Pizza Express, the menu is pretty versatile, it's quick for the kids and they take Tesco Clubcard vouchers!!  They have a fully comprehensive allergen list but read carefully. Many items are absolutely fine but you might think they are not because the entire dish is listed as containing a known allergen. Meat is sourced locally so check that ham doesn't contain lactose for example.

We were fine - on the children's menu my twins couldn't have the dough balls so enjoyed an extra large salad. One chose a gluten free pizza, no cheese with chicken and ham on top, the other the same but with tuna. That ticked the no MWS and Gluten boxes for us, also Egg free as Archie is on minimal egg.  The gluten free pizzas in the table all say they contain dairy and soya, this is because they ahve CHEESE on. You can be creative, like us and skip the cheese and add alternatives! The pizza base was thin and crispy but a definite improvement on the supermarket bases we have tried to date.

LEGOLAND, Windsor

The Park restaurants and cafes are almost all a big no-no as Legoland now coat their chips and cross contaminate much of their food. However, The Castle Rotisserie (where the large Dragon rollercoaster is) suited us fine. Jacket potatoes with no butter, chicken or baked beans (Heinz which have no wheat flour in) were fine.

The hotel could not have been more helpful. I called the day before then spoke with the chef just before each meal. He cooked safe chips especially for the twins, and there were plenty of meat and veg options. My two ate extremely well! Breakfast was the trickiest but they always have gluten free bread to toast with jams, no spread alternative though. Do ask to have the bread toasted in the kitchen though not on the industrial size "conveyor belt" toaster in the restaurant.

Disclaimer : Obviously YOU know your child's level of sensitivity. Some children will react with microscopic amounts of allergen present. We do NOT avoid food which says "May contain traces of ...." and also do NOT avoid Soya Lecithin as we have always been told that it is a highly purified oil, with no protein present and it is usually the protein people react to. This is NOT the same for everyone.

Next Post - Coffee Shops with safe snacks!