The challenge to replace gluten

I have always liked good food.  To eat, cook, share.  You name it.  Most kinds of food.  I like trying new foods all the time.  Now I'm challenged because I can't eat one of the most ubiquitous ingredients: wheat.

Today was grocery shopping day and I've been working on the week's menu.  I decided to make one of my favorite traditional dishes from my native Colombia: Ajiaco.  At home we call it, "The Soup Of Love,"  I made it for my husband the first time I cooked for him and he loved it.  It's a hearty potato, chicken, and sweet corn soup; garnished with sour cream, fresh cheese, avocado and capers.  I make the stock from scratch, with a chicken, onion, carrots, celery, cilantro, bay leafs, salt and pepper.  It gives it a more homey flavor that reminds me of my mom and her wonderful cooking.  I'll publish the recipe separately.
  
I want to talk about the challenge of cooking food that is gluten-free (GF), but real.  There's a lot of buzz about Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance.   Every day I see more articles in newspapers, magazines, the web, books and TV.  Restaurants are offering GF menus.  It's everywhere.  For the last few years, I've noticed the increase in GF products.  From pretzels to pasta; a myriad of breads and cookies; even foods that are traditionally GF now carry the Gluten-Free label, like corn tortillas, corn chips and rice cakes.

  But what does it mean to consume GF foods that aim to replace wheat, rye and barley, without losing the quality and texture of those grains?  Are we falling for the same pitfalls as the Low-Carb Diet?  When, sugars were replaced with synthetic sweeteners that later turned out to be worse than the real thing. Or the Low-Fat diet, where saturated fats were replaced by hydrogenated vegetable oils.  Now we know how bad trans-fats are for human health. Most of the GF mixes available to make breads, cakes or cookies are based on potato starch, rice flour, or garbanzo bean flour.  I can recognize and pronounce all of these products so I feel OK eating them.  However, there are a couple of names associated with these mixes that I haven't seen before, unless they were in beauty products: Xanthan gum and Guar gum.

What are these? and where they come from? Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide, it is produced by the fermentation of corn, wheat, or milk whey by the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium.  Guar gum, also called guaran is a galactomannan. It is primarily the ground endosperm of guar beans.  As you can see the first one is a highly processed ingredient, the second one comes all the way from India, and I don't feel comfortable using either one.  Fortunately, I've researched more on the subject:  I've found that these ingredients can be replaced with flax seeds and chia seeds.  I already use these as egg replacement on many vegan baking recipes and to add some extra nutrition to salads, oats, etc.  I'll bet my doctor is going to be happy to hear this! I also add 2 Tbsp of tapioca starch per cup to bread or cake mixes for baking.  Tapioca starch is a great binder, it's easy to use and it doesn't change the flavor of the food being cooked.

As you can see it's possible to keep your cooking simple and real, by tweaking just a little bit the recipes, or by adjusting your eating habits and including more unprocessed foods.

This coming week I'll be experimenting with some bread recipes and I'll let you know the results soon.

I hope you all are having a good evening, talk to you soon,

Maria