Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Gluten-Free

My mom was diagnosed about 10 years ago with celiac disease, a disease that does not allow for the proper absorption of gluten. For a person whose daily meals previously consisted of a bagel for breakfast and a sandwich on a wheal roll for lunch, her eating habits had to change overnight. Our family now cooks the majority of meals to be gluten-free, either naturally or by just skipping the flour.

This disease changes your whole perception on food when picking up a box of cereal or flipping through a cookbook. My first thought is usually "can mom eat this?" or "will it really make a difference without the cup of flour?" Most of the time recipes have been easy to modify to either leave out the wheat flour all together or substitute it for a similar ingredient. Dinner entrees and sides are usually the easiest to modify. However, baked goods like cookies, bread, and cake are much more difficult. For this you must use a gluten-free flour like rice or potato flour (many varieties found at specialty grocery stores). Since I have previously focused on making dinner items gluten-free, my goal for the rest of the year is to work on gluten-free baked goods in the hopes that not only will my mom have a nice treat, but that I can share my recipes with others.

No comments: