Gluten Free Ingredients - My Memory Card

I moved to Canada more than 14 years ago. Ever since, I’ve noticed that some­thing in my organ­ism, or the way I digest my food, has changed dramatically.

One of the hard­est things to get used to, was gluten. In Canada, gluten is almost a sta­ple. Whether it’s bread, pasta or baked goods, gluten is every­where, and in so many of the things we eat.

In Colom­bia, we are heavy starch eaters, but we don’t have a gluten-heavy diet. Pota­toes, yucca, plan­tains, yams – you name it, if it’s a starch, we prob­a­bly eat it. We’re also con­sum­mate corn eaters. In fact, I’m con­vinced that if you tested me in a lab, you’d find I’m prob­a­bly about 70% corn.

But gluten was a new thing, and either I didn’t like it or, more likely, it wasn’t crazy about me. So I started look­ing more care­fully into what gluten is, how our bod­ies react with it, and where it comes from.

I found friends and clients who fol­lowed a 100% wheat– and gluten-free diet, either because of an allergy or an intol­er­ance or because they real­ized that they felt bet­ter. Through them, I started apply­ing what I learned to my own diet.

What I’ve found is that when I eat too much gluten, or gluten that’s been too heav­ily processed, I can sud­denly look (and feel) like I’m 6-months preg­nant overnight. When I remove gluten (and dairy) almost com­pletely from my day-to-day meals, my tummy gets flat­ter, my energy goes up like a rocket and I can actu­ally stay awake past 8:30 p.m.

But we all know how time-consuming it can be to check every ingre­di­ent on every label at the super­mar­ket. So to help myself – and now you! – I’ve pre­pared the fol­low­ing gluten– and wheat-free cheat sheet that I take with me when­ever I go shopping:

Foods that ARE Gluten Free:

• Ama­ranth, arrow­root, annatto,
• Bak­ing soda, buck­wheat (beware of buck­wheat flour that is com­bined with other flours),
• But­ter, (beware of additives),
• Carob flour, cel­lu­lose gum (I opt for keep­ing it out of the list of prod­ucts I buy) cheeses (beware of blue cheeses such us Roque­fort), chick­peas, corn, cream of tartar,
• Eggs
• Flax seeds, fruits (plain)
• Gelatin, guar gum,
• Herbs,
• Kasha, roasted buckwheat
• Mal­todex­trin (unless derived from bar­ley; In the US, this starch is usu­ally corn; in Europe, it is com­monly wheat), masa-harina, meat (plain) mil­let, MSG (I opt for keep­ing it out of the list of prod­ucts I buy)
• Nut flours (check if the pack­age men­tion the facil­i­ties where they are processed)
• Pasta (made from rice, corn or quinoa) polenta, potatoes
• Quinoa
• Rice,
• Sago, sorghum, sesame seeds, soy, starch,
• Wheat free tamari (remem­ber that wheat free doesn’t mean gluten free), tapi­oca, teff,
• Veg­eta­bles (plain)
• Vine­gar (beware of malt vinegar)
• Xan­than gum

Foods that are NOT Gluten Free:

• Bar­ley, bul­gar, bran
• Cous­cous
• Flours (usu­ally from wheat)
• Gardein, Gra­ham flour
• Kamut
• Malt/extract/syrup/vinegar (unless derived from corn — must are derived from barley)
• Matzo
• Oats/bran/syrup (Big dis­cus­sion about organic oats — your choice)
• Wheat based pasta
• Rye
• Sei­tan, semolina, reg­u­lar soy sauce, spelt
• Teriyaki sauce, triticale
• Udon
• Wheat/bran/starch/germ

Unusual Foods that MIGHT Con­tain Wheat or Gluten (Beware!)

• Low fat or fat free spreads
• Some canned vegetables
• Flour thick­ened sauces, dress­ings and vinaigrettes
• Soups (can and from an envelope)
• Ice creams
• Pud­ding
• Food colour­ing
• Binders
• Mod­i­fied starches
• Bouil­lon cubes
• Cot­tage cheese
• Some herbal teas
• Instant cof­fee

Let me know if you have any­thing I should add to my list!

Beet the Blood Preasure

Here in winter-locked Canada, beau­ti­ful beets are now offi­cially in season!

In addi­tion to being a colour­ful addi­tion to sal­ads and a great nat­ural sweet­ener, beets have also recently been found to be a pos­si­ble treat­ment for high blood pressure!

Peo­ple who drank a glass or two of beet­root juice a day (store-bought or home­made) found their blood pres­sure decreased by up to 10 points.

So if you have hyper­ten­sion, or just want to remind your taste buds that fresh sum­mer sal­ads are just around the cor­ner — think beets!

Putting Together a Salad: In all Shades of Green

Farm­ers Mar­ket Day 1

I have a con­fes­sion to make. I am salad challenged.

In fact, if they ever pub­lish a cook­book called Sal­ads 101 – A Quick and Easy Guide to Salad Free­dom, I’ll be the first one in line to buy it. I don’t think it’s a Latin Amer­i­can thing, so maybe it’s a Colom­bian or regional chal­lenge? Or per­haps, ashamed as I am to admit it, maybe it’s just my family.

All I know for sure is, at home, sal­ads meant just four things: ice­berg let­tuce, sliced toma­toes, and pick­led onions or scal­lions. Oh, and a tomato vinai­grette! Period.

All of which means that I am prob­a­bly the last per­son who should have an opin­ion about sal­ads. But ever since I became a per­sonal chef, I’ve noticed that a lot of other peo­ple tend to be salad chal­lenged, too — that’s prob­a­bly why the infa­mous Cae­sar Salad is the #1 seller in all restau­rants in North Amer­ica. And since I can’t pre­pare sal­ads in advance for my clients (they don’t keep well for more than a few days), I’ve come up with a list of things every­one should always keep at hand that will help them put together a fresh, healthy and deli­cious salad in no time.

When toss­ing a salad, it all comes down to hav­ing lay­ers of tex­tures, colours and flavours. I pre­fer not to get too cre­ative, so three or four choices from these ingre­di­ents will usu­ally do wonders.

So if you’re salad chal­lenged like me, why not try throw­ing some of these together tonight, to add a lit­tle green to your family’s table? If you aren’t famil­iar with some of these ingre­di­ents, all the bet­ter. After all, try­ing some­thing new and find­ing out whether or not you like it is when the fun begins. Who knows — it might become your new fam­ily favourite.

Let’s start tossing!

Mix ‘n Match:

Leafy veg­eta­bles: arugula, dan­de­lion greens, endive, radic­chio or water­cress, cab­bage (red or green), col­lard greens or kale, let­tuce (such as but­ter­head, leaf or romaine), napa cab­bage, purslane, spinach, spring mix (note: buy them, wash and dry very well; store in a Ziploc bag with a paper towel — if you have to buy pre-washed greens, don’t for­get to check the best before date)

Herbs: pars­ley, rose­mary, basil, chervil, thyme, mar­jo­ram, oregano

“Fruit” veg­eta­bles: avo­ca­dos, olives, sweet pep­pers (red, orange or yel­low), toma­toes, win­ter squash, zuc­chini and other sum­mer squash (note: if you cut an avo­cado, don’t for­get to imme­di­ately brush it all over with a lit­tle lemon juice to stop it from browning)

Fruit fruits: wild berries and apples

Flow­er­ing veg­eta­bles: broc­coli, broc­coflower, broc­col­ini, cauliflower

Edi­ble pods and peas: green peas, snow peas, sugar snap peas

Herbs and veg­etable flow­ers: capers, arti­chokes, squash blos­soms, chives, chervil, chamomile

Onions: green onions, red or sweet white onion

Root veg­eta­bles, shred­ded: car­rots, beets, cele­riac, daikon, radishes, rutabaga, turnips, kohlrabi

Sprouts: alfalfa, broc­coli, radish or sun­flower, mung bean or lentil, quinoa

Stalk veg­eta­bles: aspara­gus tips, cel­ery, fennel

Tubers: Jerusalem arti­chokes, jicama, fin­ger­ling potatoes

Beans and legumes: any kind of bean, cooked at home if pos­si­ble or, if pressed by time, Eden Organ­ics BPA-Free Cans will do, soy beans, split peas, lentils, chickpeas

Rice and Grains: rice, wild rice, quinoa, bar­ley, mil­let, cous­cous, orzo (these last two, not tech­ni­cally grains, but hav­ing a per­son­al­ity dys­func­tion, act like one)

Crunchy Addi­tions: tofu or bread crou­tons, nuts and seeds: sun­flower, pump­kin or sesame, pine nuts, plain, soaked and dried – or roasted, sea greens, pan-fried or toasted

Dress­ings: Add your favourite dress­ings. If made with flaxseed or hempseed or their oils, the dress­ing is a rich source of omega 3 fatty acids. If made with avo­cado, olives, seeds or their oils, the dress­ing is a rich source of the pro­tec­tive antiox­i­dant vit­a­min E.

Share your tips — what’s your favourite salad?