A presentation at a meeting of Alamo Celiac San Antonio in June 2008.

Eating healthfully is a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, something that I am very passionate about. I was brought up eating whole foods. Today, “Whole Foods” is the name of a grocery store chain, but when I use the term “whole food,” I refer to foods that have not been refined. My family’s diet was low in fat and sugar and included ingredients such as whole wheat flour, wheat germ, and blackstrap molasses. When I married, my husband was the child of a Southern cook. His family used refined flours and seasoned their foods with bacon grease, butter, and sugar. Because I wanted to please my husband, I decided to learn to cook the way he was accustomed to eating. I knew it was not as healthful as the way my family ate, but at the time, I decided to try it. I was not long into the endeavor when a friend who was a biologist came to eat at our house. Looking at our diet, he remarked with youthful frankness, “You guys eat cruddy,” and advised me to read a particular book on nutrition. (By the way, this man is a friend of ours to this day, and he swears he never said that.) The book he recommended, which has long been out of print, not only convinced me to return to a more healthful way of eating, but it also began my life-long interest in nutrition and wholesome cooking.

A number of years later, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. At the time of my diagnosis – about 14½ years ago – the only flours that were available to me were white rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, and cornstarch. These starchy flours are basically nutrient-free, aside from having calories. I could make all kinds of delicious things with them, but they were very low in nutrients. Therefore, as the new flours came out, flours that were whole foods with more nutrients in them, I was eager to try them. (I hesitate to call such flours “whole grain flours” because some of them are not grains, such as coconut flour and almond flour, so I will refer to them as “whole food flours.”)

Comparison of White Rice Flour & Brown Rice Flour

White Rice Flour. Regular rice flour is a fine, powdery flour made from regular white rice.

Brown Rice Flour. This ground whole grain flour uses both the bran and the germ for improved nutrition.

Comparison of Potato Starch Flour & Potato Flour

Potato Starch Flour. A very fine potato starch flour which is excellent in baking when combined with other flours.

Potato Flour. This gluten-free flour is made from cooked, dried, and ground potatoes.

In addition to being more healthful, I have found that the whole food flours have more flavor. They actually have better flavor. Furthermore, they bring moisture into baked products. I find that cookies and breads have a much better texture when they contain whole food flours than when they are made exclusively with the starchy flours. On the other hand, whole flours produce a denser product. If I want a light, fluffy angel food cake but make it with brown rice flour, almond flour, and coconut flour, the cake will be as heavy as lead. I like it that way. However, to produce a light cake, I will have to use the flours that don’t have as many nutrients in them because they are not as dense. Using flours that produce a lighter product may be acceptable for a special occasion, but it would not be a healthful way to eat all the time.

To use whole grain or whole food flours other than brown rice flour in baking, begin by substituting a small amount of them for refined flour in the recipe. For example, if the recipe calls for 3 cups of flour and I want to try using sorghum or amaranth or another flour, on the first attempt, I remove a fourth to a half cup of the refined flour and add back an equivalent amount of the whole grain flour. If I like the finished product, the next time I will add a little bit more of the whole flour. It is perfectly acceptable to experiment. Do not be afraid to try it. If a recipe flops, run the baked product through the food processor and use it as crumbs in something else. I have done that many times with flopped bread; it becomes crumbs for meat loaf or some other recipe calling for bread crumbs.

Besides using whole flours, we can make our diets more healthful by using whole grains as cereals. For those of us who miss eating oatmeal and are afraid to eat gluten-free oats or have a reaction to gluten-free oats, there are other options. For example, there is quinoa. It comes in a red and a light variety. My personal preference is for the red variety, though there is not much difference between the two. Quinoa takes about 15 minutes to cook in the microwave. For one serving, I set my microwave on full power for a minute and a half, and then I set it on 50 per cent power for about 12 minutes. While the quinoa is cooking, I empty the dishwasher, get ready to go out, or do some other task, and when I come back, my breakfast is ready. I do the same thing with whole grain teff. Teff is a small grain from Ethiopia. At one time, teff was suspect for having gluten, but it has now been cleared of all charges. It does not have any gluten, and we can safely eat it. It is delicious and has a kind of nutty flavor. It can be cooked in exactly the same way as quinoa. We can also use buckwheat. Buckwheat is sold as whole grains or as a cracked granulation. Like quinoa and teff, whole buckwheat takes approximately 15 minutes to cook, but the cracked variety takes only a minute and a half to cook in the microwave. For a very fast breakfast, I cook cracked buckwheat in the microwave, add cinnamon and dried fruit and nuts to it. It makes a very tasty, wholesome breakfast. Another product that is very fast to cook is quinoa flakes. This is almost instant. Pour hot water on it, and within a minute, it is ready to eat.

Whole grains can be used in other ways besides as flour or cereal. Whole quinoa makes a good substitute for couscous or rice in salads or in other recipes calling for rice. It is higher in several different nutrients than rice. Whole buckwheat is also nice in salads calling for pasta, although it does not taste like pasta. Buckwheat has a taste resembling bulgur wheat. (I think I remember what bulgur wheat tastes like.) Quinoa flakes can be used instead of bread crumbs in meat loaf. In addition, I use quinoa flakes as a substitute in making oatmeal cookies. These ideas are a sampling of different ways to use whole grains.

There are a number of whole food flours to choose from besides brown rice. Teff flour is one that I usually use in breads. It is nutty in taste and has a rich, dark color. It is important to note that there is a difference between teff flour and whole grain teff. The whole grain is used like a cereal, not as a flour. I found that out by accident one time.

Coconut flour is absolutely wonderful. People who like the taste of coconut will especially enjoy this. Those who do not like coconut may want to stay away from this flour or just use a very small amount. I use it frequently in conjunction with almond flour and brown rice flour. The proportion I use is 4 parts of brown rice flour to 1 part almond flour and 1 part coconut. I find that particular combination is good for making cookies, muffins, pancakes, and other baked goods that produce individual servings. Large loaves made with that combination of flours tend to be too dense without the addition of lighter flours.

Q. You would add some tapioca flour?

A. Yes, I add a little bit of tapioca flour or a little bit of potato starch, usually tapioca flour because tapioca flour gives a little bit of chewiness to the bread.

Q. Is coconut flour high in cholesterol?

We have discussed using quinoa grain and quinoa flakes, and there is also quinoa flour. Most people think that quinoa flour has a very bland, mild taste, but for some reason I can taste it quite distinctly. The same is true of garbanzo flour. Therefore, I use these two flours sparingly, but I do use them because they contribute to a moist texture and add some cohesiveness to the dough so it holds together better.

Mesquite flour is something new. I had a little adventure with this several years ago. I thought “You know, I’ve got a mesquite tree in my front yard. I can make my own mesquite flour.” This was during a time when a college friend of my daughter was living with us. She walked into the kitchen one day, and seeing all my projects, said, “What is this? You’ve got herbs drying here, and you’ve got mesquite pods drying here, and you’re grinding your own flour over here. What are you? Pioneer woman? Mother Nature?” I found out that mesquite flour is very hard to grind. It is easy enough to grind the pod, but the little seeds inside that contain protein, which I would really like to add to my baked goods, are very, very hard to grind. I could not grind them in the food processor, the blender, or even my little coffee mill. So, my advice is to buy the flour. It saves the trouble of collecting, washing, drying, and grinding the pods. Mesquite flour has an interesting flavor. It adds a little bit of sweetness to dough. Because of its pronounced flavor, I would recommend using just a little bit at a time. I use it in muffins that will also have cinnamon, cloves, or other strong spices, and in that combination, it is very good.

Q. What about zucchini bread or carrot cake?

A. Perfect.

Q. Foccaccia?

A. Mesquite lends itself more to sweet baked goods rather than spicy or savory flavors, but it does not hurt to try it; you might like it.

Q. Where can you buy it?

A. (Anne Barfield: I’ve seen it at H-E-B and Central Market for sure.) I think Whole Foods up in Austin has it too.

Potato flour is tricky to use. It is made from whole potatoes using the skin and cortex as well as the starch. Potato starch flour only uses the starchy part of the potato. The flour made from whole potato is a very dense, very heavy flour. It is advisable to use maybe a tablespoon or two in baked goods. As an experiment, substitute it for one tablespoon of another flour in a recipe see how the recipe turns out. As an example, I put about a tablespoon in a batch of pancakes. Potato flour tends to hold a lot of moisture into dough or batter, which is good, but if there is too much potato flour, the finished product will have a soggy texture. I had that happen with bread one time. I used too much potato flour in the dough, and the bread turned out like bread pudding.

Q. Are potato starch and potato flour interchangeable?

A. They are not. Potato flour is denser, holds more moisture, has more flavor, and can only be used in small amounts.

On the other hand, potato flour is excellent for breading or coating things, such as for dredging chicken or vegetables for frying. Dredging chicken in it is sort of like getting fried chicken with mashed potatoes all at the same time. My husband likes potato flour better than regular flour on his chicken, and he is not a celiac.

A recent product on the market is Montina flour. It is fairly expensive, but it adds a pleasant whole-grain texture and taste to baked breads. The flour comes from an Indian ricegrass grown in Montana, and it is available as pure Montina flour or as an all-purpose blend of flours. I buy plain Montina because I enjoy making up my own flour blends. This is a flour that is very grainy, but because of its good flavor, I enjoy using it in biscuits.

An old-fashioned flour with a pronounced flavor is buckwheat. Most people’s experience with buckwheat flour is limited to eating it in pancakes. Like the other flours with a distinguishable flavor, it is best to use it in small amounts or with other strong-flavored spices or herbs.

There are many more whole food flours that are available in today’s market, for example: sorghum, amaranth, and all types of nut flours such as pecan, hazelnut, and almond. People with nut allergies will have to avoid the nut flours, and people who have an allergy to pigweed, as I do, may not be able to tolerate amaranth, which is a relative of pigweed. However, there are many other whole food flours that I would encourage people to try. When I first began to use and experiment with whole food flours, there were very few recipes. I was pretty much making recipes up as I went along. Today, there are a number of recipes on the Internet for using whole flours, and a person does not have to be Pioneer Woman to use them.

A final product that I want to introduce is the reformulated Rice Chex, which is now gluten free. The box says it is a whole grain product, and it does contain whole grain rice as well as some refined rice. What makes it important to us is that it is a mainstream product that soon should be available in almost any grocery store. For some time, stores will have some of the older Chex in stock and on the shelves. Therefore, it is necessary to verify that a box of Rice Chex is the new formula by looking for the words “Gluten Free” next to a big check mark on the front of the box. I bought a box of Rice Chex with the intention of substituting cereal for graham crackers in a recipe to make graham cracker crust. I have good news to report on that experiment. I made a dessert that the whole family shared, and everybody liked it, including the gluten eaters. The next day, since the first batch of dessert was completely gone, I decided to make the same recipe using gluten-free flours in the imitation graham cracker crust rather than using Rice Chex. I liked the crust made with coconut flour and almond flour better, but to my surprise, the family liked the Chex version better. Apparently it tasted more like what they were used to, and I have become so accustomed to gluten-free ingredients that I liked the coconut-almond combination better.

Q. How do you make the crust?

A. I put the cereal into a food processor and processed it until it was the consistency of cracker crumbs. Then I added butter and sugar according to the recipe.