Make It Low Carb gluten free because low carb means never having to say you're hungry low carb advice recipes links

Mailbag: Gluten Free?
10-Feb-2004

For health reasons, I can't eat gluten (no wheat, barley, or rye). Having mastered gluten-free baking now I'm low carbing, and wondering how to bake low-carb gluten-free.

I have been using a combination of bean flour (garfava) (23 g of carbs and 3 g of fiber per 1/4 cup -- see www.authenticfoods.com), sorghum flour, corn starch, and tapioca flour (all similarly high carb). It looks to me like the low carb recipes are mostly gluten-free, with the exception of vital wheat gluten. Can you suggest a substitute for that ingredient? I'd love to enjoy pancakes or muffins occasionally, and I could really use some advice.

Thanks!
Susie

Dear Susie,

Low carb and gluten free are pretty compatible. My favorite flour substitutes are nut flours (usually almond flour, but sometimes hazelnut), and whey protein isolate. If you are not sensitive to soy, soy flour makes an excellent alternative as well.

The one thing that's very difficult to recapture is the texture of baked goods made with wheat flour, but you can approach that texture using natural gums, such as xanthan gum, plus powdered egg whites, an acid source, and baking powder. There are some wonderful recipes at the Low Carb Transformation forums that use no wheat products; check it out

There are many other LC recipe sites online, too, so don't limit yourself to LCT! In an upcoming column I'll be discussing stocking the LC pantry. Look for that article as it will have more specifics about the different ingredients. I hope this little bit of information has been helpful to you as a beginning.

Thanks for writing.

Regards,
Joan