Gluten-Free Flours

When starting on a healing journey at Healing Arts many patients are muscle tested to stay away from wheat or gluten and need to find alternatives.  Listed below are some of my favorite alternatives when baking or breading.   

Almond flour

Nutrition benefits - Almond flour is great if you are eating paleo or keto. Almonds help lower cholesterol.  Almond flour is high in fiber and full of vitamin E.  It’s also a good source of iron and magnesium.  Less calories and carbs than coconut flour for those who are counting.

I have used it in baking brownies, cookies, breading chicken.  Keep flour in refrigerator so the nut oils don’t go rancid.  

Coconut flour

Nutrition benefits  - High in fiber and healthy fats also makes it paleo and keto friendly.   One of the healthy fats in coconut flour is lauric acid which is hard to find in other foods and is good for the skin and thyroid.    Again, because of the high fat content keep coconut flour in refrigerator.  

When substituting it for wheat use only 1/4th the amount of coconut flour.  If the recipe calls for 1 cup wheat or white flour then use only 1/4 cup coconut flour.  Eggs are important in coconut flour recipes because without eggs the coconut flour is dry and will fall apart.  I have made breads with it, just know it will be a dense bread that is so good!  I also use coconut flour to make macaroons, brownies and muffins.   

Buckwheat flour

Nutrition benefits - Despite its name buckwheat is not wheat but a nutrient-packed, gluten-free seed that is high in both protein and fiber. Its health benefits include cholesterol-lowering effects, anti-hypertension effects and improving digestion by reliving constipation.

Buckwheat is beneficial because it’s high in fiber and contains high levels of rutin, which is a type of antioxidant. Antioxidants can help protect the body from damage caused by free radicals, which can cause oxidative stress, affecting your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. For more info on the health benefits of buckwheat, click here. 

My family loves buckwheat pancakes! Also for breakfast there is hot cream of buckwheat cereal you can make easily like you would grits.  I also use buckwheat flour to make chocolate chip cookies.  

Oat flour

Nutrition benefits - Eating oats helps lower cholesterol, lower high blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart disease and so does oat flour.  Oats are considered safe for those with a gluten allergy or gluten intolerance.   Oat flour is also high in fiber.  I suggest purchasing sprouted oat flour to get the most health benefits from it.  When oats are sprouted their more nutrient dense.  Easy to make oat flour at home by using a food processor.  1.25 cup of rolled oats makes 1 cup oat flour.  Oat flour is great when making oatmeal cookies.  I also love using oat flour with rice flour to make banana bread.

Rice flours

Nutrition benefits - Rice flour is high in fiber and contains an essential nutrient called choline which is important for the liver.  Therefore rice flour can help improve liver health.  Brown rice flour contains the husk and therefore has more fiber and B vitamins than white rice flour.  

I have used rice panko bread crumbs for breading. At the store a lot of gluten-free breads are made with rice. Brown rice pasta is my favorite, very similar to regular pasta which I’m sure if you are adventurous enough you can make your own brown rice pasta at home.  I have been adventurous enough to make homemade mochi using sweet rice flour which is different than regular white rice flour and I love making a pound cake with white rice flour.  

Jennifer's Way Gluten-Free Bakery

At the suggestion of one of my patients who raved about it, I went to Jennifer's Way at 263 E 10th St, New York, NY 10009 at 1st Ave. this past weekend. Not only is it gluten-free but also refined sugar-free, soy-free, dairy-free, peanut-free and ORGANIC!!!

I went there 5pm on Saturday and the rolls were already sold out. But there were lots of other goodies, muffins. cupcakes, cookies, and bagels. I bought two sea salt bagels and this morning it was love at first bite!

Jennifer Esposito (yes, the actress) says on her website 'I’ve been a lover of food my whole life…the textures, tastes and smells! When I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2009, my whole world fell apart. I had to re-learn how to EAT, COOK and LIVE!! I quickly learned that gluten was the enemy and not just for me, a celiac, but for so many. I also learned that not all gluten-free food is created equally. I was longing for delicious, homemade flavors of yesterday, but ones that are HEALTHY and NUTRITIOUS as well. I created Jennifer’s Way as an answer to all of this. To be the CELIAC STANDARD, requiring the purest, healthiest, organic, non-GMO ingredients I could find. All made in a GLUTEN-FREE FACILITY, ensuring quality, nutrition and TASTE. For the celiac, the gluten-challenged, and anyone who demands CLEAN SAFE FOOD."

I know many of us can relate to Jennifer's story of relearning how to cook, eat and live as we take our own health into our hands and make healthier lifestyle choices. I love when people like Jennifer make it easier for us.

For my non-New Yorker patients or for those who don't want to make the trip down to East 10th St and 1st Ave the great news is that you can order online and right now they have a bagel sale! Buy one package of bagels and get the second package of bagels for half price. Offer good on ALL bagel varieties.
And as always, FREE SHIPPING on all online orders over $150.

Good Eggs - Local, Organic Food to Your Doorstep!

At the suggestion of a patient I checked out Good Eggs and it is AMAAAAAAAAZING! I highly believe in buying organic and local but I don't always have the time to go to the Farmer's Market so Rob Spiro, the genius that he is, put it online. Imagine Fresh Direct but straight from the farm. They have been in Brooklyn, San Francisco and parts of Los Angeles and New Orleans. And just last month they officially opened up Manhattan delivering in a handful of downtown neighborhoods. They're now delivering to Soho, West Village, Gramercy, Union Square, Flatiron, parts of Tribeca and Chelsea. This area covers: 10003, 10010, 10011, 10012, 10013 and 10014 (ZIP codes). They have plans to expand to more of Manhattan in the coming months.
Combined, the company uses more than 1,000 local farmers and food-makers.



On the website, www.goodeggs.com shoppers can sort by preferences such as items that are locally grown, vegetarian, vegan, organic, wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, heritage breed, kosher, or even made with pastured eggs. Delivery is available seven days a week and is free on orders over $75. Unfortunately this is not an immediate gratification site. Deliveries must be scheduled at least two days in advance. I find the prices reasonable considering you are getting it local, organic food delivered at the click of a button!

Wheat is a Genetically Modified Poison!

Eating gluten-free is hot right now. Many grocery stores and restaurants have gluten-free options but what exactly is gluten, why are people choosing to stay away from it and why do many of my patients who have food sensitivities eat wheat-free diets and not necessarily gluten-free diets? Burning questions, I know!

Gluten is a protein found in grains that include wheat, oat, spelt, rye, and barley and some people have a true allergy to it where their body cannot digest it so when consumed, their digestive track becomes inflamed, the intestinal wall damaged and over time celiac disease forms. Celiac disease is diagnosed by blood tests and examining a small piece of tissue from your intestinal track to see if it's damaged.

But a lot of people who feel that gluten may be an issue for them go for the celiac disease test and it comes back negative, yet they know they somehow feel better if they don't eat gluten. So even though there is no true gluten allergy causing a disease there could be a gluten sensitivity causing symptoms. That is why I muscle test to see if gluten is a problem for the body to digest and once off gluten their symptoms become dramatically better. Symptoms helped by not eating gluten when indicated by the muscle testing (also known at Nutrition Response Testing) include acne, constipation, diarrhea, gas, acid reflux, headaches. A lot of the times patients inform me about weight loss that occurs as a result as well.

Sometimes though, when testing the body, I don't find gluten as a problem for the body to digest but wheat itself is a problem. Whereas the other grains, oat, rye, spelt, etc. are okay for the patient to eat. So why would wheat be an issue but not gluten? The answer is because it has been genetically modified and the body looks at it as a toxin instead of a food. So for some bodies it is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published Wheat Belly. Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s." This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. The gliadin protein is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite. Opiates include chemicals like morphine, heroin and opium.

So when people stop eating wheat, just like when people stop eating gluten, they tend to lose weight. My patients have also found relief in digestive issues, fatigue, headaches, acne, severe PMS and brain fog. When making food options while staying off of wheat you know if it's gluten-free then it won't have wheat so buying/ordering gluten-free is an easy way to go about cleaning up the wheat in your diet.

Besides staying off of the bread, pasta, bagels, pretzels which are obvious white flour/gluten containing foods one should be careful of gravies, soups and salad dressings which tend to use wheat as a thickner. Soy sauce has gluten in it as well and so a lot of my patients go to a health food store and get gluten-free soy sauce and bring that to the restaurant when ordering sushi or sashimi.