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.  

Grainless Food that Tastes Great!

Grainless Goodies!

Here is a list of our favorite foods that are grainless and yet still taste good! I know hard to believe, but it's true.  Healing Arts tested and approved list for your convenience.  
Don't know what to eat for breakfast?  Try Coconut Flakes.  That's all they are, coconut meat, coconut water and palm starch.  All these can be found on thrivemarket.com which if you haven't tried yet you must!  It's an easy way to get all these products shipped to you at a lower cost than what you would find at your local health food store.  
 

Do you have a craving for granola?  Try this grainless granola that can be found at Whole Foods or online.  It's a delicious nuts and seeds combo blended with a generous portion of unsweetened coconut and berries. They have all different flavors.  


Try these tortilla chips make with coconut!  They are thick and hearty and will go with any dip.  They come in different flavors which I haven't tried and the company also makes cookies!


Here's another tortilla chip alternative made from cassava which is a root vegetable, kind of like a potato.  These chips are thinner than the coconut version and also come in lime flavor.  


Want crackers with your soup or as a quick snack? Try these made with almond flour.  Can be found at Whole Foods or other health food stores. 

Trying to find an alternative to bread to make a great sandwich? These two different wraps could be what you are looking for.  The first one is is made from coconut, is a little sweet and thicker.  The second one is from cassava and doesn't add any taste at all.  

         

Need a Snack? Try Paleovalley

A lot of my patients come to me asking about good snack ideas. They are working hard to change their diet as per my recommendations after giving them a very personalized, specific diet and as they read ingredients they realize how food they once thought was healthy really isn't very healthy especially when it comes to 'health bars'. If you like beef jerky and you can do fruits in your diet Epic bars are a great option that you can pick up at Whole Foods and other health food stores. But what about Kind bars, Cliff bars, Lara bars? Cliff bars have soy in them and are not necessarily organic so I would stay away from them. Lara bars are fruit based and so that can be hard for some of my patients. Kind bars have nuts and fruit in them, sweetened with honey. Not all of them have fruit in them so that can be a good option but some of my patients cannot do nuts so what is left?



Organic, pure, whole food is the best snack. Meaning, anything your great, great grandmother could have eaten, you should eat as a snack too. A boiled egg, a piece of chicken, carrot sticks, etc. the less processed the better but I know we are a society on the go so what is a healthy 'on-the-go' snack? Try Paleovalley Superfood Bars. They are full of antioxidant rich foods such as spirulina and chlorella, but are cashew butter based. Cashew is seen as a nut but is truly a bean so cashews may be something you can do even though you are staying away from nuts. These health bars do however have fruit in them. They have blueberries, acai berries and cherries for antioxidant properties and it does use dates and honey for sweetness for a total of 11 grams of sugar. So if you are avoiding fruit these would not be the bars for you. Instead try their beef snack sticks, given you aren't a vegetarian. Their beef is grass-fed just like in the Epic bar but unlike the Epic bar, they do not contain fruit. There are not chemical preservatives and they use the tiniest bit of sweetener from tapioca. You can also make your own health bar with the recipe in this newsletter! If you make your own it will definitely save on the grocery bill and you can make it exactly the way you want.

Hu Kitchen

Hu stands for Human, as in their logo, 'get back to human' and their food philosophy is paleo. My diet is paleo, minus the fruit, so of course, I love this place! But Hu Kitchen is so much more! It's fresh food is farm to people and it also has shelves stocked with paleo friendly food. If you aren't familiar with the paleo diet, just know that it is gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, soy-free goodness! You also won't find any GMOs in this place.



What I love most is Hu Chocolate and instead of telling you what is in it, Hu tells you what is NOT in their chocolate. No refined sugar, soy lecithin, gluten, emulsifiers, GMO or cane sugar. They use coconut sugar as the sweetener which is paleo friendly. I suggest Hu chocolate so often to my patients as a healthier alternative that I can't believe it took me this long to get them in the office for patients' convenience. We are now selling them in the office for $5 a bar and we carry a variety. You can also make your own chocolate using honey with this recipe. For more info on how healthy cocoa is for you, read this article.

Bad news: there is only one Hu Kitchen, at 14th St and 5th Ave.
78 5TH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10011
to be exact.

Good news: you can buy their chocolate at the office!

Should You Be A Vegetarian?

My patients often ask if I'm a vegetarian. I am not. My diet is free of gluten, sugar, dairy and fruit but not animal protein. Think paleo without the fruit. I love fruit. It has a lot of good vitamins in it but my body doesn't love it. In 2001 I did spend 3.5 years being a vegetarian but it wasn't for me. At first I felt like it was a relief to my body to go vegetarian but eventually my health started declining so I started eating meat again but I am 85% vegetarian.  That other 15% is just enough meat to make my body happy.  I can respect eating vegetarian or even going all the way vegan but unfortunately what I have found in my office is that being vegan for a long period of time is a disservice to the body. Being vegetarian can be sustainable given your body type and that's why muscle testing is so important. Everyone is different.

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is an MD who wrote a great article on this topic called Feeding vs. Cleansing. This article explains the importance of a plant based diet for a temporary time in order to cleanse the body.  

                           

"Human body (without water) is largely made out of protein and fat (almost half and half), these are the 'bricks and mortar' from which your bones, muscles, brain, heart, lungs, liver and all other organs are made. Laboratory analysis of plants and animal foods show that the best protein and fat for human physiology comes from animal foods. The amino acid profile of animal protein is correct for the human body, while amino acid profile of plant-derived proteins is incomplete and unsuitable for human physiology. The same with fat: animal fat has the right fatty acid composition for human body to thrive on, while plant oils are unsuitable. So, when it comes to FEEDING your body and BUILDING your bodily tissues and structures animal foods are the best and the only suitable ones."

If you are thinking about becoming a vegetarian or are a vegetarian and you are thinking about incorporating more animal product you can always let me know so I can test the body and see what your body says. Just ask me; the answer is always to muscle test!