I live a gluten/wheat free & dairy (cows milk) free lifestyle and am looking for some new ways of making food that would incorporate higher amounts of fiber.
Right now at the grocery store most gluten free breads have 2g of fiber or less. I have found 1 brand of bagels with 3g and they also carry hot dog buns that are 4g but I am looking to start making more of my own food to cut costs. Got any ideas?
Store bought gluten free bread can be tough…most of it I’ve tried it and I hate it.
I’ve tried making my own, but it’s still low in fiber and most of my attempts haven’t come out very good.
The absolute best one that I recently tried is Udi’s, you can google their bakery it’s in Denver. Some stores like Whole Foods have recently started carrying their products. Their white bread has 1 gram and their whole grain I think has 2. So its still kind of low, although it tastes amazing.
My favorite GF pasta is by Bionature, it’s awesome
Most gluten free flours are low in fiber because they are rice based.
Try to eat whole grains (brown rice, quinoa) and eat lots of fruit and veggies. Beans are good for you too. When doing gluten free baking/cooking coconut flour has a good amount of fiber (just don’t add too much!), so does quinoa. Bean flour is supposed to be good too, but I haven’t tried that yet.
Popcorn is a good snack that has fiber, just make sure it’s gluten free!
There are some good gluten free cereals that are high fiber for example http://www.naturespath.com/products/vegetarian/crunchy-vanilla-sunrise
You can also buy gluten free oats (like Bobs Red Mill) and make your own GF oatmeal, you can also buy other hot cereals made with Quinoa (you can look up GF products on Amazon, they have a good selection, the biggest thing is that they sell in bulk)
As far as making your own food, a lot of it is experimenting with cooking, converting recipes to gluten free. This is something that I’m still working on (I’ve been fully gluten free for about 8 or 9 months). Doing research into different types of gluten free flours and how they function help. For example corn starch or tapioca starch work well for thickening when making soups. Corn starch mixed with some GF breadcrumbs and spices makes for a good breaded chicken to serve with garlic pasta or homemade french fries.
I use Bette Hagman’s flour for a starter for when I’m baking. Her ratio is 2 cups white rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch flour (NOT the same as potato flour), and 1/3 cup tapioca starch. You can mix this in bulk and keep it in a container to use as needed.
Then when I’m baking I also add corn starch (helps with the texture) and/or coconut flour (adds fiber and helps make it lighter and not as dense). Just be careful to only add a little coconut flour, it’s high in fiber so it can add some stomach distress if you add too much.
Of course, that’s just what I’ve found so far and I’m open to suggestions/recipes as well…
Gluten free recipes:
http://www.stuff4you.biz/glutenfree.asp