Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Gluten And Its Possibilities

By Scarlet Black


A protein molecule that is normally found in grains like wheat, barley and rye is known as gluten. Gluten is mostly found in almost all kinds of grain, bread and cereals. Foods that do not contain gluten include oats, sunflower seeds, teff, soybeans, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, rice and corn which mean that food products that make use of these ingredients mostly are gluten free.

The main purpose of using gluten as a main ingredient for bread is that it makes the bread elastic and chewy. Therefore, if gluten is not included in the ingredients of bread, the bread dough becomes thick and sticky that may result to a bread that is hard and dense. Aside from its ability to make the bread rise and make it chewy and elastic, gluten also provides proteins and nutrients. Other than that, it also helps to give bread their beautiful and normal shape and appearance. Another characteristic of gluten is its ability to absorb. You can observe that bread has the ability to absorb not only water but other liquids like gravy or pasta sauces, this is because of the gluten's ability to absorb liquid. This is also the reason why gluten is commonly used in many meat substitute products because gluten can imitate the absorbent quality of meat.

There are two kinds of people that avoid gluten, those people suffering from Celiac disease or people that are allergic to gluten and those people that believe presence of gluten in food that they eat may cause them health problems. Here are some tips on how to be able to live gluten free:

-If you have already decided to live your life free from gluten, you have to make it a point that you know what food products and ingredients contain gluten in order for you to be able to avoid them. Foods to be avoided include rye, pasta, wheat and barley.

-Reading the labels of foods that you are buying is essential in order for you to make sure that you will not buy foods that contain gluten. Ingredients such as "food starch" and "modified food starch" may mean that they contain gluten.

-Gluten free diets is not only accepted in countries like USA but also in many other countries and there are restaurants and food chains that serve a gluten free menu to help those people that are avoiding gluten to be consistent with their diet plan.

-If you ran out of ideas on foods to serve that are gluten free, you can always use the internet to search for recipes for gluten free foods. You can also use the internet to search for food recipes that makes use of gluten free alcoholic drinks, gluten free bread and gluten free crackers.

-For food recipes requiring flour, such as recipes that needs or requires gravy, you can skip the use of flour and try making either arrow root or corn starches which are two of the most acceptable ingredients to substitute flour in making gravy and other food products that require the use of flour.

Despite the fact that gluten is an important part of people's nutrition, it also has the tendency to cause digestive problems in some people. That is why one should make sure that if they think they are experiencing digestive problems after consuming foods and food products that contain gluten, it is important that you consult a doctor for you to be tested for the possibility of having gluten allergy and be given with appropriate treatment plan.




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