Breaking Bread

I went gluten free in 2007, in an effort to put a stop to the migraines I'd suffered for years. Since then, it seems to have become highly fashionable to declare yourself 'Gluten Free', and it's one of those topics on which everyone has an opinion. Some people think that gluten intolerance is just a health hype, a new diet promoting expensive food that tastes like cardboard. Others think that it's all made up and that there's no such thing as gluten intolerance, and people should just harden up. A few see gluten as the root of all evil, and advocate gluten free diets as the first port of call for any health problem.

I couldn't tell you which is right. For me, my quality of life and health have been greatly improved by cutting gluten out. Regardless of the whys and wherefores, my belief is that anything that makes me feel sick is something to avoid. However, I think there's more to it than that.  You see, not being able to eat gluten has made me acutely conscious of what I choose to use to fuel my body. I can't just live off white bread and butter (seriously, I used to do this). I had to learn to read ingredients lists, and think about where my food came from and how it and been processed before it got to the table.

I also learned that in the eyes of many food companies, 'gluten free' is synonymous with 'cardboard'. Most commercial GF products are reasonably tasteless, and scarily expensive to boot.  Instead, we started making our own GF bread alongside Laura and Dave's regular, glutinated bread. A bit of experimentation and we had chocolate cookies, cakes and puddings too - all Natalie-friendly.

So when my friends laugh and say that they're sorry for the restrictions in my diet, I have to laugh. Stopping eating gluten has made mealtimes a little more challenging, but infinitely tastier. I have a stack of containers, filled regularly at Bin Inn, with various gluten free flours. I don't rely on supermarket-bought loaves, and (most importantly) I eat more real food, and less artificial flavours and colours.

Here's the recipe I use for GF bread - I picked it up at Outward Bound last year.

1 1/2 cups rice flour

1/2 cup corn flour

1/2 cup potato flour

1/4 cup other GF flour (eg sorghum, soy)

2 tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 cup oil

1/2 tsp xantham gum

Mix with warm water until it looks like pancake mix. You should be able to use a whisk to mix it.

Pour into greased oven container (loaf tin/pyrex bowl/etc)

Leave in warm place 40 mins… or until you get around to retrieving it.

Bake until done. Try 150o for 45 minutes but I never really know how long mine will take.

Extract from tin; eat. Very good with butter and/or toasted.

- Nat