Thursday, August 22, 2013

Gluten And Its Possibilities

By Scarlet Black


What is Gluten? It is a molecule of protein typically found in grains including barley, wheat and rye. Gluten can be found in almost all variety of cereal, grain or bread. But foods like sunflower seeds, oats, soybeans, teff, quinoa, amaranth, millet, buckwheat, corn and rice does not contain gluten meaning bread or food products that contain these ingredients 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.

Two kinds are people are known to avoid gluten, those people that believe that presence of gluten in their food may cause them health problems and those people suffering from gluten allergy or also known as Celiac disease. Below are some tips that can help you to live a gluten free life:

-People who are planning to live a gluten free life should make sure that they know what food products and ingredients usually contain gluten. Grains like wheat, rye and barley as well as pasta should be avoided since these kinds of foods contain gluten.

-In order for you to attain your goal of living a gluten free life, it is significant that you read the label of the foods that you are buying. You have to look out on the ingredients and content of the food that you are buying and watch out for food that contains "food starch" and "modified food starch".

-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.

-Several gluten free recipes are also available in the internet. Food recipes for foods such as gluten free alcoholic drinks, gluten free bread and gluten free crackers can be found be found in the internet.

-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.

Gluten is said to be an essential part of people's nutrition, however gluten may also cause digestive problems to some. For people who have observed that they are usually experiencing digestive problems after consuming foods that contain gluten, it is advisable to seek medical help in order for you to be diagnosed and treated if necessary.




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