Wednesday, April 4, 2012

I Want To Have A Dinner Party BUT… My Friends Are Gluten-Free

Found this blog and had to share!!
If you're like me, you're wishing you had invested in the largest manufacturer of plastic straws last Wednesday.  I can only imagine how many of those boxes flew off the racks last week because my throngs of devoted, loyal, inspired readers were slurrrrping up more smoothies than two lovestruck pups with a plate of spaghetti.
*Sigh* Young love.  And spaghetti -- the perfect large party quick dish.  EXCEPT, if your party guests are... GLUTEN-FREE...........
Poor Goldilocks.  I wouldn't have put my plastic-straw-market-wins on gluten leading to the demise of a woman trespassing into Grizzly Manor, but you win some, you lose some.

So what exactly is this Gluten-free stuff all about?

Apparently this carb-cutting regimen is a treatment for celiac disease.  Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease in which the ingestion of gluten induces enteropathy, or inflammation of the gut, in genetically susceptible individuals. This destruction of the gut means that nutrients cannot be absorbed, leading to a variety of clinical symptoms: anemia due to the lack of iron, atherosclerosis due to the lack of calcium, failure to thrive in children, GI stress, chronic fatigue, neurological disorders, nutrient deficiencies, anemia, nausea, skin rashes, depression, and more..  (Scientific American and Food Renegade).

But I must say, that it's hard not to feel like this whole diet is a fad because of it's recent crazy popularity.  It feels like celiac disease is the new deviated septum....  No?  I know.  That was not P.C.  But I'm not deleting it soooooo....... anyway! 

Back to the topic at hand. A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten is found in grains such as wheat, barley, rye and triticale (a cross between wheat and rye).


In the past few years, researchers have learned that the primary culprit in celiac disease and gluten-intolerance is a particular peptide strand in the gluten molecule, not the gluten itself. It is theorized that this peptide strand wasn’t present in ancestral varieties of wheat. And, we’ve also learned that the long, slow ferments necessary for making traditional sourdough breads also severs the bonds of this particular peptide strand while leaving enough of the remaining gluten proteins in tact to achieve a pleasant rise (without gluten, your whole wheat bread couldn’t rise). (Food Renegade)

In other words:


So... let's just jump ahead to this week's challenggggeee! 

Make a gluten-free recipe!!

I'm going to make a gluten free - dairy free, paw paw bread recipe by a fellow Ithacan, Allison, who specializes in this genre.  I will share the recipe once it comes through!

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Look for the HC Victim guest posts each Wednesday by Lauren O'Rourke where you can enjoy her struggles and triumphs in the kitchen.

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