Of course I had to follow up my last posting (How Wheat Makes You Sick) with something positive. And that is that there are a lot of terrific gluten-free products available on the market today.
I’m a novice explorer when it comes to gluten-free breads, pastas and the like. I’ve never felt a particular need to cut gluten out of my life, but with recent research and my participation in this month’s Ready-Set-Go, I’ve had all the motivation I need to at least make some substitutions.
The true test, for me, is a slice of bread. I’m fine with rice noodles instead of regular pasta; morning cereal is easily replaced with quinoa or millet flakes. But I do love me a sandwich. Family lore has it that one of my favorite expressions as a little girl was “Gramma, you make good sammichs.” And she did. Gramma Fletcher’s bread of choice was Sunbeam white, and it was the cure-all for whatever ailed us. Sniffly cold? Too much homework? Boy troubles? Whatever was raining on our parade, it could be wiped away with toasted Sunbeam and a thin layer of butter. Well, that and a bowl of sliced bananas sprinkled with sugar and doused with cold milk. But that’s another story.
It must have been a grandmother thing. My other grandmother, Grandma DeLarm, served us toasted cinnamon-raisin bread, also with a thin layer of butter for breakfast. I thought the marriage of raisins with bread was absolutely brilliant. It’s still something I crave as a comforting snack and every bite sends me back in time to her kitchen.
The point is: really good bread makes me happy; not really good bread makes me sad. I will enthusiastically eat a couple of pieces from a restaurant’s bread basket if it’s well-made with a chewy crust and a tender crumb (extra points if it’s warm). If it’s stale slices of just your average bread, I have zero interest in it (and I knock the restaurant down in my mind a couple of pegs).
So imagine my relief that even though I’m gluten-free for these few weeks, I can still have my sammich. I’ve been enjoying bread from Canyon Bakehouse – I like the short ingredient list that I can read and understand; plus it seems to use responsible fats and sugars. I think the bread itself is just like regular bread, so for me it’s a no-brainer. I’ve also heard people rave about Udi’s bread, but to me it’s second in comparison, both in texture and ingredients. But like I said, I’m really new at this, so I don’t have a ton of gluten-free bread under my belt.
Do you eat gluten-free products? What brands do you like? Leave your comments below, please!
Tags: bread, gluten-free, wheat
