Wheat-free... one step at a time

I love to bake.  The problem is that I have learned that my body does not process wheat very well.  In fact, my bowels and my digestive tract seem to only function properly when I cut wheat completely out of my diet.  Before that, I had a lot of pain and discomfort and all of that other good (bad) stuff around my midsection, not to mention the dry patchy rashes I also got on my skin – mostly my upper arms.  And when it got really bad, it felt like a dry patchy rash lined the inside of my digestive tract causing a constant soreness and sharp pains as food passed through the whole… way… down. 

So obviously, I was soooo glad to figure out that wheat was the culprit... except that it meant that my whole diet would have to change.  And for any of you out there that have tried to bake or even cook with wheat-substitute flours – you know that it can be a challenge – especially if you are on a budget.  

So here enters Pinterest into my dilemma.  I’ve found that a lot of recipes posted on Pinterest are tried and true.  So almost 6 years into my “no more wheat” quest, I finally started to find some promising recipes.  Who knew that a pin board for just about anything could be the solution to my Wheat-free baking and cooking problem? 

Well, the start of the solution anyway.  A lot of recipes called for odd ingredients that are expensive and hard to find.  And some things just aren’t feasible if they cost an arm and a leg or if you have to travel across the world to get them.  However, the more I learned about different flours and leavening agents, the easier it became to recognize recipes that I knew would work AND what ingredients I could substitute to make the working recipe a feasible recipe for my circumstance.

Now, Wheat-free doesn’t always mean Gluten-free, but Gluten-free always means Wheat-free.  So Gluten- free recipes are always safe, but they never include ingredients that I prefer to use in my flour blends like regular oat flour.  And most things taste differently with different flours, so the rest of my family prefers to still eat wheat.  So I usually end up making two of everything, unless the taste and texture is almost identical – like with oat flour blender pancakes.

So for me, though this was a good and needed discovery for my personal health, it adds to the daily complications that I already get to monitor.  But you know, it is a lot easier to deal with daily complications when you feel healthy, than when you feel like you would rather curl up in a ball and stay in bed all day.  

So my quest continues as I learn and eventually find things that work for me!  Wish me luck… and continue to post your tried and true Wheat-free and Gluten-free recipes on Pinterest so that I can stumble across them!  I appreciate it!

Please visit my blog for more on my wheat-free journey:  www.wheatlovesmenot.blogspot.com