WELCOME TO GLUTEN FREE COOKIES.
Even if you are not sensitive to gluten,you will find that gluten free cookies are great fun to make. Substituting gluten free, easily digested, nutrition-rich flours for the wheat flour we normally use gives our digestion a treat as well as the taste buds. If you are vegetarian, then the gluten free cookies which we tell you how to make will help provide protein and other nutrients to your diet.
WHAT IS GLUTEN?
Gluten is a type of protein found in wheat and rye. Many people have problems digesting the protein which we call gluten. Some people have coeliac disease with a gut that is not performing its digestive function properly. This coeliac condition usually improves once wheat and rye are omitted from the diet. If these grains are not omitted, then the small bowel becomes damaged even further. This leads to malnutrition: the small intestine is challenged by the gluten contained in the wheat. This causes food to be rushed through the intestines, the result being that the vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats in your food are not processed. You might notice that your stools are pale and smelly, or not formed properly, or that you have diarrhea.
The other thing which happens with coeliac disease is that with the continued bombardment of undigested gluten-rich wheat or rye flour into the intestines, toxins and mucous are produced which further damage the walls of the intestines. This is because the intestines are not capable of treating the undigested mixture of food which they are presented with. Some of these toxins are then reabsorbed back into the blood stream, which most surely makes you feel unwell.
Some people have a sensitivity to the gluten in wheat flour without the typical signs of bowel damage associated with the coeliac person. But damage to the bowel is the likely result if gluten, contained in wheat, is a continued part of the diet. You could make yourself into a coeliac sufferer by continuing to use wheat and rye in the diet.
The good news is that, unless you are unfortunate enough to have sensitivities to sugar and dairy as well, in which case you will need to learn how to cook without these ingredients,then you can still eat cookies such as the recipes we have posted onto this site. (look at the “Pages” column for our recipes) We simply substitute other grains which don’t have gluten in their make-up.
GLUTEN-FREE ALTERNATIVES TO WHEAT FLOUR
Wheat is a handy baking substance, as the gluten contained within the wheat helps to make your baking rise. Nothing else is quite as light as wheat-flour baking, but some good results can be used by substituting other flours from other grains. These are:
Rice flour
Yellow cornmeal flour (or maize)
Tapioca flour
Arrowroot flour
Buckwheat flour
Soy flour
Millet
Oats
Of course, some people have specific allergies to some of the above-mentioned grains and their flours, but generally speaking, these flours are good substitutes for wheat and rye. Oats actually do contain a type of gluten, but this is a relatively small amount. Many people are able to digest the type of gluten found in oats: a medium helping of oatmeal porridge daily, or oats eaten in gluten free cookies should be a safe amount for most people.