If you have a wheat allergy than you know cooking can become a real hassle. The good news is as more and more people are being diagnosed with wheat allergies, more food manufactures are making more wheat substitutes, so that you can have the food you like without the bad reactions.
One of the first things I realized is that you must really read the labels to avoid wheat. Products that you would never even think have wheat in them. For instance, for whatever reason, frozen French fries have wheat in them.
The other thing you will also begin to realize is that almost all processed food has wheat. If you have a wheat allergy, you will now need to learn to cook whole foods and completely avoid processed foods. This is not only a healthier way to eat but for food allergy sufferers, the best bet for you.
In the last few years, the food manufactures have noticed that there is a niche in the market and are developing good tasting food without the wheat. With a little time and research you are now able to eat almost anything you like, minus the wheat.
You can now find dozens of different types of flour. They have rice flours, oat flour, and soy flour just to name a few. You can try using these in your favorite recipes. The thing to remember though is I have yet to find a substitute flour that will trade equally to wheat flour. That means if your recipe calls for a half cup of wheat flour you cannot use a half-cup of soy flour, you will have to do a little finagling. As you learn the different flours, you will learn how to mix them and get the same results. For instance, if you need a thickener for gravy try potato starch. It will thicken a gray just like wheat flour but you will need to use more of it. Just keep adding it until you have the results that you want.
You can purchase from some manufactures already combined flour combinations that will work for certain items. Take pancake mix. There are many food manufactures that offer pancake mix with no wheat in them; all you do is add egg and milk. And the best a part is they really taste just like a regular pancake.
What I have found is that if I use whole food, I can, after a little trial and error figure out how to make any recipe I want without having to have wheat in it. If you are not that patient a cook, take a look at either your local or internet health food store, there are now lots of pre-made mixes that have everything you need in them except maybe milk and eggs.
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