<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Ann's prior email on "Thick n Thin low carb flour" (non GF) inspires me
to share my thoughts on this with all of you:

You could mix your own "low-carb" flour easily enough, just by using
high-protein flours rather than high-carb flours.  That's all low-carb
flour is, usually a substitution where some bean or nut flour (almost
always soybean flour) is substituted for part of the wheat flour in the
formulation.  Voila!  Now it's "low-carb."  Kind of a racket, isn't it?

There is another way to think about this, even within the wheat flours,
each species has different nutritional components (compare various "hard
wheats" vs. "soft wheats".)   The softer ones are used to make the
higher carb "cake flour", while the harder ones, or higher protein
flours, are used to mix "bread flour", with "all-purpose flour" being
somewhere in the middle ground, maybe half and half of each.  Every
manufacturer uses different sources and has their own formula.  The
harder the wheat, the more gluten-type proteins it contains, therefore
the more "chew" in the baked product, e.g., French bread or a bagel.
Softer wheat makes for a more delicate texture, such as you'd want in a
sponge cake.  Does that demystify it somewhat?

Remember that the higher protein flours, especially nut flours, are also
often higher fat.  (If you're talking Atkins, that's the point, getting
your calories from protein and fat, not from carbs - there's no "free
lunch" here.)  The various protein/fat/carb component ratios can be
found on the USDA (US Dept of Agriculture) website, and Bette Hagmann
also has a list of this type of info in her GF Gourmet cookbooks, I
think in all of them, but probably in the GFG Bakes Bread or GFG Cooks
Comfort Foods, the newer ones.  Her info is less technical, and more
with an eye to GF baking, whereas the USDA info is so detailed, your
eyes will glaze over.   Also, Bette's recipes reflect the
experimentation that tells you how much of that higher protein flour
will still work and give you a finished product that still somewhat
resembles the target.  

Think of all your baking as a chemistry experiment; rice, tapioca, corn,
potato, buckwheat, teff, quinoa, and montina flours all contain carbs,
fat, and protein, too, just in different ratios, and with different
proteins and less of them, generally, than wheat flour.  Only the nut
and bean flours compare or exceed protein percentages found in wheat,
which has been hybridized over the last several thousand years to
becoming successively higher and higher in protein content.  Let's go
back to that chemistry experiment idea, those of us baking GF (or worse
yet, low-carb GF), have the benefit of using recipes that maybe 2
"chemists" have each tried 3 times before we see them.  The folks making
French bread can use recipes that several billion "chemists" have tested
over the last 8 millenia or so.  It makes it kinda hard for us to use my
favorite, most reliable recipe development technique:  steal that recipe
from grandma!  ;-D

Also, you would want to be careful about subsituting too much soy,
garfava, almond or chestnut flour, percentage-wise, in any recipe.  It
doesn't behave exactly the same when you bake with it, in terms of
structure or moisture retention, browning, etc.  It also often has a
slightly "beany" flavor, and most of all, you're eating beans, of course
(or nuts), with the same consequences intestinally that you would
otherwise get when you eat beans or nuts.  It depends on your system, of
course, but some folks don't have the digestive enzymes for these, and
can't tolerate the extra gas produced.  Celiacs with sensitive GI tracts
are especially prone to suffering, so try this cautiously in small
amounts - your mileage may vary.  

If you're interested, here's the "consumerized" USDA short bulletin on
nutrients in food products:
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/HG72/hg72.html

For those of you who really like to dig into the details, here's the
place to start.  You can read about mineral/vitamin/lipid/protein values
for each nutrient for each food product (e.g., the amino acids per 100
grams, like Tryptophan, Threonine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, ...
yadda, yadda, yadda.)  If you really want to delve into this, download
the database and its search tools, you'll go crazy one screen at a time:


http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR18/sr18.html

There's lots of multiple listed food products (which of the 22 listed
types of wheat flour did you want to know about?), but some of the more
recent exotics that don't yet form part of the S.A.D. (Standard American
Diet, and yes, that really is the acronym used in the dietetic
community!), like montina, haven't made the cut yet.  And it doesn't
list brand names or species, just generics, and the species available in
other countries probably differ somewhat in content.  

But it's research free to the curious.  Also a great cure for
insomniacs.  'Nuff said.  

Linda Ireland, Seattle
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Celiac/Coeliac Wheat/Gluten-Free List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ann Sokolowski
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: re Thick n Thin

Just received word from the manufacturer of THICK N THIN, a low carb
flour sub is NOT GF...drat!

*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the Celiac List*