Tips for Buying Gluten Free Ingredients

Hey gang… was doing a little looking around at where I get alot of my ingredients, and I thought I’d just send out a quick summary of a few tips I keep handy. Its a few things to keep in mind, and a few online spots I like to go to grab my supplies. Hope you find it helpful :)

Ok, so, when you are buying ingredients for a celiac, cross contamination is an important factor. For something to be gluten free, it must be less than 20 parts per million. What does this mean? Well, often products that don’t contain gluten are packaged in plants that also package gluten containing products. For something to be safe, it needs to be packaged on a factory line free of gluten, and not on a line that’s been ‘cleaned’ after packaging a gluten product. This often comes down to requiring a call to manufacturers or your local grocer. To help you out, there are a few good producers below that are safe.

When buying gluten free products or other ‘exotic’ products, do check your local grocery first. Often big grocery chains have the best prices because they buy their stock in bulk quantities at lower prices. They also often have an expanding ‘health foods’ section with more to offer than you realize.

If you are buying for a celiac, do not buy anything from bulk bins. The potential for cross contamination is quite high.

Also, to get good deals, consider your local Asian grocer for items such as agar powder, rice flour, and palm sugar. Your Middle Eastern store would be great to find chickpea flour, date sugar, pomegranate syrup or date syrup. Remember, just because something doesn’t contain gluten in the ingredients, doesn’t mean its safe. When in doubt, call.

Last, of course check your local health store. They most likely have everything you are looking for. They may be more expensive as they must buy smaller quantities of stock and therefore they themselves pay higher prices, but if you want the convenience of one stop shopping, that is often the best way to go.

If you can’t find what you are looking for, shopping online is also a good option. Sometimes its actually cheaper to buy online than it is in the store, and products often come in pretty quickly. Make sure to factor in the delivery prices just to make sure.

MY FAVORITE SUPPLIERS:

Frontier Spices- gluten free spices and vanilla.

http://www.frontiercoop.com/

JK Gourmet- almond flour

http://www.jkgourmet.com/

EnjoyLife- baking chocolate

http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/

Coconut Secret- coconut flour, coconut oil, coconut sugar, coconut aminos

http://www.coconutsecret.com/

Nature’s Blessings- coconut oil coconut sugar

http://www.naturesblessings.com.ph/cocosugar.htm

El Peto- Gluten Free Flour