GMO stuff

[helwen]

http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/allergy-to-genetically-modified-corn

Interesting read. And also the focus is on corn, the article led to L and I looking up xanthum gum and discovering it's made from a number of different food sources, including wheat and soy -- and that sometimes the xanthum gum can still have traces of the original food source on it, at least in the case of wheat.

Comments

[oakmouse]

Yeah, xanthan gum can be pretty nasty stuff for people with allergies and sensitivities. Whey is another thing it's made from, and I've gotten "dairyed" by xanthan gum more than once. I try to avoid it completely, although that's not always easy.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

A lot of "wheat-free" recipes call for xanthan gum to make the substitute flours behave more like white wheat flour. Not exactly the best choice.

We have a better idea now of why some GF foods cause adverse reactions.

[oakmouse]

Yup. That's one of the reasons why I avoid most processed GF foods, and buy ingredients to cook from scratch. In many GF baked goods (cookies, scones, muffins, English muffins, crumpets, pancakes), you don't need any kind of gums, and where you do (quick breads, scones) you can use powdered pectin instead. The only place where powdered pectin doesn't work very well is GF yeast breads, but frankly GF yeast breads don't come out that close to gluteny breads no matter what you do so I just got used to the differences in flavor and texture and live without gummed breads.

You would think that GF food makers would have more sense than to use xanthan gum, but then you would think that GF food makers would cotton on to the fact that 60% of people who need to eat GF also need to eat dairy free and would stop making so damned many products with dairy in them. But they don't...