5 Flours You Can Use to Replace Wheat That WON’T Cause Blood Sugar Spikes or Cancer

by DailyHealthPost Editorial

gluten free flours

1. Almond Flour

Almond flour is made from ground up blanched almonds.
It has a high protein content and a neutral taste, making it great for baking healthy goods.

Plus, it’s high in monounsaturated fat and omega-6 fatty acids, which keeps your cookies and cakes moist. It’s also lower in carbs than most gluten-free flours (4,5).

2. Coconut Flour

This popular flour is made of ground up coconut meat after it has been pressed for coconut milk. It’s very absorbent and requires an equal amount of liquid to prevent your baked goods from getting too dry. Some recipes even call for the use of eggs or coconut oil to keep the batter moist (6).

Coconut has a high fiber content and relatively low carb content. It’s a great way to sweeten baked goods and it’s appropriate for diabetics to use (7). It can even lower LDL cholesterol levels and serum triglycerides (8).

Because of its high fiber content, coconut flour isn’t recommended to people with digestive issues such as SIBO or IBS.

3. Cassava Flour

Cassava is a root vegetable popular Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It’s best known for being the origin of tapioca.
Tapioca is the bleached starch extracted from the cassava root. It’s used in gluten-free baking as a thickening agent. In comparison, cassava flour is made from the whole roots and includes the fiber (9).

The flour has a soft and powdery texture and a neutral flavour. It’s typically used in the same proportions as wheat flour, except in recipes that require the used of yeast.

People suffering from a latex allergy should avoid cassava as they can experience hypersensitivity to the food (10).

4. Chestnut Flour

Chestnuts grow on trees, and contain lots of starch and low quantities of fat, unlike other nuts. Chestnuts are also low in phytic acid, a compound in nuts which binds to essential nutrients and makes them unavailable (11).

Advertisement

This healthy flour contains high levels of vitamin C, B6 and folate as well as potassium, manganese and copper. Chestnut flour can be used to replace almond flour in a 1:1 ratio (12).

5. Tigernuts

Unlike their name may lead you to believe, tigernuts are not nuts: they’re root vegetables that grow in Northern Africa and the Mediterranean.

Tigernuts have a sweet flavour, so it’s best to cut back on the sugar content of your recipe if you’re using this flour. They’re also full of gut-healthy fiber and resistant starch, which is prebiotic. Additionally, tigernuts contain high levels of magnesium, potassium, and protein (13,14).

Tigernut flour is best used in combination with coconut and almond flour, but can be used in a 1:1 replacement ratio instead of wheat flour.

Advertisement