Gluten Free Trail Mix

In the olden days when people would move from one place to another on foot, they carried with them a mixture of dry fruits and seeds. This mixture was light to carry and sustained for quite many hours of the walk.

In a similar manner, when setting on treks or trails or long drives, where getting food is not easy a 'Trail Mix' comes handy. It does not require refrigeration, is extremely nutritious and comes pre-seasoned.

Another great idea is to use it as a salad dressing or spread it over a sandwich to give your snack a nutrition boost or just much it as a snack.

Meanwhile, a Lemur, Madagascar Chameleon, and Giraffe photobomb my setup.

A Versatile root.

'Maadi' or 'Maaddi', as it is locally called in Goa, Taro root is a very versatile ingredient and can be paired in many dishes. Quite commonly found in Mapusa market (and also sold by many local vegetable vendors) the root has a very starchy flavour and hence goes well in curries, as fried and also in stir fry dishes.

I cooked it with mushrooms and the Umami flavour of mushrooms paired really well with the starchy texture and taste of Maadi.

I have fried it with recheado masala marinade, paired it in prawn curry and stir fried it with just onions and pepper.

Caution: Taro root (and also leaves- locally called Alu leaves) has high Oxalic acid content. Oxalic acid is bad news for people having kidney stones and hence moderation is the key (Avoidance is best).

Recheado Masala for sliced stems.

Taro root

  

So Many Grains and so Many Ideas.

When it comes to grains, we are spoilt for choice. We believe a variety in our diet is good for us- Not only will it provide a range of nutrients but it will also help develop the gut biome. For years we have been eating idlis and sannas made of rice and fermented with either Black gram (Urad dal) or Toddy.

Today we made a change, we replaced the rice with Finger millet (Ragi) and Unhulled Buckwheat (50:50); both are nutritious cereals and rich in fibers and we fermented them for 14 hours with black gram and toddy.

So why do we need the black Gram or Toddy? Why not use yeast?

Most restaurants and homes today do use yeast and the fermentation when done by yeast results in alcohol as a byproduct (which evaporates when cooking)- These idlis then have a neutral to sweetish taste.
When using Black gram- It's the  Lactic acid bacteria that does the trick. So Idli makers who use Black gram use the same principle as bakers who use the sourdough technique for their bread. However in an Idli, one does not need a starter, since the Black gram acts like a magnet for all Lactic acid bacteria that are present in the air. These Lactic acid bacteria then aid the fermentation and their byproduct is- Yup, Lactic acid. Hence they have a sourish flavour. (Acids are sour !)

That is where the Toddy helps- Toddy is formed when the sap of the coconut flower is fermented by wild yeast. So toddy is a good source for yeast in fermentation and like I mentioned earlier, yeast fermentation leads a sweetish taste.
So our idea was to balance the acidic flavour with the sweetish one! Hence we used both Black gram and toddy and they did the tango really well.

The end result: Finger millet and Buckwheat are flavourful grains (unlike rice) add to this the subtle notes of fermentation, we have a lovely breakfast that goes great either with lentils or lightly flavoured chutneys.

Bon Appetite!

A very heartening story.

A couple of days ago, a friend shared with me a post from Quora (1) - Do click on the link to read and know more from the young man himself. The author, a youngster named Koushik MK shares his very heartening story.

His story here in brief - At the age of 10, Koushik noticed that he was losing hair and getting bald in patches. In order to avoid an embarrassing appearance, he begun tonsuring his head regularly. His bald head made him a butt of jokes from his peers at school.

Undaunted, Koushik took up football and from the photographs which he has shared, it seems that he has indeed done well in the game.

During this time, he also visited various doctors and even tried Ayurveda and Homeopathy. He was diagnosed with Alopecia Areata (AA) and underwent various treatments, many of them quite painful. But even after seven years of silent suffering, nothing seemed to work.

When Koushik visited Chennai, as part of his school football team, a spectator there suggested to Koushik that his diet perhaps was the culprit of his issues. This led to Koushik looking up the internet to learn more about the possibility of a diet alteration and, after days of research, he decided to go off Gluten.

Within two to three months of going off gluten, his hair started to grow again and he found an overall improvement in the way he felt..

Presently, he is pursuing engineering and his photographs reflect a happy youngster with a thick crop of hair!

So, did gluten cause all of this to Koushik? AA is an autoimmune disease, where the body's own immune system attacks the hair follicles causing hair loss. In a study published in the 'Indian Journal of Dermetology' in May 2014, 12 children diagnosed with AA were tested for Gluten Intolerance, of which, only 5 children tested positive for Celiac disease. However, all the children recovered when put on a gluten free diet. (2)

When I asked Koushik, if he had ever tested for Celiac disease, he said that he had. He underwent three tests and tested negeative in all of them.

Very often, it is heard that one should go off gluten only if tested positive - It makes me wonder - what about those like Koushik who test negative but still get better going off wheat! Couldn't their stories be our stories too?

Image source : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allopecia_areata.JPG

1. Kousik's Story

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4037977/

Kodo Millet Pulao

The modern day Biryani is an adaptation of the ancient Persian Pulao (pilaff) and this metamorphosis happened  in the kitchens of the Mughals. The cooks of Emperor Akbar, were apparently very creative and their creativity helped them recreate the Persian pilaff in their Indian kitchens. Lizzie Collingham, in her book 'Curry: A Tale of Cooks & Conquerors' very beautifully recreates the story of this evolution from the pilaff to the biryani.

After reading the book, we felt that, after 400 years, the pulao was ready for another evolutionary leap- this time not for nostalgic reasons but for the reasons of good health. So not from Akbar's kitchen, but from our galley, introducing with great fanfare- Kodo Millet, Palak Pulao. (I plan to call it 'Komi Papu').

For accompaniment we had a pro-biotic carrot pickle. So how is little millet (previous post ) different from Kodo millet?
Kodo is darker in colour and has more bran. It is more nutty in flavour and can mask subtle flavours hence requires a bit of thought from the cook. Little millet is mild to neutral in flavour and can go with any flavour- great millet to experiment on.  

Sorghum Dosa

Injera, is a popular fermented flatbread made in Ethiopia from Sorghum. To most of us it may look like a dosa/ pancake. Ethiopia is one of the few countries where Sorghum is more popular than wheat. The sorghum is fermented for nearly three days before cooking. Ethiopians use refined Sorghum (without the bran) and the natural lactic acid fermentation gives it a sour taste. In Sudan a similar flatbread is made but they use whole Sorghum instead.

Inspired by these national delicacies, I did a version of my own. Sorghum dosa, using whole sorghum flour and fermented using coconut palm toddy. The overnight, 12 hour fermentation gives the batter a lovely aroma. The dosa's have a lovely unique flavour and go great with coconut chutney. This one is a keeper.

With the excess batter, I made a few Paddu's ( Kuzhi paniyaram) and it looks like we will stick to the rice versions until something better turns out.

Read this before you take your next bite of food.

Read this once- before you take your next bite of food.
I am not a Celiac, nor am I gluten intolerant - But I still avoid Wheat, Rye and Barley. If your gut instinct tells you that wheat is healthy, then it’s time we visit your gut - So here we go:

Our gut may not have instincts, but they all have a small intestine where a large portion of our food is digested and absorbed.
The lining of the small intestine acts like a permeable wall. The cells that make up the lining are joined to each other by something called "tight junctions". When the body is ready to absorb certain kind of nutrients, these tight junctions open up to create space between cells to let the good stuff in — but keep the bigger bad stuff, like toxins, out.

How do these tight junctions know how much to open up? Well, they have a comrade-in-arms named zonulin. Zonulin is a protein — its job is like that of a gatekeeper, opening the tight junctions just enough to let in the good stuff but keep out the bad stuff.

So, if you think Zonulin is a good thing, then so it is - however it comes with a catch - Gliadin, a component of Gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye, which triggers the body to release excess Zonulin - in all humans and not just celiacs . The excess zonulin causes the junctions between cells in the small intestine to open far too much, and the next thing that happens, is an entry of all sorts of stuff into the bloodstream that shouldn’t have got in there to begin with — stuff like toxins and gluten fragments.

When such stuff leaks through the intestinal wall which in normal circumstances shouldn't have been possible, it results in a condition called leaky gut syndrome.

The excess of zonulin that was released because of ingestion of gluten through consumption of food items made from wheat, maida, rava like bread, rotis, biscuits, sheera, upma etc, the gluten fragments along with some other toxins and microbes, become both the uninvited and unwanted guests in one's bloodstream.

In people who are not gluten intolerant, the immune system deals with the unwanted matter quietly, and disposes them off. However, in those who suffer from Celiac disease and those who are Gluten intolerant, the immune system reacts to the presence of such unwanted matter by causing other ailments.

So what about those who are neither celiacs nor gluten intolerant - The immune system can get foxed too - sometimes our immune system can miss out on these toxins and microbes that entered into our blood stream which then can lead to various ailments starting from inflammation right upto cancer.
So when we eat gluten containing food - we are putting ourselves at great risk, much like driving in a manner that would cause damage to the breaks of one's car which one cannot replace!

Having said that, here are various nutritious grains and millets that can easily replace Wheat, Rye and Barley from our diet - the question is - Are we ready to make that change?
P.S. This post is a summary of an blog post I published a few days ago. If you need to know more, do read the post. It has an interesting story and citations to journals and research papers.
https://glutenfreeingoa.blogspot.in/2017/01/how-research-in-cholera-vaccine-led-to.html