Buying Gluten-Free Long-Term-Stored Staples

As you know, we have food allergies and intolerances in our family. As I was perusing the newest "Backwoods Home Magazine" yesterday, I realized I hadn't put away (storing for emergencies) any long-term-stored oil or butter. I took a look at where I get most of my supplies, Emergency Essentials at http://www.beprepared.com/, and took a look at the ingredients for shortening powder, butter powder and margarine powder.

Then I looked at the nutritional info. Shortening powder and margarine powder are made with soybean oil, which my Kid (VHTS) can't have. The butter powder does not have that... just dairy which my Hubby can't have. All three are "processed in a plant that handles dairy, wheat, soybean, peanut, and tree nut products". Which means I can't get any of them because my Kid's behavior would go so completely out of orbit if any of that is eaten.

Plan: I'm gonna keep buying olive oil, and keep working towards getting 2 dairy goats to make our own butter.

Sigh.

But that's not all. Many of these storage places (not just E.E.) don't provide products for people who have food allergies or reactions. I can get some wheat for Hubby, but the Kid and I need gluten-free grains like quinoa, amaranth, rice flour, even cornmeal that hasn't been processed where wheat has been. I realize we're in the minority and it's not cost effective to provide long-term-storage containers of these grains, but it is a little frustrating.

Solution?
Because most of these grains are so expensive, we're buying only a few extra packages every month. (3 brown rice flour, 1 quinoa, 1 amaranth, 1 gluten-free oats, 1 cornmeal, 1 bean flour, 1 teff flour, 1 coconut flour, 1 potato flour, 1 millet flour, 1 sorghum flour). I mark the date, and seal in a mason jar.

We can also grind/mill from our whole grains/etc: rice flour, bean flour and corn flour.

Fun fun.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please tell me your process for storing powders in Mason jars. I have been putting cake mixes in the wide mouth jars still in the bag. But I tried to do the same thing with Pancake mix and it would not go in the jar. I worry about the powder getting in my Food Saver and it suddenly stop working. That would be a terrible thing! Thanks for all you do.
GRITS

Anonymous said...

Bob's Red Mill offers lots of gluten free products - however I do not know if they are available in large size packages. I think they are on-line, otherwise check at your local health food store, not GNC.

Also, at your local health food store ask for a discount on buying a whole bag, usually 10#,25# or even 50# of particular grains. I used to buy a 50# bag of oats for about half the 'by the pound in bulk'price and shared with a friend.

There are also several, altho I can only remember Pamela's, companies that make cookies, cereals, etc that are gluten free and made in gluten free factories.

Hope this helps. Bellen

Anonymous said...

FYI - everything I've read about brown rice indicates that while it is definitely healthier than white rice because it still has the bran etc. it is NOT good for long term storage more than 6 months at the most. This is because the bran will go rancid (even without oxygen under vacuum or other long term storage conditions) after about 6 months. Have you had this problem? I love brown rice, but don't want to waste money storing it if it will spoil so quickly!

ThrtnWmsFam said...

Anon 8/15: We buy lots of Bobs Red Mill, Pamelas, and other pre-package gluten-free flours and flour mixes but I buy more whole gluten-free grains to make them last longer (once ground into flour, they start to lose nutrition and tend to go rancid faster).

Anon 9/4: I haven't noticed my brown rice going bad. Once I buy rice, I try to freeze it to kill any bugs, then package in seal-a-meal with lentils, peas or beans. I store in sturdy plastic tubs in the basement (well, as of tomorrow, garage). Keep it cool, and rotate.

ThrtnWmsFam said...

Anon 8/15: Forgot to mention that we also get lots of gf rice crackers, rice cakes, and products from ener-g which can last quite a while.

thanks to all who comment on our postings! Vikki

Anonymous said...

Coconut oil stores for a long time and is good for.

Anonymous said...

As for Amaranth, I believe you can get seeds for it through the seedsaversexchange.com and they are all heirloom seeds that you can grow year after year. I have been thinking of trying it, but not sure i have room inside the garden fence and the deer DEVOUR EVERYTHING outside it. Apparently one Amaranth plant is pretty productive.

ThrtnWmsFam said...

Amaranth is quite tasty. We want to grow that and quinoa. Now that our house has sold, we'll be looking for a big enough property to grow those two grains (among several others) for our family! Vikki