Is Gluten free food truly Nutritious?

We regularly come across a view that may sound familiar to you - gluten-free foods lacks nutrition. The view stems from the fact that most gluten free food found on store shelves comprise of starches, refined flours and, have added stabilizers, binders, flavours for easy manufacturing, shipping and storage. Adding flavouring agents become imperative as starches are flavourless. This perhaps is not just restricted to gluten free foods, but to nearly every other ready-made packaged food.

From the start, we chose to keep away from excessive usage of starches since, we felt, that just like us, there would be many who would prefer not eating those kinds of gluten free foods. Not adding stabilisers, chemicals, predisposes our food to the same kind of deterioration as one would encounter with home cooked foods. Hence, our gluten free wraps (flat breads or rotis) are made to order and, made from freshly ground grains in our gluten free home.

These gluten free, organic, Navrathan wraps (or flat bread), featured above, are made using a combination of nine organic grains and millets. Yellow Sorghum, Red Sorghum, Foxtail millet, Kodo millet, Red rice, Buckwheat, Amaranth, Pearl millet and Finger millet all carefully blended to make a flavourful meal.

So, how nutritious are these ? The chart below gives the nutritional profile for 3 wraps, which is what an average person's breakfast would consist of.

You will notice that just three wraps provides for nearly a quarter of your daily recommended intake (DV) of protein, thiamine (B1), niacin (B3), phosphorus, iron, fiber and half the RDA of manganese.

Ecologically too, these wraps are gentle on our natural resources. It takes about 3 to 4 tons (3000 to 4000 liters) of water to cultivate a kilogram of wheat. So 3 wheat chapati's, like these, would have taken 300 to 400 liters of water. On the other hand, millets and buckwheat, which constitute about 95% of these wraps, require just 300 liters of water for every kilogram of grain produced, which translates into 3 of these Navrathan wraps, requiring just 30 liters of water for cultivation and, nothing in terms of chemical manure or pesticide since millets are hardy, no fuss grains.

Isn't it a smart choice to make then? Not just for one's health but for mother earth as a whole.