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One of the first things to look for going gluten-free is obviously a good bread replacement or two that you like. It’s handy being able to slap some stuff together between two slices and eat it as a sandwich. Although if you want to go without, this certainly has its benefits as I can attest to. If you don’t eat any bread you certainly don’t eat nearly as much carbs. I did this for 4 months in Japan where there are no GF replacement foods, and I lost 6 kilos on my ‘unintentional Atkins plan’.

There is nothing quite like a soft squishy homemade loaf. And you certainly aren’t going to get this GF from all the manufactured, plastic wrapped products on your grocery shelves. Find your nearest GF bakery. They are springing up all over the place. the first place I touched down stateside, Seattle, has one. It’s called The Flying Apron.  With outlets in Fremont and Redmond, everything they offer is GF, so no cross-contamination worries, and a lot of it is vegetarian/vegan as well.

On this side of the country, West Meadow Bakery on Park Street in Essex Junction, VT makes some fine GF offerings. Their carrot cake is to die for. I got this one for my birthday this year. They do cake orders with 48 hours notice or so. Their Spinach and Feta loaf is also very good as are their many varieties of muffins. I prefer the white chocolate raspberry, though it does leave one with very sticky fingers!

Fresh GF bread is nice, but sometimes you just can’t eat a whole $7 loaf yourself or need something that will keep more than 3 days on the shelf. This is what those manufactured and packaged loaves on the store shelves are for. Myself, I prefer Schar’s Ciabatta Par-baked Rolls, and Multi-grain Rolls. They keep sealed in the package for at least a month and last about 1 week once opened up. You get 4 individual-sized rolls for about $4-5. they have a nice fluffy sandwich bread feel and good, if  innocuous, flavor. They come out ready to be toasted and eaten.

A word to the wise if you are GF and like toast, get yourself a toaster oven. Gf bread, because it is without the elastic, hold-it-together properties of gluten, does not do well being shot out of the top of your run-of-the-mill pop-up toaster. It will crack or break and leave large chunks of Gf bready-matter down in there that have to either be shaken out or catch fire. If you have no money because you spend it all on GF replacement food each month, never fear. Toaster ovens are one of the most affordable appliances. Better yet, they often show up for $5 at Goodwill or your local thrift store outlet. I got mine for free at the local reuse shed at the waste drop off point in Richmond.