Amaranth may look like an exotic tropical house plant but it's actually an amazingly nutritious gluten-free "pseudo- grain." Amaranth is frequently referred to as a "pseudo-grain" because it technically isn't a member of the grain family but is, instead, the tiny seed of a variety of plants in the Amaranthaceae family.
Amaranth does have cereal grain-like qualities though. Include amaranth in gluten-free recipes whole or as flour and it adds high quality protein, calcium, magnesium, iron, fiber and healthy fatty acids. It also adds texture to gluten-free recipes when used as a portion of total gluten-free flours in recipes.
The biggest down-side of cooking with amaranth is that it is more expensive than most other gluten-free flours- the biggest benefit, better nutritional value than most gluten-free flours and grains.
Read More About Amaranth - An Amazing Gluten-Free Seed
Gluten-Free Recipes with Amaranth-
Gluten-Free Homemade Crackers with Amaranth
Gluten-Free Hamburger Bun Recipe
Suggested Reading
Learn More About Amaranth from the Whole Grains Council
2009 © Teri Lee Gruss
Comments
Thanks for your gluten-free article.
There’s a product on the market that has another danger to it: Glutino single-serving gluten-free pizza with spinach and feta cheese. Besides tasting just awful, I made the mistake of not checking the nutrition guide at the health food market when I bought it. Gluten-free, yes, but it has about 42% of the recommended maximum sodium allowance. I checked another of its pizzas, the four-cheese variety, and it’s “only” about 23% of the reccommended maximum allowance.
This is may be health food in one respect, but it’s dangerous in the other. The negative nutritional qualities of all products should be on the front of the packaage, right next to the benefits, and in the same-sized lettering, not hidden by a different color.
http://www.glutino.com has other gluten-free products, but I won’t try them.
Yep Mike, processed frozen foods, even gluten-free products can be loaded with sodium. I quit buying frozen GF pizzas because they aren’t very good-tasting. Try making your own GF pizzas and you can have a lot more control over nutritional quality, including less sodium.